Moat Makto

[omängum fra'uti]

It's probably just an idiomic expression used as a title.  The great thing about idioms is they don't need to be grammatically correct all the time; that's part of what makes them idioms.

Spoiler: Actual spoiler for the movie here

However last time I saw Avatar, I swear one of the Na'vi says "Toruk makt<ei>o" when Jake first shows up on his new hot rod.

[kewnya txamew'itan]

I remember her pronouncing it oddly but to me it just sounded as if she seperated the two syllabes mak and to a lot.

[omängum fra'uti]

The first time I remember it was a bit odd, but this time I listened and it sounded like it could just have been <ei>.

[Doolio]

if you ask me, she clearly and very slowly said maktaw or maktow or maktau or maktou you could practicaly read it from her lips even if you've never done that before:)

[Sawyä tìrol]

If anyone is still wondering:
I was watching the Spanish dub (for the unsubbed Na'vi parts; some parts are more clear in the other languages) and,
at this part, the Spanish voice actress clearly says "makto" just with a questioning tone. Soo this might actually just be pronunciation. To my understanding, both actresses would have used the same Na'vi script.
Just my observation; I have no place questioning grammar yet lol. :]

[donjoe]

Just saw it again and Mo'at's pronunciation didn't seem all that distorted. The short "u" that the final "o" in "makto" proceeds into doesn't sound like a separate "u" that would deserve its own letter and thus doesn't pose a problem.

[AyekongAyauyä]

Keep in mind, too, that when native English speakers try to pronounce other languages' /o/, it tends to end up a lot closer to our own [oʊ] most of the time, and it's often not noticeable enough for coaches to bother correcting. The slow speech could have just magnified that pronunciation.

[Nìwotxkrr Tìyawn]

OT: does this thread really need to be called "Moat Makto", every time I look at it I'm like wtf until I remember what it was. Surely there's a better name than "Moat Rider" and I know maktoyu is rider but still.

[Srereu Aynantanghu]

what can I say, I'm a rebel

[AyekongAyauyä]

So I saw it again tonight, and it did sound pretty clearly like either [mak.ta.o] or [mak.ta.u] (whichever it was, it definitely wasn't a perfect two-syllable [mak.to]). It didn't sound very much like -ei- to me, though that could have been the intent. My theory: her mouth was gaping so widely in amazement that it came out as [-a] instead of [-o].

And as for makto vs. maktoyu: if Na'vi is meant to sound like a natural language, we shouldn't expect all "specialized person" nouns to end in -yu, just like not all such nouns in English end in -er. It might have come about from the -o ending of the verb, either causing the /ju/ to elide off, or causing it to merge into the /o/. Are there any other -o verbs (or -u, since it would probably do the same thing) attested that we know take the -yu suffix? (And even if not, that just means it's not a universal rule -- it could still be true for makto.)