Naʼvi language

This article is about the fictional extraterrestrial language. For the related film, see Avatar (2009 film).

Na’vi
Created by	Paul Frommer
Setting and usage	2009 film Avatar
Users	1 (none fluent) (2005–2009+)
Purpose	constructed languages artistic languages fictional languages Na’vi
Sources	constructed languages  a priori languages
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–

The Na’vi language is the constructed language of the Na’vi, the sapient humanoid indigenous inhabitants of the fictional moon Pandora in the 2009 film Avatar. It was created by Paul Frommer, a professor at the Marshall School of Business with a doctorate in linguistics. Na’vi was designed to fit James Cameron's intention for the film and to be pronounceable by the actors, but to not closely resemble any single human language.

As of 2009, Na’vi has a continuously growing vocabulary of about a thousand words, but understanding of its grammar is limited to the language's creator.

Phonology and orthography

Na’vi lacks voiced stops like [b d ɡ], but has the ejective consonants [pʼ tʼ kʼ], which are spelled px, tx, kx. It also has the syllabic consonants 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 clusters, as in fngap [fŋap] "metal" and tskxe [tskʼɛ] "rock"

Na’vi syllables may be as simple as a single vowel, or as complex as skxawng "moron" or fngap above (both CCVC).

The fictional language Na’vi of Pandora is unwritten. However, the actual (studio) language is written in the Latin alphabet for the actors of Avatar. Sample words: zìsìt "year", fpeio "ceremonial challenge", nìawve "first" (aw "one"), muiä "be fair", tiréa-ióang "spirit animal", kllpxìltu "territory", unil-tìran-tokx "avatar" (dream-walk-body).

Vowels

There are seven simple vowels:

	front	back
high	i [i]	u [u] ~ [ʊ]
	ì [ɪ]
mid	e [ɛ]	o [o]
low	ä [æ]	a [a]

as well as four diphthongs: aw [aw], ew [εw], ay [aj], ey [εj]. Note that the e is open-mid while the o is close-mid, and that there is no *oy. In addition, there are two syllabic consonants which behave as vowels, ll [l̩] and rr [r̩], as in pllte’ [pl̩.tɛʔ] "to speak". The rr is strongly trilled, and the ll is "light", never a "dark" (velarized) *[ɫ̩].

Na’vi vowels may occur in sequences, as in the Polynesian languages and Japanese. Each vowel counts as a syllable, so that tsaleioae has six syllables, [tsa.lɛ.i.o.a.ɛ], and meoauniaea has eight, [mɛ.o.a.u.ni.a.ɛ.a]. The syllabic consonants may also occur in sequence with a simple vowel or diphthong, as in hrrap [hr̩.ap] "dangerous". However, diphthongs before another vowel are not distinguished from the consonants y, w between vowels.

Na’vi does not have vowel length or tone, but it does have contrastive stress: túte [ˈtutɛ] "person", tuté [tuˈtɛ] "female person". Although stress may move with derivation, as here, it is not affected by inflection (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 [loˈlu] "was" (l‹ol›u), lolängú [lolæˈŋu] "was (ugh!)" (l‹ol›‹äng›u), etc.

Consonants

There are twenty consonants. There are two Latin transcriptions: one that more closely approaches the ideal of one letter per phoneme, with the c and g for [ts] and [ŋ] (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 consonants are written with digraphs in x, a convention that appears to be unique to Na’vi.

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Ejective	px [pʼ]	tx [tʼ]		kx [kʼ]
Plosive	p [p]	t [t]		k [k]	’ [ʔ]
Affricate		ts (c) [ts]
Fricative	f [f] v [v]	s [s] z [z]			h [h]
Nasal	m [m]	n [n]		ng (g) [ŋ]
Liquid/glide	w [w]	r [ɾ] l [l]	y [j]

The fricatives and the affricate, f v ts s z h, are restricted to the onset of a syllable; the other consonants may occur at either 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 skxawng "moron"). However, in addition to appearing before vowels, f ts s may form consonant clusters with any of the unrestricted consonants (the stops and liquids/glides) apart from ’, making for 39 clusters. Other sequences occur across syllable boundaries, such as na’vi [naʔ.vi] "person", ikran [ik.ɾan] "banshee", and atxkxe [atʼ.kʼɛ] "land".

