The Naʼvi language (Naʼvi: ') is a
fictional constructed language originally made for the 2009 film
''Avatar''. In the
film franchise, the language is spoken by the
Naʼvi, a fictional
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
of
sapient humanoid
A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and '' -oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of ...
s indigenous to the extraterrestrial
moon
The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...
Pandora. The language was created by
Paul Frommer, a professor at the
USC Marshall School of Business with a
doctorate
A doctorate (from Latin ''doctor'', meaning "teacher") or doctoral degree is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities and some other educational institutions, derived from the ancient formalism '' licentia docendi'' ("licence to teach ...
in
linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...
. Naʼvi was designed to fit moviemaker
James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian filmmaker, who resides in New Zealand. He is a major figure in the post-New Hollywood era and often uses novel technologies with a Classical Hollywood cinema, classical filmmaking styl ...
's conception of what the language should sound like in the film. It had to be realistically learnable by the fictional human characters of the film and pronounceable by the actors, but also not closely resemble any single human language.
When the film was released in 2009, Naʼvi had a growing vocabulary of about a thousand words, but understanding of its grammar was limited to the language's creator.
However, this has changed subsequently as Frommer has expanded the lexicon to more than 2600 words
and has published the grammar.
Roots
The Naʼvi language has its origins in James Cameron's early work on ''Avatar''. In 2005, while the film was still in
scriptment form, Cameron felt it needed a complete, consistent language for the alien characters to speak. He had written approximately 30 words for this
alien language but wanted a linguist to create the language in full. His production company,
Lightstorm Entertainment, contacted the linguistics department at the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in ...
(USC) seeking someone who would be interested in creating such a language. Edward Finegan, a professor of linguistics at USC, thought that the project would appeal to Paul Frommer, with whom he had co-authored a linguistics textbook, and so forwarded Lightstorm's inquiry on to him. Frommer and Cameron met to discuss the director's vision for the language and its use in the film; at the end of the meeting, Cameron shook Frommer's hand and said "Welcome aboard."
Based on Cameron's initial list of words, which had a "
Polynesia
Polynesia ( , ) is a subregion of Oceania, made up of more than 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are called Polynesians. They have many things in ...
n flavor" according to Frommer,
the linguist developed three different sets of meaningless words and phrases that conveyed a sense of what an alien language might sound like: one using
contrasting tones, one using
varying vowel lengths, and one using
ejective consonant
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a Airstream mechanism#Glottalic initiation, glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with Aspirat ...
s. Of the three, Cameron liked the sound of the ejectives most. His choice established the
phonology
Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...
that Frommer would use in developing the rest of the Naʼvi language –
morphology,
syntax
In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituenc ...
, and an initial
vocabulary
A vocabulary (also known as a lexicon) is a set of words, typically the set in a language or the set known to an individual. The word ''vocabulary'' originated from the Latin , meaning "a word, name". It forms an essential component of languag ...
– a task that took six months.
Development
The Naʼvi vocabulary was created by Frommer as needed for the script of the movie. By the time
casting
Casting is a manufacturing process in which a liquid material is usually poured into a mold, which contains a hollow cavity of the desired shape, and then allowed to solidify. The solidified part is also known as a casting, which is ejected or ...
for ''Avatar'' began, the language was sufficiently developed that actors were required to read and pronounce Naʼvi dialogue during auditions. During
shooting
Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missile ...
Frommer worked with the cast, helping them understand their Naʼvi dialogue and advising them on their Naʼvi
pronunciation
Pronunciation is the way in which a word or a language is spoken. To
This may refer to generally agreed-upon sequences of sounds used in speaking a given word or all language in a specific dialect—"correct" or "standard" pronunciation—or si ...
,
stress, and
intonation. Actors would often make mistakes in speaking Naʼvi. In some cases, those mistakes were plausibly explained as ones their human characters would make while learning the language in-universe; in other cases, the mistakes were incorporated into the language.
Frommer expanded the vocabulary further in May 2009 when he worked on the
''Avatar'' video game, which required Naʼvi words that had not been needed for the film script and thus had not yet been invented. Frommer also translated into Naʼvi four sets of song lyrics that had been written by Cameron in English, and he helped
vocalist
Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define singi ...
s with their pronunciation during the recording of
James Horner
James Roy Horner (August 14, 1953 – June 22, 2015) was an American film composer. He worked on more than 160 film and television productions between 1978 and 2015. He was known for the integration of choral and electronic elements alongside tr ...
