A23.Inglish BCEnc. Blauwe Kaas Encyclopedie, Duaal Hermeneuties Kollegium.
Inglish Site.23.
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NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
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THEIRE DVE.
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In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
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Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
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This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
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Index.
96.Naga or NAGA.
97.Aragami.
98.Na?vi language.
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96.Naga or NAGA.
Naga or NAGA may refer to:
1.N?ga, a group of serpent deities in Hindu and Buddhist mythology.
2.Phaya Naga, mythical creatures. believed to live in the Laotian stretch of the Mekong River.
3.Naga fireball, a phenomenon seen along the Mekong.
N?ga (IAST: n?gá, Burmese pronunciation: [n??á]) is the Sanskrit and P?li word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very great snake?specifically the king cobra, found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. A female N?ga is a n?g? or n?gi??.
In Sanskrit, a n?gá (???) is a cobra, the Indian cobra (Naja naja). A synonym for n?gá is pha?in (?????). There are several words for "snake" in general, and one of the very commonly used ones is sarpá (????). Sometimes the word n?gá is also used generically to mean "snake". The word is cognate with English 'snake', Germanic: *sn?k-a-, Proto-IE: *(s)n?g-o-.
In the great epic Mahabharata, the depiction of nagas tends toward the negative. An epic calls them "persecutors of all creatures", and tells us "the snakes were of virulent poison, great prowess and excess of strength, and ever bent on biting other creatures" (Book I: Adi Parva, Section 20). At some points within the story, nagas are important players in many of the events narrated in the epic, frequently no more evil nor deceitful than the other protagonists, and sometimes on the side of good.
The epic frequently characterizes nagas as having a mixture of human and serpent-like traits. Sometimes it characterizes them as having human traits at one time, and as having serpent-like traits at another. For example, the story of how the naga prince Shesha came to hold the world on his head begins with a scene in which he appears as a dedicated human ascetic, "with knotted hair, clad in rags, and his flesh, skin, and sinews dried up owing to the hard penances he was practising." Brahma is pleased with Shesha, and entrusts him with the duty of carrying the world. At that point in the story, Shesha begins to exhibit the attributes of a serpent. He enters into a hole in the Earth and slithers all the way to bottom, where he then loads the Earth onto his head. (Book I: Adi Parva, Section 36.)
Enmity with Garuda.
The great nemesis of the nagas in the Mahabharata is the gigantic eagle-king Garuda. Garuda and the nagas began life as cousins. The sage Kasyapa had two wives (amongst his 13 wives, all prajapati Daksha's daughters), Kadru and Vinata, the former of whom desired many offspring, and the latter of whom desired few but powerful offspring. Each got her wish. Kadru laid 1000 eggs which hatched into snakes, and Vinata laid two, which hatched into the charioteer of Surya the sun god and Garuda. Through a foolish bet, Vinata became enslaved to her sister, and as a result Vinata's son Garuda was required to do the bidding of the snakes. Through compliant, he chafed and built up a grudge that he would never relinquish. When he asked the snakes what he would have to do in order to release his mother, Vinata, from her bondage, they told him he would have to bring them amrita, the elixir of immortality. Garuda stole the elixir from the gods and brought it to the serpents in fulfillment of their requirement, but through a ruse prevented them from partaking of it and achieving immortality. From that point onward, he regarded them as enemies and as food. (Book I: Adi Parva, Sections 16ff.)
Kadru.
Manasa, the goddess of serpents.
Kadru, the ancestral mother of snakes, made a bet with her sister Vinata, the stakes being that the loser would be enslaved to the winner. Eager to secure victory, Kadru requested the cooperation of her offspring in order to fix the bet so that Kadru would win. When her offspring balked at the request, Kadru grew angry and cursed them to die a fiery death in the snake-sacrifice of King Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit, who was the son of Abhimanyu the son of Arjuna. The king of the snakes Vasuki was aware of the curse, and knew that his brethren would need a hero to rescue them from it. He approached the renowned ascetic Jaratkaru with a proposal of marriage to a snake-goddess, Manasa, Vasuki's own sister. Out of the union of the ascetic and the snake-maiden was born "a son of the splendor of a celestial child." This son was named Astika, and he was to be the savior of the snakes.
