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Navi Course
Navi Course
Introduction - Part 1
How to study Na’vi
Pronunciation
It’s perfectly fine to make mistakes with your pronunciation, as not
everyone has perfect pronunciation, or has a perfect accent and/or
knowledge of pronouncing na’vi words.
The general idea is that you learn pronunciation before grammar, that
way, you won’t have to relearn the pronunciation for every word
you’ve learnt.
Writing Reading
Speaking Practice
Speaking with others, especially those who are more advanced into
their na’vi learning journey, will correct your mistakes, which will help
out a lot.
Don’t only read and listen, attempt writing and speaking too.
Learning is Work
Consistency is key, and it’s vital. Cramming for 4 hours in one day
may leave you lost and confused, and unable to remember much,
compared to 10-20 minutes a day consistently learning. Spreading
those 4 said long hours of studying and taking it step by step will lead
to drastic improvement by the end of the day.
Use the language! Find a workbook, a na’vi diary or text, and go over
and practice using your contextual and new found knowledge. It’s an
enriching form of practice, if you use the language more naturally in
conversations.
Find fun things to do with the language, communicate with others. It’s
pretty cool to be able to speak with others in an alien language, and
use it whenever you wish in your free time. You could speak with
people, and teach them, which is even better.
Mistakes are your best friends, and branching off of your knowledge
and pushing out of your comfort zone will help you learn things you
didn’t know, and you’ll naturally correct yourself. Don’t be afraid of
embarrassing yourself, as everyone has been there, and everyone
has made mistakes.
Help others to help yourself. If you know something, teach it, word it
out in your own words in an understandable way. You’ll teach others
and yourself, the more you need to use it, the more you learn. You
need to be able to prepare and understand yourself. It helps you the
most.
Common Mistakes
Word types, in English, you can have many types for many
situations. Good can be an adjective and a noun, and mean
many things. However, in Na’vi, the word types for words are
strict. Srung si, to give/do help, is a verb, but can be a noun, in
a sentence like “I thank you for your help.” However, it’s also a
verb in which it is a si verb, which is then a separate word., “I
help you.”
Not enough practice is a very common mistake. Don’t just
consume information and not attempt to output knowledge.
Practice doing the language, speaking it, writing it, more than
you input it.
You’ll warm up to the flexible word order of the Na’vi language, and
familiarise with basic Na’vi concepts.
Case Endings.
- Transitivity
- Subject
- Direct object
- Indirect object
- Genitive
Adjectives.
- Connecting with a verb
- Connecting with “a”
The fast dog vs, the dog is fast. These two types of sentences would
be learnt after studying Adjectives.
Clause Attribution.
- Subclauses with “a”
- F-words (futa and friends)
- Other conjunctions
Infixes.
- Infix positions
- Tense, aspect, subjunctive
- Participles
- Positive and Negative mood
- Reflexive and causative
Na’vi Course
Part 2
Simple Sentences
I run. Oe tul. / Tul oe.
The word order isn’t exactly free, as in na’vi, there are certain
rules with certain words. However, as long as there are no rules,
specifically about how you need to do it, then you can do it
however you want.
- No conjugation
Oe tul - I run. The verb is the same in Po tul - He/she runs. In
English, we would add an s here, as it’s a third person singular.
In other languages, such as Italian, there are a lot more
complicated conjugations for every person. However, in Na’vi,
the verb stays the same, according to the subject, in this case,
who is running. It can change, in some cases, but not this case.
- No articles
Palukantsyìp tul - The/A cat runs. Na’vi has no a, or the, or an,
or any similar article, which makes things very easy. Compared
to other languages, with genders for articles, it doesn’t exist in
Na’vi. A bit of meaning is lost, as the cat runs is different to a cat
runs. Context helps you, however. When there is no context
surrounding it, we can only guess what it means. In this
sentence, the or a cat would be fine.
Oe tul - I run.
Oe trram tul - Yesterday, I ran.
Na’vi has changes for the verb according to tense, however, for
the beginning, it can be easy, as you can put a word into the
sentence which makes it clear which tense you’re referring to,
and you won’t need to bother with word changes. Later on,
however, you will want to learn verb tense infixes, but at the
beginning, it can be easy.
In English, only word order tells us who hears and who is heard.