The plosives p t k and the affricate ts are tenuis, as in Spanish or French. In final position, they are unreleased, as in Indonesian and other languages of Southeast Asia. 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 sound ng tends to assimilate with a following m or n. So tìng mikyun "to listen" (lit. "give an ear") is usually pronounced as if it were tìm mikyun, and tìng nari "to look" (lit. "give an eye") is usually pronounced tìn nari.

The stop consonants undergo lenition after certain prefixes and prepositions. 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.

Consonant lenition

Underlying	Weakened
px	p
tx	t
kx	k
p	f
ts	s
t	s
k	h
’	—

For example, the plural form of po "s/he" is ayfo "they", with the p weakening into an f after the prefix ay-. Other examples of lenition are the interrogative forms below.

Grammar

Accounts of the grammar cover parts of speech, their uses, and some of their inflections, but not much about the syntax.

Pronouns

Na’vi pronouns encode clusivity. That is, there are different words for "we" depending on whether I'm including you or not. There are also special forms for "the two of us" (with or without you), "the three of us", etc. They do not inflect for gender; although it's possible to distinguish "he" from "she", the distinction is optional.

Pronouns	sing.	dual	trial	plural
exclusive	oe	moe	?	ayoe
inclusive	—	oeng	?	ayoeng
2nd person	nga	?	?	aynga
3rd person	po	mefo	?	ayfo, fo

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. Fo is the "short plural" form of po; ayfo is the explicit plural.

Pronouns are declined for case as nouns (below) are.

Nouns

Na’vi noun phrases are inflected according to the following template, not including attributives (adjectives etc.):

(PREPOSITION) NUMBER+STEM-(GENDER)-(CASE)

A noun phrase may have either a preposition or a case suffix, but not both. There are no articles like "a" or "the".

Number

Singular	(no prefix)
Dual	me+
Trial	?
Plural	ay+ or +

Nouns show greater number distinctions than human languages do: besides singular and plural, they not only have special dual forms for two of an item (eyes, hands, lovers, etc.), which are not uncommon in human language (English has a remnant in "both"), but also trial forms for three of an item, which on Earth are only found with pronouns. However, gender is only occasionally (and optionally) marked.

The plural prefix is ay+, and the dual is me+ (nari "eye", menari "eyes"). 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 tokx "body" is either aysokx or just sokx.

Gender

Na’vi does not have grammatical gender. However, masculine individuals may be distinguished by the suffix -an, and feminine ones by -é, which is stressed:

Masculine	-an
Feminine	-é (stressed)

For example, tsmuk or tsmúktu is "sibling", tsmúkan "brother", and tsmuké "sister".

Case

Many of the case markers have several allomorphs.

Intransitive	(unmarked)
Ergative	-l
Accusative	-t, -ti, -it
Genitive	-ä, -yä
Dative	-ru
Topical	-ri, -ìri (overrides case suffix)

Nouns are declined for case 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 suffix -ti, and an agent with the ergative suffix -l, while an intransitive subject has no case suffix. For example:

Oe-l	nga-ti	kam‹ei›e
I-ERG	you-ACC	See‹LAUD›

"I See you" (a greeting)

The use of such case forms leaves the word order of Na’vi largely free.

There are two other cases, genitive in -yä and dative in -ru, as well as a vocative particle ma and a topic marker -ri. The latter is used to introduce the topic of the clause, and is somewhat equivalent to (though much more common than) 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,

Oe-ri	ontu	teya	l‹äng›u
I-TOP	nose	full	be‹PEJ›

"My nose is full (of his distasteful smell),"

since the topic is "I", the subject "nose" is associated with "me": That is, it's understood to be "my nose". Note that "nose" itself is unmarked for case, as it's the subject of the intransitive verb "to be".