In accordance with Kadru's curse, Janamejaya prepared a snake sacrifice of a type described in the scriptures, the Puranas. He erected a sacrificial platform and hired priests and other professionals needed for the rites. Following the proper form, the priests lit the sacrificial fire, duly fed it with clarified butter, uttered the required mantras, and began calling the names of snakes. The power of the rite was such that the named snakes were summoned to the fire and were consumed by it. As the sacrifice took on genocidal proportions, Astika came to the rescue. He approached Janamejaya and praised the sacrifice in such eloquent terms that the king offered to grant him a boon of his choosing. Astika promptly requested that the sacrifice be terminated. Though initially regretful of his offer, Janamejaya was true to his word, and the sacrifice came to an end. (Book I: Adi Parva, Sections 13-58.)
Stories involving the n?gas are still very much a part of contemporary cultural traditions in predominantly Hindu regions of Asia (India, Nepal, and the island of Bali). In India, n?gas are considered nature spirits and the protectors of springs, wells and rivers. They bring rain, and thus fertility, but are also thought to bring disasters such as floods and drought.
N?gas are snakes that may take human form. They tend to be very curious. According to traditions n?gas are only malevolent to humans when they have been mistreated. They are susceptible to mankind's disrespectful actions in relation to the environment. They are also associated with waters?rivers, lakes, seas, and wells?and are generally regarded as guardians of treasure.
They are objects of great reverence in some parts of South India, where it is believed that they bring fertility and prosperity to their venerators. Expensive and grand rituals like the Nagamandala and the N?g?r?dhane are conducted in their honor.
Another example comes from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Women gather at Hindu temples to worship n?gas (considered snake goddesses in south Indian Hinduism). At the temples, the n?gas take the form of snakes carved into stones. Hindu women gather around the stones to make offerings to the female snake goddesses. These goddesses are believed to make women fertile, protect the women and her family, and bring prosperity. The snake goddess is represented as an anthill or a snake that lives inside an anthill or stones with snake carvings on them. In each form, women of Tamil Nadu honor the n?gas with offerings. Hindus in Tamil believe a person who harms or kills a snake will be inflicted with a condition known as n?ga dösam which causes infertility and delays in marriage. N?ga dösam can only be reversed through varying degrees of worship to n?ga.
A third example comes from certain communities called N?gavan??, including the Nairs of Kerala and the ethnically related Jain Bunts of Karnataka. These communities trace their ancestry to n?gas.
N?gas live in P?t?la, the seventh of the nether dimensions or realms. They are the children of Kashyapa and Kadru. Among the prominent n?gas of Hinduism are Manasa, the nagaraja or King of the n?gas ?e?a and Vasuki.
N?gas also carry the elixir of life and immortality. Garuda once brought it to them and put a cup with elixir on kusha grass but it was taken away by Indra. The n?gas licked the kusha grass, but in doing so cut their tongues on the grass, and since then their tongues have been forked.
Vishnu is originally portrayed in the form sheltered by a ?e?an?ga or reclining on ?e?a, but the iconography has been extended to other deities as well. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms: around the neck, use as a sacred thread (Sanskrit: yajñyopav?ta) wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Shiva is often shown garlanded with a snake. Maehle (2006: p. 297) states that "Patanjali is thought to be a manifestation of the serpent of eternity".
Traditions about n?gas are also very common in all the Buddhist countries of Asia. In many countries, the n?ga concept has been merged with local traditions of great and wise serpents or dragons such as the Burmese nat (Burmese: ????; MLCTS: IPA: [na?]). In Tibetan religion, the n?ga was equated with the klu (Tibetan: ????) that dwell in lakes or underground streams and guard treasure. In China, the n?ga was equated with the Chinese dragon (Chinese: ?; pinyin: lóng).
The Buddhist n?ga generally has the form of a great cobra, usually with a single head but sometimes with many. At least some of the n?gas are capable of using magic powers to transform themselves into a human semblance. In Buddhist painting, the n?ga is sometimes portrayed as a human being with a snake or dragon extending over his head. One n?ga, in human form, attempted to become a monk; when telling it that such ordination was impossible, the Buddha told it how to ensure that it would be reborn a human, able to become a monk.
In the "Devadatta" chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the daughter of the dragon king, an eight-year-old longnü (n?ga), after listening to Mañju?r? preach the Lotus Sutra, transforms into a male Bodhisattva and immediately reaches full enlightenment. This tale appears to reinforce the viewpoint prevalent in Mahayana scriptures that a male body is required for Buddhahood, even if a being is so advanced in realization that they can magically transform their body at will and demonstrate the emptiness of the physical form itself.
