User:Erimeyz/Beginners' Guide: Lesson One - Letters and Sounds

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Justification

(TO DO: why learning good pronunciation is important - it's a spoken language, and it's exotic and beautiful-sounding (by design!))

The Na'vi Alphabet

The Na'vi have no writing system; their language is an oral language. However, Na'vi can be written using an alphabet based on the English alphabet (linguists call a language's alphabet its orthography). Frommer created the Na'vi orthography so that actors could learn to read and speak their Na'vi dialog from the script. Consequently, the Na'vi alphabet is similar to English, but with a few important differences.

The Na'vi alphabet has seven vowels: a, ä, e, i, ì, o, and u. Note that there are two accented letters, ä and ì, as well as their unaccented counterparts. Standard US and English keyboards don't have these letters, but there are several ways to type them. See Typing Na'vi for details later on; for now you don't need to worry about it.

The Na'vi alphabet has twenty consonants. Fourteen of them are similar to their English counterparts: p, t, k, f, s, h, v, z, m, n, w, r, l, and y. The other six are somewhat special. Five of them are written using two English letters each: px, tx, kx, ts, and ng. Even though they are written using two English letters, in Na'vi they are each considered a single letter and they each make just a single sound. The final Na'vi consonant is known as a glottal stop, and it is written using an apostrophe, like this: '.

In addition to the twenty-seven letters in the Na'vi alphabet, the language has six other sounds that are treated as individual "letters" in spoken Na'vi but are written using the other letters shown above. Four of those sounds are what linguists call diphthongs - sounds made by gliding from one vowel sound to a different one. The four diphthongs are ay, ey, aw, and ew. The final two sounds are called pseudovowels. They sound like consonants, but are elongated, and they act like vowels when used in words. They are written using the letters they sound like, but doubled: rr and ll.

Thus, the complete set of sounds in the Na'vi language, and the letters used to write them, are as follows:

a ä e i ì o u
ay ey aw ew
px tx kx
p t k '
ts f v s z h
m n ng
w r rr l ll y

In English, a letter can have many different sounds. For example, the letter s has different sounds in the words sit, mission, and measure. In Na'vi, on the other hand, every letter always has the same sound. The Na'vi letter s always sounds like the "s" in sit. This means that once you learn what each letter sounds like, you will always know how to correctly pronounce any Na'vi word you read, even if you've never seen it before.

So let's start learning those sounds!

Vowels and Diphthongs

The seven Na'vi vowels and four Na'vi diphthongs are pronounced as follows:

a - baa (as in "Baa baa black sheep")
ä - bat
e - bet
i - marine
ì - bit
o - boat
u - flute or put (can be pronounced either way)
ay - kayak
ey - obey
aw - cow
ew - See below

The Na'vi vowels and diphthongs have the sounds of the words listed above as those words are pronounced in the most common accents used in the United States, Canada, and England ("General American", "General Canadian", and "Received Pronunciation" respectively) - i.e. the accents used by television newscasters in those three countries. People with strong regional accents and English speakers in other parts of the world may pronounce some of the above words differently; in those cases, the listed words will not accurately reflect the correct Na'vi pronunciation.

The sound of the Na'vi diphthong ew does not occur in English. Like all diphthongs, you pronounce it by first making one vowel sound and then smoothly changing it into a second vowel sound. Most native speakers don't even notice that this is how they pronounce words like "day" - they just do it naturally and unconsciously. However, in order to learn to pronounce ew correctly, you'll need to pay attention to how you say it. Begin by saying the Na'vi sound e as in bet, then say word. Smoothly connect the two; don't pause between them. It will sound as if you're saying the name "Edward" but without the "d". Once you have that down, leave off the "ord" part of "word". The smooth glide starting from e and ending at w is the sound of the Na'vi diphthong ew.

Practice reading and speaking aloud all the above vowels and diphthongs. Pay particular attention to the difference between a and ä and between i and ì, and work on remembering which is which. Also be careful with ay and ey; in English, "ay" is often pronounced like Na'vi ey (as in "hay") and "ey" is often pronounced like Na'vi ay (as in "eye"), so it's easy to get them confused.

