The People and the Language
Na'vi 1
Course 1 · Chapter 10 · The People and the Language
The last chapter steps back from the grammar. A language is made for people, and Na'vi was made for a fictional people in a film. This chapter looks at the world the language belongs to, how it has grown since 2009, where to continue learning, and then recaps all ten chapters.
The World of the Na'vi
In the film Avatar, the Na'vi are the people of the moon Pandora. They live close to the forest and its animals, and their spiritual life centres on Eywa, the force that connects all living things. The clan seen in the first film is the Omaticaya, whose gathering place is the Tree of Souls. This is the film's setting, not a real culture, so it is best treated as the background to the language's phrases rather than as fact about people.
What "I See You" Carries
Chapter 6 showed that Oel ngati kameie is kame "see" with the happy infix ei. Fans and learner sites say that "see" in this phrase means more than eyesight: to see into someone, to understand them, to respect them. Treat that as a community reading of the phrase, not an official definition. The grammar tells you what is certain: a verb of seeing, spoken with a glad attitude.
A Language That Keeps Growing
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Who made it? | Paul Frommer, a linguistics professor at the University of Southern California |
| When? | Created from 2005 for James Cameron's Avatar (released 2009) |
| How big was it at release? | About 1,000 words, of which James Cameron supplied about 30 |
| How big is it now? | Over 2,600 words |
| Who adds words? | Frommer, working with the community's Lexical Expansion Project |
| How is it written? | The film's world has no writing; learners use the Latin alphabet |
Frommer's choice of sounds, the ejectives px, tx, kx, came from three sets of sample sounds he built, from which the director chose. The community that grew around the film now contributes much of the vocabulary and many of the clarifications of grammar.
Dialects
The Na'vi of the first film speak the Forest dialect, which is the one this course teaches. The sequel Avatar: The Way of Water introduces a Reef dialect for the people of the sea. It differs in some words and sounds. Treat it as a reason to keep learning, not as a change to what you have learnt.
Where to Keep Learning
| Resource | What it offers |
|---|---|
| Na'viteri (Frommer's blog) | New vocabulary and grammar clarifications from the creator |
| LearnNavi.org | Forums, lessons, a dictionary and a grammar guide |
| Kelutral.org | Lessons and a community |
| Reykunyu, Dict-Na'vi, fwew | Online dictionaries for looking up words |
| Horen Lì'fyayä leNa'vi | The reference grammar edited by William Annis |
When a form in this course disagrees with a dictionary, trust the dictionary: it follows the creator's latest word.
Course Recap
What Na'vi 1 covered
- Chapter 1: the language, the creator, and the first phrases: Kaltxì, Irayo, Kìyevame, Oel ngati kameie, srane, kehe
- Chapter 2: the sounds, the ejectives, the clusters and the stress
- Chapter 3: nouns: number prefixes, lenition, cases and the genitive
- Chapter 4: pronouns, including the "you and I" form and the formal forms
- Chapter 5: verbs and the tense and aspect infixes
- Chapter 6: attitude and voice: the second infix slot, -ei-, -äng-, the subjunctive
- Chapter 7: sentences: free order held by case, the a linker, lu
- Chapter 8: questions with srak, the pe- words, ke, and short answers
- Chapter 9: counting in eights, ordinals, counting things
- Chapter 10: the culture and where to go next
Hands-On Exercises
Write a short introduction in Na'vi from this course's phrases: greet, say "I see you", thank, and say goodbye. Add one yes/no question with srak.
📄 View solutionPick any Na'vi sentence from this course and take it apart: say which words carry case endings, which infixes the verb has and which slot each is in, and whether the word order could change.
📄 View solutionExplain in your own words three ways Na'vi differs from English that you found most surprising in this course, and one thing the two languages share.
📄 View solution