N?gas are believed to both live on Mount Meru, among the other minor deities, and in various parts of the human-inhabited earth. Some of them are water-dwellers, living in streams or the ocean; others are earth-dwellers, living in underground caverns.
The n?gas are the servants of Vir?p?k?a (P?li: Vir?pakkha), one of the Four Heavenly Kings who guards the western direction. They act as a guard upon Mount Sumeru, protecting the d?vas of Tr?yastri??a from attack by the as?ras.
Among the notable n?gas of Buddhist tradition is Mucalinda, N?gar?ja and protector of the Buddha. In the Vinaya Sutra (I, 3), shortly after his enlightenment, the Buddha is meditating in a forest when a great storm arises, but graciously, King Mucalinda gives shelter to the Buddha from the storm by covering the Buddha's head with his seven snake heads. Then the king takes the form of a young Brahmin and renders the Buddha homage.
It is noteworthy that the two chief disciples of the Buddha, Sariputta and Moggall?na are both referred to as Mah?n?ga or "great n?ga". Some of the most important figures in Buddhist history symbolize nagas in their names such as Dign?ga, N?g?rs?na, and, although other etymons are assigned to his name, N?g?rjuna.
In the Vajray?na and Mah?siddha traditions, nagas in their half-human form are depicted holding a naga-jewel, kumbhas of amrita, or a gter-ma (Tibetan: ???????, Wylie: gter ma, Lhasa dialect IPA: [te?m?]; "hidden treasure, concealed text") that had been elementally encoded by adepts.
Norbu (1999: p.?) states that according to tradition, the Prajñap?ramita gter-ma are held to have been conferred upon N?g?rjuna by the Nagaraja, who had been guarding them at the bottom of a lake.
For Malay sailors, n?gas are a type of dragon with many heads; in Thailand and Java, the n?ga is a wealthy underworld deity. In Laos they are beaked water serpents.
Thailand.
In Thailand Nagas figure in some stories of the Thai folklore and are represented as well in Buddhist temples as architectural elements. Phaya Naga is a well-known Naga said to live in the Mekong river. Thai television soap opera Manisawat (???????) is based on a naga legend.
Lake Chinni.
In Malay and Orang Asli traditions, the lake Chinni, located in Pahang is home to a naga called Sri Gumum. Depending on legend versions, her predecessor Sri Pahang or her son left the lake and later fought a naga called Sri Kemboja. Kemboja is the former name of what is Cambodia. Like the naga legends there, there are stories about an ancient empire in lake Chinni, although the stories are not linked to the naga legends.
Cambodia.
Cambodian Naga at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.
In a Cambodian legend, the n?ga were a reptilian race of beings under the King Kaliya who possessed a large empire or kingdom in the Pacific Ocean region until they were chased away by the Garuda and sought refuge in India. It was here Kaliya's daughter married an Indian Brahmana named Kaundinya, and from their union sprang the Cambodian people. Therefore Cambodians possess a slogan "Born from the N?ga". As a dowry, Kaliya drank from an area of the waters of Southeast Asia and exposed the land for his daughter and son-in-law to inhabit and thus, Cambodia was created.
The Seven-Headed N?ga serpents depicted as statues on Cambodian temples, such as Angkor Wat, apparently represent the seven races within N?ga society, which has a mythological, or symbolic, association with "the seven colors of the rainbow". Furthermore, Cambodian N?ga possess numerological symbolism in the number of their heads. Odd-headed N?ga symbolise the Male Energy, Infinity, Timelessness, and Immortality. This is because, numerologically, all odd numbers come from One (1). Even-headed N?ga are said to be "Female, representing Physicality, Mortality, Temporality, and the Earth."
Naga guarding Anouvong's Wat Sisaket in Vientiane.
Laos.
Naga are believed to live in the Laotian stretch of the Mekong river or estuaries. Lao mythology maintains that the Naga are the protectors of Vientiane, and by extension, the Lao state. The Naga association was most clearly articulated during and immediately after the reign of Anouvong. An important poem from this period San Lup Bo Sun (or San Leupphasun Lao: ?????????) discusses relations between Laos and Siam in a veiled manner, using the Naga and the Garuda, to represent Laos and Siam, respectively. The Naga is incorporated extensively into Lao iconography, and features prominently in Lao culture throughout the length of the country, not only in Vientiane.