's
''Avatar'' score. At the time of the film's release on December 18, 2009, the Naʼvi vocabulary consisted of approximately 1000 words.
Work on the Naʼvi language has continued even after the film's release. Frommer is working on a compendium which he plans to deliver to
Fox in the near future.
He hopes that the language will "have a life of its own,"
and thinks it would be "wonderful" if the language developed a following.
Since then, it has developed a following, as is evident through the increasing learner community of the language.
The community's Lexical Expansion Project, together with Frommer, has expanded the lexicon by more than 50 percent.
Frommer also maintains a blog, Na’viteri, where he regularly posts additions to the lexicon and clarifications on grammar. Naʼviteri has been the source of the vast majority of Naʼvi growth independent of Frommer's contract with 20th Century Fox.
Structure and usage
The Naʼvi language was developed under three significant constraints. First, Cameron wanted the language to sound alien but pleasant and appealing to audiences. Second, since the storyline included humans who have learned to speak the language, it had to be a language that humans could plausibly learn to speak. And finally, the actors would have to be able to pronounce their Naʼvi dialogue without unreasonable difficulty. The language in its final form contains several elements which are uncommon in human languages, such as
verbal conjugation using
infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with '' adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.
When marking text for ...
es. All Naʼvi linguistic elements are found in human languages, but the combination is unique.
Phonology and orthography
Naʼvi lacks
voiced plosives like , but has the
ejective consonant
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a Airstream mechanism#Glottalic initiation, glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with Aspirat ...
s , which are spelled ''px, tx, kx.'' It also has the
syllabic consonant
A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms the nucleus of a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''awful'', respectively. To represe ...
s ''ll'' and ''rr''. There are seven vowels, ''a ä e i ì o u.'' Although all the sounds were designed to be pronounceable by the human actors of the film, there are unusual
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s, as in "metal".
Naʼvi syllables may be as simple as a single vowel, or as complex as "moron" or above (both
CC
VC).
The fictional language Naʼvi of Pandora is unwritten. However, the actual (studio) language is written in the
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
for the actors of ''Avatar''. Some words include: "year", "ceremonial challenge", "first" (''’aw'' "one"), "fair", "spirit animal", "rock", "territory", "avatar" (dream-walk-body).
Vowels
There are seven monophthong vowels:
There are additionally four
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
s: aw
w ew
�w ay
j ey
�j and two syllabic consonants: ll
̩and rr
Ì© which mostly behave as vowels.
Note that the ''e'' is open-mid while the ''o'' is close-mid, and that there is no ''*oy.'' The ''rr'' is strongly
trill
TRILL (Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links) is a networking protocol for optimizing bandwidth and resilience in Ethernet networks, implemented by devices called TRILL switches. TRILL combines techniques from bridging and routing, and ...
ed, and the ''ll'' is "light" (plain), never a "dark" (
velarized) .
These vowels may
occur in sequences, as in the
Polynesian languages
The Polynesian languages form a genealogical group of languages, itself part of the Oceanic branch of the Austronesian family.
There are 38 Polynesian languages, representing 7 percent of the 522 Oceanic languages, and 3 percent of the Austr ...
,
Swahili, and
Japanese. Each vowel counts as a syllable, so that ''tsaleioae'' has six syllables, , and ''meoauniaea'' has eight, .
Naʼvi does not have vowel length or tone, but it does have contrastive
stress: ''túte'' "person", ''tuté'' "female person". Although stress may move with
derivation, as here, it is not affected by
inflection
In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...
(case on nouns, tense on verbs, etc.). So, for example, the verb ''lu'' ("to be") has stress on its only vowel, the ''u,'' and no matter what else happens to it, the stress stays on that vowel: ''lolú'' "was" (''lu''), ''lolängú'' "was (ugh!)" (''lu''), etc.
Consonants
There are 20 consonants. There are two Latin transcriptions: one that more closely approaches the ideal of one letter per
phoneme
A phoneme () is any set of similar Phone (phonetics), speech sounds that are perceptually regarded by the speakers of a language as a single basic sound—a smallest possible Phonetics, phonetic unit—that helps distinguish one word fr ...
, with the ''c'' and ''g'' for and (the values they have in much of Eastern Europe and Polynesia, respectively), and a modified transcription used for the actors, with the digraphs ''ts'' and ''ng'' used for those sounds. In both transcriptions, the
ejective consonant
In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a Airstream mechanism#Glottalic initiation, glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with Aspirat ...
s are written with digraphs in ''x,'' a convention that appears to have no external inspiration, but could potentially be inspired by the Esperanto convention of
writing ''x'' as a stand-in for the circumflex.