However, Na’vi has a very flexible word order. If we change the
sentence to Ninat hears Neytiri, the meaning changes
completely, and who hears and who is heard is changed.
In this case, Neytiri is the subject, and Ninat is the direct object.
Sounds easy? It does sound pretty simple, but it gets slightly more
complicated.
After Vowel -l
After Consonant/ll/rr -ìl
After Diphthong -ìl
The -T ending has slightly more, but -ti is always correct, you should
be default to this.
However, knowing that na’vi has flexible word order, we can also use
other word orders.
Neytiril Ninatit stawm. These sentences all mean the exact same
Ninatit stawm Neytiril. thing, and they are all correct, as we can
Ninatit Neytiril stawm. tell who is affected and who is doing the
Stawm Neytiril Ninatit. action. They are all correct.
Stawm Ninatit Neytiril.
Some more examples
Here, eating or to eat is yom. The fruit, (mautiti) is the thing being
eaten, so it becomes mautiti. Oe, I, is the one eating, so it becomes
oel.
Not all words here are translated, so here’s a small exercise. Look at
the case endings which word has case endings or no case endings,
and try to tell which Na’vi word corresponds to which English word.
Use a dictionary, like Reykunyu or Fwew.
The general lesson here is always look at case endings,
not the word order for meaning.
Verb Transitivity
In dictionaries, each word is categorised as vin. or vtr.
However…
But.. a counter-example.
Si-verbs
Si-verbs are verbs that always end in si, such as irayo si, kaltxì si. All
of these verbs are intransitive, despite how you can give thanks/thank
someone, or greet someone. A lot of them look transitive, but they’re
all vin. You will have to use other endings to indicate who is the one
doing and who is affected. This will come in another part.
Key points
- Na’vi has flexible word order, verbs don’t get conjugated and
there are no articles. These are the base differences between
Na’vi and English if we look back to the examples.
- -l marks the subject, -t the direct object. They have many forms
for different sounds/types of letters with (pseudo)vowels,
consonants, and diphthongs.
- Only transitive verbs can use these two case endings. If there
are intransitive verbs, you cannot use -l and -t endings. You will
need to use other case endings that will be learnt.
What is -ru?
The -ru ending is a case ending. A case ending is something which
goes at the end of a noun which shows the role it has in a sentence.
It is the indirect object, or, also known as the dative. It is translated as
“to someone/something.” This is important, as it is used in a wide
variety of situations in na’vi.
We will look at a variety of situations where you can use -ru, such as:
- -ru plus the verb lu. It sounds specific, yet you’ll see it make
sense, as -ru in function with lu serves a very important function.
- -ru with intransitive verbs in general.
- -ru with si-verbs, -ru works well with si-verbs, and this will help
you understand si-verbs better.
- -ru with transitive verbs. Other than -l and -t, -ru can be used
with both transitive and intransitive verbs.
- Double dative.
Your first instinct may be to look into a dictionary and search for the
na’vi word have, as in English, possession has its own verb. This is
not the case in na’vi, there is no verb for this.
The same is for the second sentence, to you there is a or the book.
More Examples
To me, that is easy! Oeru, tsaw lu ftue!
Oeru, to me, tsaw, meaning that. Lu has the connection to show that it
is easy (ftue).
Poru, to him or her. Then, nga lu lom. You are missed, to him or her,
as there is no verb to miss, rather the adjective missed. They are
missed to someone else.
I pray to Eywa.
Eywaru aho oe.
This is important to her.
Tsaw poru tsranten.
These are all in the dictionary, they are all possible to use. You cannot
just randomly get a noun or adjective and put si infront of it, it’s just
not allowed.
The mother tells the story to you. → Ngaru peng vurti sa’nokìl.
Double Dative
Some verbs can have -ru two times!
These first two messages have the same meaning due to the flexible
word order, however, the solution to figuring out the meaning is very
boring. The case is that word order here matters, as lu needs to be in
the clause of who has the words.
Notice how frapor and lu are together in the second sentence to show
the possession of words to/for me.
-ru vs. ne
ne (adp.) to(wards) Ne also means towards, and this may cause
confusion, as -ru also means to something or can mostly be translated
as this.
Looking at the following sentences with what you’ve learnt today, you
may think to use -ru. But actually, you will need ne.