Adpositions

Besides case, the role of a noun in a clause may be indicated with adpositions. Any adposition may occur either as a preposition before the noun, or as an enclitic after the noun, a greater degree of freedom than human languages allow. For example, "with you" may be either hu nga or ngahu. 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 mì sokx "in the body". This may cause some ambiguity with short plurals: mì sokx could also be short for mì aysokx "in the bodies".

Some common adpositions:

ma	vocative (addressing s.o.)
fa	"per" (with, by means of)
hu	"with" (accompaniment)
fpi	"for the sake of"
ne	"to" (direction)
ftu	"from" (direction)
ta	"from" (generic)
ta’em	"from above"
ìlä	"via, along"
ka	"across"
mì	"in"

Adjectives

Na’vi adjectives 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 particle a, which is attached on the side closest to the noun. For example, "a long river" can be expressed either as,

ngim-a	kilvan
long-ATTR	river

or as,

kilvan	a-ngim
river	ATTR-long

The free word order holds for all attributives: Genitives (possessives) and relative clauses can also either precede or follow the noun they modify. The latter especially allows for great freedom of expression.

The attributive affix a- is only used when an adjective modifies a noun. Predicative adjectives instead take the "be" verb lu:

kilvan	ngim	lu
river	long	be

(also kilvan lu ngim etc.) "The river is long"

Numbers

As the Na’vi have four digits per hand, they have a base-eight number system. Only a few numbers are attested:

’aw	1
mune	2
tsìng	4
vofu	16
tsìvol	32 (ergative?)

From this it would appear that the root for 4 is tsì, for 8 is vo, and that 32 is "4 eights".

Numerals form various derivatives, such as ’awpo "one" (an individual), (nì)’awve "first", ’awsiténg "together" (one-make-same), kawtu "no-one" (negative k-), kawkrr "never" (not-one-time), nì’aw "only", and nì’awtu "alone" from "one"; also nìmun "again" and perhaps muntxa "to mate" from mun- "two".

Space

Directions and locations are indicated with several particles, which may be combined with prepositions to distinguish to, from, and in those positions.

Neto away, toward the distance (from ne "to"), mìso away, in the distance (from mì+ "in"), both perhaps based on the particle to "than"; ne’ìm back, toward the back, also from ne "to" (cf. also txìm "butt"); ta’em "from above", from ta "from".

Verbs

Verbs are conjugated for tense but not for person. 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 infixes, which are like suffixes but go inside the verb. "To hunt", for example, is taron, but "hunted" is tolaron, with the infix ‹ol›.

There are three positions for infixes: two after the onset of the penultimate syllable, and a third after the onset of the final syllable. Because many Na’vi verbs have two syllables, these commonly occur on the first and last syllable, as in the examples below. In monosyllabic words like lu "be" and tsun "can", however, they both appear after the initial consonant, keeping their relative order, as in tsolängun [ts‹ol›‹äng›un] "was able to (ugh!)".

verb length	maximal form without infixes	maximal form with infixes
trisyllabic verb	CCVC.CCVC.CCVC	CCVC.CC‹1›‹2›VC.CC‹3›VC
disyllabic verb	CCVC.CCVC	CC‹1›‹2›VC.CC‹3›VC
monosyllabic verb	CCVC	CC‹1›‹2›‹3›VC

The first infix position is taken by infixes for participles, reflexives, and voice.

Participle	us
Reflexive	ìy
Passive	iv

The participial infix us is found in forms such as kérusey "dead", from ke "not" and rey "to live", and txantslusam "wise", from txan "much" and tslam "to understand".

The second infix position is taken by infixes for tense, aspect, and mood. These follow the first-position infixes when they co-occur, but all appear in the penultimate syllable.

Na’vi aspect Perfective ol Imperfective er

Na’vi tense Future ay Near future ev, ov Present (unmarked) Recent past ìm Past ?

