Staff Blog
UPenn blog breaks down Na’vi language
posted by Holly Otterbein
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For those of you who respectfully disagree with our critic Shaun Brady, and think Avatar was awesome in a way that only capital letters, exclamation points and drool can express, you’ll appreciate this: Ben Zimmer, who writes for The New York Times, along with Paul Frommer, the mind behind Avatar’s Na’vi language (Na’vi are the natives on the planet Pandora … yea), posted a breakdown of the Na’vi tongue on UPenn blog Language Log. A few highlights:
Tense only:
taron ‘hunt’
tìmaron ‘just now hunted’
tayaron ‘will hunt’
Aspect only: teraron ‘be hunting’
tolaron ‘have hunted’
Both tense and aspect:
tìrmaron ‘was just now hunting’
While you’re at it, check out Zimmer’s NYT piece on alien languages in cinema.
(h/t Brian James Kirk of Technically Philly)
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[...] • THE SHOWDOWN: Weird and possibly doubly hypocritical• Go see The Hurt Locker. Now.• UPenn blog breaks down Na'vi language• THE SCENESTER: Holy crap, it's Avatar• Trailer!: Iron Man 2• GIFTED: Green House [...]
[...] UPenn blog breaks down Na'vi language :: Critical Mass … [...]
[...] • THE SHOWDOWN: Weird and possibly doubly hypocritical• Go see The Hurt Locker. Now.• UPenn blog breaks down Na'vi language• THE SCENESTER: Holy crap, it's Avatar• Trailer!: Iron Man 2• GIFTED: Green House [...]