Canon/2010/July-September

The Na'vi language canon is the complete collection of information about the Na'vi language provided by authoritative sources, namely Paul Frommer and the creators of Avatar (James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox).

The canon comprises two things:

• words and phrases spoken or written in Na'vi
• descriptions of the linguistic elements of Na'vi such as orthography, morphology, syntax, and grammar

The Na'vi words and phrases from canonical sources are presented or linked to on the Corpus page (where copyright allows). Documentation, explanation, and analysis of Na'vi linguistics are presented on other Learn Na'vi wiki pages (Phonology, Morphology, Grammar, etc.). This page serves to document the canonical sources themselves. The majority of the examples on this page come from email correspondances with Frommer.

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This page includes information dated July 2010 - September 2010. To access past information please see:

• Canon

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Fmawno

Quoted by Lance R. Casey, August 24, 2010 ([1]).

• When I said something that confused him, he responded with rutxe law sivi.
• Idiomatic uses of ngari txe'lan mawey livu for "don't worry (about it)", and tokx eo tokx for "face to face, in person".
• Several instances of tsakrr acting as a general-purpose "then" after txo.
• Tun observed in the wild, with the meaning "red".
• I used tìsung in place of "P.S." at the end of a message, and got the same thing nì'eyng, so I guess we can consider both the meaning ("addition") and the use blessed.
• Another construction which certain people ought to find interesting: tsat ngal new tsat tsun niväk.
• Vocabulary:
  • naer: ’Uo a tsun fko niväk. Fkol yom syuvet, näk naerit.
  • atxkxerel: used like "map" (stress not indicated).
  • nìtengfya: This intrigued me for a moment. The sentence in question was oel horenit Ìnglìsìyä solar, nìtengfya fko pamrel sivi san [...], following up on a gaffe. This is an adverb, to be contrasted with tengfya, which is a conjunction.
• And, finally, the answer to a long-standing grammatical question:

Quote from: oe

mì hivea trr (<- lì'ul alu mì leykatem lì'ut ahay fìfya krr a tsalì'u ke lu tstxolì'u srak?)

Quote from: K. Pawl

Srane, lì'ul alu mì frakrr leykatem lì'ut ahay tsafya—fwa livu tstxolì’u, livu lahea fnelì’u ke tsranten.

...with some more asyndeton to ogle at.

Omum

Quoted by Prrton, September 26, 2010 ([2]).

Your ears didn't deceive you. I vacillated on the stress for this word. And after thinking about it, I want to make this an exception to the general rule that the stress doesn't shift for derived forms. (A few odd quirks and exceptions make a language interesting, kefyak? <l>)

So for omum only:

When the word is in root form, the stress is on the second syllable:

Oe oMUM. Ke oMUM oe.

But in derived and inflected forms, it shifts to the o:

New oe iVOmum.

NìawNOmum . . .

Etc.