The aspectual forms, perfective (completed or contained) and imperfective (ongoing or uncontained), are not found in English but are somewhat like the distinction between 'having done' and 'was doing'. Tense and aspect may both occur, in which case the infixes are fused:

taron [hunt] "hunts"

t‹ìm›aron [hunt‹REC›] "just hunted"

t‹ay›aron [hunt‹FUT›] "will hunt"

t‹er›aron [hunt‹IMPV›] "hunting"

t‹ol›aron [hunt‹PFV›] "hunted"

t‹ì‹r›m›aron [hunt‹REC‹IMPV››] "was just hunting"

Tense + aspect

Tense	Perfective	Imperfective
Future	?	?
Near future	?	?
Present	?	?
Recent past	?	ìrm
Past	?	?

Other temporal and aspectual forms include tovaron, telaron, tusaron, tairon. Tense and aspect need not be marked when they can be understood by context or elsewhere in the sentence.

The final infix position is taken by infixes for affect (speaker attitude, whether positive or negative, and evidentiality for uncertainty or indirect knowledge).

Na’vi affect

Positive attitude	ie
Negative attitude	äng
Deferential	?
Evidential	?

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 kam‹ei›e to indicate the pleasure the speaker feels in the meeting. In the subsequent sentence, Oeri ontu teya längu "My nose is full (of his smell)", however, the phrase teya lu "is full" is inflected negatively as teya l‹äng›u to indicate the speaker's distaste at the experience. Examples with two infix positions filled:

t‹ìrm›ar‹ei›on [hunt‹REC.IMPV›‹LAUD›] "yeah, was just hunting": The speaker is happy about it, whether due to success or just the pleasure of the hunt

t‹ay›ar‹äng›on [hunt‹FUT›‹PEJ›] "ugh, will hunt": The speaker is anxious about or bored by it.

Questions and demonstratives

Yes-no questions are asked with the final question marker srak? Information questions are asked with question words based on the leniting morpheme pe "which?". These correspond with demonstratives in fì "this" and tsa "that" (accusative tsat):

	Interrogative		Proximal		Distal		Negative		All		Other		Same
thing	peú, ’úpe	"what? which thing?"	fì’u	"this, this thing"	tsa’u	"that, that thing"	ke’u	"nothing"	fra’u	"everything"			teng’u	"same thing"
person	pesu, tupe	"who?"			tsatu	"that person"	kawtu	"no-one"	frapo	"everybody"	lapo	"someone else"
manner	peyfa, fyape	"how? which way?"	fìfya	"like this"									tengfya	"the same way"
action	pehem, kempe	"how? which action?"	fìkem	"this (action)"	tsakem	"that (action)"
time	pehrr, krrpe	"when?"			tsakrr	"then"	kawkrr	"never"	?	"always"			tengkrr	"while, at the same time"
reason	pelun, lumpe	"why?"
place	peseng, tsengpe	"where?"	fìtseng	"here"	tsatseng	"there"	?	"nowhere"	?	"everywhere"

These are merely the more common forms; pe, fì (and its plural fay "these") and tsa may combine with any noun (without needing the attributive a; cf. kea "no" + noun), and other words may combine with the morphemes in the table, such as tengfya "as" ('same way'), tengkrr "while" ('same time'), and ké’u "nothing".

Syntax

As noted above, Na’vi constituent order is syntactically free—that is, it is determined by discourse factors rather than by syntax. The word order within a noun phrase is similar.

Negation, both of noun phrases and of clauses, is made with the grammatical particle ke, which appears before the negated element. The vowel elides in some situations, as in kawkrr "never" above.

Various other particles such as conjunctions join phrases and clauses as well: na "like, as", to "(more, less) than", sìk (unquote), sì, últe "and", fu "or", slä "but". A is used for relative clauses, as in tute a tsun "a.person who can", and futa means "that", as in ke fparmìl futa lu "(I) didn't think that there.was".