The fricatives and the affricate, ''f v ts s z h'', are restricted to the onset of a syllable; the others may occur at the beginning or at the end (though ''w y'' in final position are considered parts of diphthongs, as they only occur as ''ay ey aw ew'' and may be followed by another final consonant, as in "moron"). However, in addition to appearing before vowels, ''f ts s'' may form
consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s with any of the unrestricted consonants (the
plosive
In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases.
The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...
s and
liquids/glides) apart from ''’'', making for 39 clusters. Other sequences occur across syllable boundaries, such as ''Naʼvi'' and ''ikran'' "banshee".
The plosives ''p t k'' are
tenuis, as in Spanish or French. In final position, they have
no audible release
A stop consonant with no audible release, also known as an unreleased stop, checked stop or an applosive, is a plosive with no release burst: no audible indication of the end of its occlusion (hold). In the International Phonetic Alphabet, lack of ...
, as in
Indonesian and other languages of Southeast Asia, as well as in many dialects of English in words such as "bat". The ''r'' is
flapped, as in Spanish and Indonesian; it sounds a bit like the ''tt'' or ''dd'' in the American pronunciation of the words ''latter / ladder''.
Sound change
The plosives undergo
lenition
In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them "weaker" in some way. The word ''lenition'' itself means "softening" or "weakening" (from Latin 'weak'). Lenition can happen both synchronically (within a language ...
after certain
prefix
A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed.
Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
es and
preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
s. The ejective consonants ''px tx kx'' become the corresponding plosives ''p t k''; the plosives and affricate ''p t ts k'' become the corresponding fricatives ''f s h''; and the glottal stop ''’'' disappears entirely. For example, the plural form of ''po'' "s/he" is ''ayfo'' "they", with the ''p'' weakening into an ''f'' after the prefix ''ay-.''
Lenition has its own significance when the plural prefix can optionally be omitted. In the above example, ''ayfo'' can be shortened to ''fo''. Similarly, the plural of "brother" can be (from ).
Grammar
Naʼvi has
free word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntax, syntactic Constituent (linguistics), constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages em ...
. For example, the English "I see you" (a common greeting in Naʼvi) can be written as follows in Naʼvi:
:
:
:
As sentences become more complex, some words, like adjectives and negatives, will have to stay in a more or less fixed position in the sentence, depending on what the adjective or negative is describing.
: "Today is a good day"
:
:
In this case, the adjective (good) will need to stay with the noun ''trr'' (day), therefore limiting the sentence to fewer combinations on the construction of the sentence, but as long as it follows or precedes the noun, the sentence is fine. By putting the attributive ''a'' before the adjective, the adjective can be put after the noun:
:
Nouns
Nouns in Naʼvi show greater
number
A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
distinctions than those in most human languages do: besides
singular
Singular may refer to:
* Singular, the grammatical number that denotes a unit quantity, as opposed to the plural and other forms
* Singular or sounder, a group of boar, see List of animal names
* Singular (band), a Thai jazz pop duo
*'' Singula ...
and
plural
In many languages, a plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated as pl., pl, , or ), is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than ...
, they not only have special
dual forms for two of an item (eyes, hands, lovers, etc.), which are common in human language (English has a remnant in "both"), but also
trial
In law, a trial is a coming together of parties to a dispute, to present information (in the form of evidence) in a tribunal, a formal setting with the authority to adjudicate claims or disputes. One form of tribunal is a court. The tribunal, w ...
forms for three of an item, which on Earth are only found with pronouns. Gender is only occasionally (and optionally) marked.
The plural prefix is ''ay+,'' and the dual is ''me+.'' Both trigger lenition (indicated by the "+" signs rather than the hyphens that usually mark prefix boundaries). In nouns which undergo lenition, the plural prefix may be dropped, so the plural of "body" is either or just .
Masculine and feminine nouns may be distinguished by suffix. There are no articles (words for "a" or "the").
Nouns are declined for
case
Case or CASE may refer to:
Instances
* Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design
* Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type
Containers
* Case (goods), a package of relate ...
in a
tripartite system, which is rare among human languages. In a tripartite system, there are distinct forms for the object of a clause, as in "he kicks
the ball"; the agent of a
transitive clause which has such an object, as in "
he kicks the ball"; and the subject of an intransitive clause, which does not have an object, as in "
he runs". An object is marked with the
accusative
In grammar, the accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to receive the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: "me", "him", "her", " ...
suffix ''-ti,'' and an agent with the
ergative suffix ''-l'', while an
intransitive subject has no case suffix. The use of such case forms leaves the
word order
In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...
of Naʼvi largely free.