Mekong.
Naga emerging from the mouth of a Makara in the style of a Chinese dragon
The legend of the N?ga is a strong and sacred belief held by Thai and Lao people living along the Mekong River. Many pay their respects to the river because they believe the N?ga still rule in it, and locals hold an annual sacrifice for the N?ga. Each ceremony depends on how each village earns its living from the Mekong River?for instance, through fishing or transport. Local residents believe that the N?ga can protect them from danger, so they are likely to make a sacrifice to N?ga before taking a boat trip along the Mekong River.
Also, every year on the night of the 15th day of 11th month in the Lao lunar calendar at the end of Vassa, an unusual phenomenon occurs in the area of the Mekong River stretching over 20 kilometres between Pak-Ngeum and Phonephisai districts in Nong Khai province, Thailand. Fireballs appear to rise from the river into the nighttime sky. Local villagers believe that N?ga under Mekong River shoot the fireballs into the air to celebrate the end of Vassa, because N?ga meditate during this time.
In 2000, Richard Freeman from the Centre for Fortean Zoology visited the area and talked with witnesses who claimed to have seen gigantic snakes far larger than any python. The general description was of a 60 foot serpent with black scales that had a greenish sheen. Freeman speculated that the n?ga legend was based on a real animal, possibly a giant madtsoiid snake.
A popular photograph on display in bars, restaurants, guesthouses, and markets around Thailand captioned, Queen of Nagas seized by American Army at Mekhong River, Laos Military Base on June 27, 1973 with the length of 7.80 meters is a hoax. The photograph is actually that taken by USN LT DeeDee Van Wormer, of an oarfish found in late 1996 by US Navy SEAL trainees on the coast of Coronado, California.
Java.
Illustration of Antaboga.
In Javanese culture, a Naga is a crowned giant magical serpent, sometimes winged. It is similarly derived from the Shiva-Hinduism tradition, merged with Javanese animism. The concept of Naga is prevalent in the Hindu period of Indonesia, before the introduction of Islam. In a wayang theater story a snake (N?ga) god named Sanghyang Anantaboga or Antaboga is a guardian deity in the bowels of the earth.
Philippines.
In many parts of pre-Hispanic Philippines, the naga is used as an ornament in the hilt ends of longswords locally known as kampilans.
Notable Naga.
Aadhi-Sesha, ("Limitless-Eternal") the world serpent with a thousand heads.
Balarama, origin of Ananta-Sesha.
Bakunawa, Naga is also present in the Kapampangan polytheistic beliefs, such as Lakandanum see Deities of Philippine mythology.
Kaliya, a snake conquered by Krishna.
Karkotaka controls weather.
Manasa, the Hindu goddess of Nagas and curer of snake-bite and sister of Vasuki.
Mucalinda protects the Buddha.
Padmavati, the N?g? queen & companion of Dharanendra.
Paravataksha, his sword causes earthquakes and his roar caused thunder.
Shwe Nabay (Naga Medaw), a goddess or a Nat in Burmese animistic mythology, she was believed to have married a Naga and died from heartbreak after he had left her.
Takshaka, king of the N?gas.
Ulupi, a companion of Arjuna in the epic Mahabharata.
Vasuki, king of the Nagas who helped the devas recover amrita from the Ocean of Milk.
The dragon king of the western sea in the Chinese classical novel Journey to the West becomes a naga after completing his journey with Xuanzang.
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97.Aragami.
An Aragami (?? "violent god"/"Fierce Spirit"), while apparently only one being, is actually a colony of hundreds of thousands of semi-sentient single-celled organisms under a cell core; that is, one Aragami is a superorganism with swarm intelligence, taking the form of a variety of lifeforms, plant or animal, organic or artificial, even real or mythical. These cells, called "Oracle Cells", are the only type of cell in an Aragami forming flesh, blood and bone all the same. Oracle cells have a devouring nature which caused them to spread and devour everything in their path. However, Oracle cells do not evolve like normal cells do. Each Oracle cell in existence is exactly the same as it was before the outbreak; i.e., these cells merely adapt to fulfill specific roles assigned to them from the cell core. The core is the command center over the entire colony while the individual groups of cells form working parts of the entity such as an eye, fang, or tail. The only way to truly kill an Aragami is to extract the core, thus making all the normal cells lose their cohesion; a society with a hive intelligence cannot survive without its leading mind, and so the body of an Aragami will dissipate into nothingness if it loses its mind. The only weapons created by humanity that capable of doing this (whilst still being portable) are the God Arcs (which are actually weaponized and wieldable Aragami), wielded by the God Eaters/RahLizah, which extract it by "devouring" a specific section of an Aragami's body, which contains the core.