Lexicon

Frommer had created a thousand words for Na’vi by the time Avatar was released. These include a few English loan words such as kunsìp "gunship".

A few conversational words are,

kaltxì "hello"

rutxe "please"

irayo "thank you"

kìyeváme "see you soon"

Eywa ngahu "good-bye"

skxawng! "moron!"

pxasik "screw that!"

oe omum "I know"

Many words are created by compounding, which is effected by simply joining the elements together.

Changing parts of speech

Adjectives may be derived from nouns with le-: hrrap "danger", lehrrap "dangerous". Verbs may be made from nouns with the generic action verb si "to make, to do": kelku "home", kelku si "to live (dwell)". Adverbs are formed in nì-: ftúe "easy", nìftúe "easily"; ayoeng "us", nìayoeng "like us". Abstract nouns may be derived from verbs and adjectives with the prefix tì-: rey "to live", tìrey "life"; ngay "true", tìngay, "truth". People associated with a verb are indicated by compounding with -tu: spe’é "to capture", spe’étu "a captive". A person who specializes in a verb (English -er) is indicated with -yu: táron "to hunt", táronyu "hunter".

Phrases

Kaltxì. Ngaru lu fpom srak?

"Hello, how are you?"

kaltxì	nga-ru	lu	fpom	srak?
[ kalˈtʼɪ	ˈŋaɾu	lu	fpom	sɾak ]
Greetings.	You-DAT	be	well.being	QUESTION

Tsun oe ngahu nìNa’vi pivängkxo a fì’u oeru pllte’ lu.

"It’s a pleasure to be able to chat with you in Na’vi."

tsun	oe	nga-hu	nì-Na’vi	pivängkxo	a	fì-’u	oe-ru	pllte’	lu
be.able	I.INTR	you-with	ADV-Na’vi	pleasure?	that	this-thing	I-DAT	speak	be

Fìskxawngìri tsap’alute sengi oe.

"I apologise for this moron."

fì-skxawng-ìri	tsap’alu-te	s‹eng›i	oe
this-moron-TOP	apology-?	make‹?›	I.INTR

Fayvrrtep fìtsenge lu kxanì.

"These demons are forbidden here."

f-ay-vrrtep	fì-tseng-e	lu	kxanì
this-PL-demon[INTR]	this-place-?	be	forbidden

Oeri ta peyä fahew akewong ontu teya längu.

"My nose is full of his alien smell."

oe-ri	ta	pe-yä	fahew	a-kewong	ontu	teya	l‹äng›u
me-TOP	from	s/he-GEN	smell	ATTR-alien	nose[INTR]	full	be‹PEJ›

Nari si ayoe fteke nìhawng livok.

"We_EXCL were careful not to get too close."

nari+si	ay-oe	fte-ke	nì-hawng	l‹iv›ok
eye+make	PL-I[INTR]	so_that-not	ADV-excessive	close‹PASS?›

Tsun tute tspivang ko.

"They can kill a person, you know."

tsun	tute	tsp‹iv›ang	ko
be_able	person[INTR]	kill‹PASS?›	?

References

• Frommer, Paul (2009-12-19). "Some highlights of Na'vi". Language Log. Guest post with Ben Zimmer. Retrieved 2009-12-19.
• "USC professor creates an entire alien language for 'Avatar'", Los Angeles Times, 2009 Nov 20.
• "Brushing up on Na'vi, the Language of Avatar", Vanity Fair, 2009 Dec. 1
• "Na'vi talk down Klingon as the last word in alien-speak", The Times, 2009 Dec 12
• "An interview with Paul Frommer, Alien Language Creator for Avatar", Unidentified Sound Object, 2009 Nov.
• Zimmer, Ben (2009-12-06). "Skxawng!". The New York Times. Has sound recording of Paul Frommer saying several sentences in Na'vi.
• Wilhelm, Maria (2009). James Cameron's Avatar: a Confidential Report on the Biological and Social History of Pandora. itbooks. ISBN 0061896756. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)