There are two other cases—
genitive
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
in ''-yä'',
dative
In grammar, the dative case (abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob a drink". In this exampl ...
in ''-ru''—as well as a
topic marker ''-ri''. The latter is used to introduce the topic of the clause, and is somewhat equivalent to Japanese ''wa'' and the much less common English "as for". It preempts the case of the noun: that is, when a noun is made topical, usually at the beginning of the clause, it takes the ''-ri'' suffix rather than the case suffix one would expect from its grammatical role. For example, in,
: since the topic is "I", the subject "nose" is associated with "me": That is, it's understood to be "my nose". "Nose" itself is unmarked for case, as it's the subject of the intransitive verb "to be". However, in most cases the genitive marker -yä is used for this purpose.
Besides case, the role of a noun in a clause may be indicated with
adposition
Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...
s. Any adposition may occur as either as a
preposition
Adpositions are a part of speech, class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various thematic relations, semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositi ...
before the noun, or as an
enclitic after the noun, a greater degree of freedom than English allows. For example, "with you" may be either ''hu nga'' or . When used as enclitics, they are much like the numerous cases found in
Hungarian and
Finnish. When used as prepositions, more along the lines of what English does, certain of them trigger lenition. One of the leniting prepositions is ''mì'' "in", as in "in the body". This may cause some ambiguity with short plurals: could also be short for "in the bodies".
[When ''mì'' is used as an enclitic, however, the noun is not lenited: "in the body", "in the bodies".]
Naʼvi pronouns encode
clusivity
In linguistics, clusivity is a grammatical distinction between ''inclusive'' and ''exclusive'' first-person pronouns and verbal morphology, also called ''inclusive " we"'' and ''exclusive "we"''. Inclusive "we" specifically includes the address ...
. That is, there are different words for "we" depending on whether the speaker is including his/her addressee or not. There are also special forms for "the two of us" (with or without the addressee), "the three of us", etc. They do not inflect for gender; although it is possible to distinguish "he" from "she", the distinction is optional.
The deferential forms of "I" and "you" are ''ohe'' and ''ngenga''. Possessive forms include ''ngeyä'' "your" and ''peyä'' "her/his". "He" and "she" can optionally be differentiated as ''poan'' and ''poé''.
The grammatical distinctions made by nouns are also made by pronouns.
Adjectives
Naʼvi
adjective
An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun.
Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
s are uninflected—that is, they do not agree with the noun they modify—and may occur either before or after the noun. They are marked by a syllable ''a'', which is attached on the side closest to the noun. For example, "a long river" can be expressed either as,
or as,
The free word order holds for all attributives: Genitives (possessives) and
relative clause
A relative clause is a clause that modifies a noun or noun phrase and uses some grammatical device to indicate that one of the arguments in the relative clause refers to the noun or noun phrase. For example, in the sentence ''I met a man who wasn ...
s can also either precede or follow the noun they modify. The latter especially allows for great freedom of expression.
The
attributive
In grammar, an attributive expression is a word or phrase within a noun phrase that modifies the head noun. It may be an:
* attributive adjective
* attributive noun
* attributive verb
or other part of speech, such as an attributive numeral.
...
affix ''a-'' is only used when an adjective modifies a noun.
Predicative adjectives instead take the "be" verb ''lu'':
Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for
tense and
aspect, but not for
person
A person (: people or persons, depending on context) is a being who has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations suc ...
. That is, they record distinctions like "I am, I was, I would", but not like "I am, we are, s/he is". Conjugation relies exclusively on
infix
An infix is an affix inserted inside a word stem (an existing word or the core of a family of words). It contrasts with '' adfix,'' a rare term for an affix attached to the outside of a stem, such as a prefix or suffix.
When marking text for ...
es, which are like suffixes but go inside the verb. "To hunt", for example, is ''taron'', but "hunted" is ''taron'', with the infix '.
There are two positions for infixes: after the onset (optional consonant(s)) of the
penultimate syllable, and after the onset of the final syllable. Because many Na’vi verbs have two syllables, these commonly occur on the first and last syllable. In monosyllabic words like ''lu'' "be", they both appear after the initial onset, keeping their relative order.