Generally violent in nature, Aragami only crave to consume. This is how they can adapt and evolve to fit new surroundings; they can devour native scenery and Aragami in the area until the Aragami's cells adapt to the conditions. Their desire to consume any sort or matter is controlled by the Bias Factor, which scientists from Fenrir work day and night on to perfect shielding against Aragami attacks; an Aragami will refrain from eating anything that is highly similar to its own being, unless they are extremely desperate, turned rogue, or became somewhat far more unstable. This is a behavior in Oracle cells that results in different Aragami of similar characteristics, such as Vajras, Hannibals, Marduks, and so on. Notably, the Aragami seem to be starting to evolve in new ways: some newer Aragami are starting to resemble humans.
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98.Na?vi language.
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 USC Marshall School of Business with a doctorate in linguistics. Na?vi was designed to fit James Cameron's conception of what the language should sound like in the film, to be realistically learnable by the fictional human characters of the film, and to be pronounceable by the actors, but to not closely resemble any single human language.
When the film was released in 2009, Na?vi 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 2000 words and has published the grammar, thus making Na?vi a relatively complete and learnable language.
The Na?vi 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 thirty 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 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 "Polynesian 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 consonants. Of the three, Cameron liked the sound of the ejectives most. His choice established the phonology that Frommer would use in developing the rest of the Na?vi language ? morphology, syntax, and an initial vocabulary ? a task that took six months.
The Na?vi vocabulary was created by Frommer as needed for the script. By the time casting for Avatar began, the language was sufficiently developed that actors were required to read and pronounce Na?vi dialogue during auditions. During shooting Frommer worked with the cast, helping them understand their Na?vi dialogue and advising them on their Na?vi pronunciation, stress, and intonation. Actors would often make mistakes in speaking Na?vi. In some cases, those mistakes were plausibly explained as ones their human characters would make; 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 Na?vi words that had not been needed for the film script and thus had not yet been invented. Frommer also translated into Na?vi four sets of song lyrics that had been written by Cameron in English, and he helped vocalists with their pronunciation during the recording of James Horner's Avatar score. At the time of the film's release on December 18, 2009, the Na?vi vocabulary consisted of approximately 1000 words.
Work on the Na?vi 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. Apparently, 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. Na?viteri has been the source of the vast majority of Na?vi growth independent of Frommer's contract with 20th Century Fox.
The Na?vi 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 learnt 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 Na?vi dialogue without unreasonable difficulty. The language in its final form contains several elements which are uncommon in human languages, such as verbal conjugation using infixes. All Na?vi linguistic elements are found in human languages, but the combination is unique.
Phonology and orthography.
Na?vi lacks voiced plosives like [b] [d] [?], but has the ejective consonants [p?] [t?] [k?], 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 [f?ap] "metal".
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 script for the actors of Avatar. Some words include: zìsìt "year", fpeio "ceremonial challenge", ?awve "first" (?aw "one"), muiä "fair", tireaioang "spirit animal", tskxe "rock", kllpxìltu "territory", uniltìrantokx "avatar" (dream-walk-body).
Vowels.
There are seven monophthong vowels:
Typefrontback.
Highi [i]u [u]
~ [?]
ì [?]
Middlee [?]o [o]
Lowä [æ]a [a]
as well as four diphthongs: aw [aw], ew [?w], ay [aj], ey [?j], and two syllabic consonants: ll [l?] and rr [r?], 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 trilled, and the ll is "light", never a "dark" (velarized) *[??].
These vowels may occur in sequences, as in the Polynesian languages, Swahili, and Japanese. Each vowel counts as a syllable, so that tsaleioae has six syllables, [tsa.l?.i.o.a.e], and meoauniaea has eight, [m?.o.a.u.ni.a.?.a].