Run through the whole list a few times before going on to the next section.

Consonants, Part I

The following Na'vi consonants are pronounced as they commonly are in English:

f - fat
s - sat
h - hat
v - vat
z - zap
m - mop
n - nip
l - lip
y - yip
w - wipe

Easy, right? Got it? Okay, good. Go on to the next section.

Consonants, Part II

The next three consonants are pronounced almost like they are in English:

p - pen, flap
t - ten, flat
k - ken, flak

There is a slight difference, though. In Na'vi, p, t, and k are all unaspirated. What does that mean? I'm glad you asked.

Unaspirated

Aspiration is the strong puff of air that you make when pronouncing these letters. In English these letters are sometimes aspirated and sometimes not. In Na'vi they are always unaspirated.

To see the difference, hold your palm up to your mouth and say the words "tone" and "stone". You should feel a strong puff of air when saying "tone", and a much weaker puff or no puff at all when saying "stone". Also try the words "pin" and "spin", and "kill" and "skill". Repeat the words with your palm to your mouth, trying to make as strong a puff as possible with "tone", "pin", and "kill" and no puff at all with "stone", "spin", and "skill". Keep trying until you can clearly feel the difference on your hand and in the way you say the letters.

As you may have guessed, in English these letters are usually aspirated when they start a word. In Na'vi, they are unaspirated at all times, even when they start a word. With your palm to your mouth, try saying "tone", "pin", and "kill" without releasing a strong puff of air. This is hard for most English speakers to do, as it seems unnatural. Try the pairs "tone"/"stone", "pin"/"spin", and "kill"/"skill" again, but this time try to say both words in each pair no puff at all. Try saying "tone"/"pin"/"kill" alternating between aspirated (the normal English way) and unaspirated (the Na'vi way). Practice this until you feel confident you can pronounce p, t, and k without releasing a puff of air even at the start of a word.

To many English speakers, unaspirated p/t/k at the start of a word sounds a lot like b/d/g. Unaspirated, "pan" sounds like "ban", "tell" sounds like "dell", and "kill" sounds like "gill". Even in Avatar, when Neytiri says to Seze tam, tam (calm down) it comes out sounding like "dam, dam". Try not to let this happen in your pronunciation! Even unaspirated, the p/t/k sounds should be distinctly different from the b/d/g sounds. In fact, the b/d/g sounds don't exist in the Na'vi language, so don't say them when you're speaking Na'vi!

Unreleased

There's one more difference in these letters between English and Na'vi, and that's in how they sound at the end of a word. Consider the word "sip". When you pronounce the "p", your lips close and then open again, releasing a little burst of air. This is called, naturally enough, a released consonant. In Na'vi, however, p is unreleased, which means that if "sip" were a Na'vi word, to pronounce the p you would close your lips and leave them closed, and you would not release a burst of air. Practice this a few times with your palm to your mouth, saying "sip" both the English way (closing your lips and then opening them again) and the Na'vi way (closing your lips and keeping them closed). You should be able to both hear and feel the difference between releasing a burst of air and leaving it unreleased.

Like p, the letters t and k are also usually released at the end of a word in English but always unreleased at the end of a word in Na'vi. However, instead of the air being stopped by closing your lips, it's stopped by putting your tongue against the roof of your mouth. In English, you stop the air with your tongue momentarily and then release the air. In Na'vi, you stop the air with your tongue and leave it stopped. Practice with the words "sit" and "sick", alternating saying them the English way and the Na'vi way.

Whew! That was hard. If you don't think you've quite mastered the sounds of unaspirated and unreleased consonants, don't worry too much about it right now. As you learn to speak Na'vi you'll get plenty of chances to practice, and over time you'll improve. For now just keep it in mind, and let's keep on going.

Consonants, Part III


  • Funny consonants - ng and ts, glides (contrast w/ diphthongs)
  • Sidebar: stress
  • First example words
  • Hard consonants 1 - r, rr, ll
  • Hard consonants 2 - glottal stop and ejectives
  • Consonant clusters
  • Second example words
  • Useful words, simple phrases - hey, look, you're speaking Na'vi now!