The first infix position is taken by infixes for tense, aspect, mood, or combinations thereof; also appearing in this position are
participle
In linguistics, a participle (; abbr. ) is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from a verb and used as an adject ...
,
reflexive, and
causative
In linguistics, a causative (abbreviated ) is a valency-increasing operationPayne, Thomas E. (1997). Describing morphosyntax: A guide for field linguists'' Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 173–186. that indicates that a subject either ...
forms, the latter two of which may co-occur with a tense/aspect/mood infix by preceding it. Tenses are
past
The past is the set of all Spacetime#Definitions, events that occurred before a given point in time. The past is contrasted with and defined by the present and the future. The concept of the past is derived from the linear fashion in which human ...
, recent past, present (unmarked),
future
The future is the time after the past and present. Its arrival is considered inevitable due to the existence of time and the laws of physics. Due to the apparent nature of reality and the unavoidability of the future, everything that currently ex ...
, and immediate future; aspects are
perfective (completed or contained) and
imperfective
The imperfective (abbreviated , , or more ambiguously ) is a grammatical aspect used to describe ongoing, habitual, repeated, or similar semantic roles, whether that situation occurs in the past, present, or future. Although many languages have a ...
(ongoing or uncontained). The aspectual forms are not found in English but are somewhat like the distinction between 'having done' and 'was doing'.
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"hunts"
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"just hunted"
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"will hunt"
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"hunting"
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"hunted"
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"was just hunting"
Tense and aspect need not be marked when they can be understood by context or elsewhere in the sentence.
The second infix position is taken by infixes for
affect (speaker attitude, whether positive or negative) and for
evidentiality
In linguistics, evidentiality is, broadly, the indication of the nature of evidence for a given statement; that is, whether evidence exists for the statement and if so, what kind. An evidential (also verificational or validational) is the particul ...
(uncertainty or indirect knowledge). For example, in the greeting in the section on nouns, ''Oel ngati kameie'' "I See you", the verb ''kame'' "to See" is inflected positively as ''kame'' to indicate the pleasure the speaker has in meeting you. In the subsequent sentence, ''Oeri ontu teya längu'' "My nose is full (of his smell)", however, the phrase ''teya lu'' "is full" is inflected pejoratively as ''teya lu'' to indicate the speaker's distaste at the experience. Examples with both infix positions filled:
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"was just hunting": The speaker is happy about it, whether due to success or just the pleasure of the hunt
:''taron''
unt UNT or University of North Texas is a state university in Denton, Texas.
UNT or Unt may refer to:
* Unt (surname), an Estonian-language surname
* Unt (album), ''Unt'' (album), a 2024 album by Pinhead Gunpowder
* ("A New Era"), a political party in ...
"will hunt": The speaker is anxious about or bored by it
Lexicon
The Naʼvi language currently has over 2,600 words. These include a few English
loan word
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing (linguistics), borrowing. Borrowing ...
s such as ''kunsìp'' "gunship". The complete dictionary, including the inflectional form, is available online at https://reykunyu.lu, http://dict-navi.com or https://fwew.app. Additionally, the community of speakers is working with Dr. Frommer to further develop the language. Naʼvi is a very modular language and the total number of usable words far exceeds the 2,600 dictionary words. For example: ''rol'' "to sing" → ''tìrusol'' "the act of singing" or ''ngop'' "to create" → ''ngopyu'' "creator". Workarounds using existing words also abound in the Naʼvi corpus, such as "metallic brain" for "computer" and ''palulukantsyìp'' "little
thanator" for "cat".
References
Further reading
*
*
*
*
* This includes a sound recording of Frommer saying several phrases in Naʼvi.
External links
Naviteri.org- Paul Frommer's blog about the Naʼvi language
LearnNavi.org- Community forums, Naʼvi language learning resources, dictionary (multilingual), grammar guide, and more.
Kelutral.org- Modern resources, lessons, and community for learning the Na’vi Language.
Reykunyu- Reykunyu is a user-friendly online Na'vi dictionary, supporting translations to and from English, German, French, and other languages.
Dict-Naʼvi.com- Naʼvi/English online dictionary (multilingual)
fwew.app- Naʼvi/English online dictionary (multilingual)
BBC interview from December 2009in which Frommer recites part of the ''Hunt Song'' (0818 broadcast: 3'30")
TheFatRat & Maisy Kay - The Storm (Official Music Video)- A song with parts of its lyrics in Naʼvi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Na'vi Language
Agglutinative languages
Fictional alien languages
Constructed languages introduced in the 2000s
2005 introductions