Na?vi 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 (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" (l?ol?u), lolängú "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 [?] (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 have no external inspiration.
TypeLabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
Ejectivepx [p?]tx [t?] kx [k?]
Plosivep [p]t [t] k [k]? [?]
Affricate ts (c) [ts]
Fricativef [f]
v [v]s [s]
z [z] h [h]
Nasalm [m]n [n] ng (g) [?]
Liquid/glidew [w]r [r]
l [l]y [j]
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 skxawng "moron"). However, in addition to appearing before vowels, f ts s may form consonant clusters with any of the unrestricted consonants (the plosives and liquids/glides) apart from ?, making for 39 clusters. Other sequences occur across syllable boundaries, such as Na?vi [na?.vi] and ikran [ik.?an] "banshee".
The plosives p t k are tenuis, as in Spanish or French. In final position, they have no audible release, 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 plosives 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. 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 tsmukan "brother" can be smukan (from aysmukan).
Grammar.
Na?vi has free word order. For example, the English "I see you" (a common greeting in Na?vi), can be as follows in Na?vi:
Oel ngati kameie
Ngati oel kameie
OR
Oel kameie ngati
All forms of "I see you" in Na?vi are completely correct. As sentences become more complex though, 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"
Fìtrr lu sìltsana trr
Sìltsana trr fìtrr lu
In this case, the adjective sìltsan(a) (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:
Fìtrr lu trr asìltsan
More information about this can be found in the Adjectives section.
Nouns.
Nouns in Na?vi show greater number distinctions than those in most 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 common 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. 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 tokx "body" is either aysokx or just sokx.
Masculine and feminine nouns may be distinguished by suffix. There are no articles (words for "a" or "the").
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. The use of such case forms leaves the word order of Na?vi largely free.
There are two other cases?genitive in -yä, dative 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,
Oe-riontuteyal?äng?u
I-topnosefullbe?pej?
"My nose is full (of his distasteful smell)", lit. "As for me, (my) nose is full"; 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 adpositions. Any adposition may occur as either as a preposition 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 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".
Na?vi pronouns encode clusivity. 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.
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 syllable a, which is attached on the side closest to the noun. For example, "a long river" can be expressed either as,
ngim-akilvan
long-attrriver
or as,
kilvana-ngim
riverattr-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:
kilvanngimlu
riverlongbe
"The river is long"
Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for tense and aspect, 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 t?ol?aron, with the infix ?ol?.
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, reflexive, and causative forms, the latter two of which may co-occur with a tense/aspect/mood infix by preceding it. Tenses are past, recent past, present (unmarked), future, and immediate future; aspects are perfective (completed or contained) and imperfective (ongoing or uncontained). The aspectual forms are not found in English but are somewhat like the distinction between 'having done' and 'was doing'.
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 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 (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 kam?ei?e 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 l?äng?u to indicate the speaker's distaste at the experience. Examples with both infix positions filled:
t?ìrm?ar?ei?on [hunt?rec.impv??laud?] "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?] "will hunt": The speaker is anxious about or bored by it
Lexicon
The Na?vi language currently has around 1,500 words. These include a few English loan words such as kunsìp "gunship". The published lexicon, including the odd inflectional form, has been posted online. Additionally, fan communities have attempted to add to the language or learn what already exists. However, as Na?vi is a very modular language, the total number of usable words far exceeds the 1,500 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 Na?vi corpus, such as eltu lefngap "metallic brain" for "computer" and palulukantsyìp "little thanator" for "cat".
James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster Avatar is opening this weekend with much fanfare. As has been widely reported, Cameron enlisted a linguist, Paul Frommer of USC's Marshall School of Business, to create the Na?vi language, spoken by the inhabitants of the alien world Pandora. We first heard about the development of Na?vi nearly three years ago, when Cameron was hyping the as-yet-unnamed language of Pandora as one that would "out-Klingon Klingon." (See my post, "Advances in cinematic xenolinguistics," Jan. 29, 2007.) When I decided to write about Na?vi and other alien tongues of the silver screen for the New York Times Magazine On Language column, I finally got to learn the real story of the language's construction from Paul Frommer himself ("Skxawng!," NYT, Dec. 6, 2009).
Paul generously shared a great deal of material describing Na?vi's phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, hardly any of which found a place in my On Language column. But since there is already tremendous interest in the language, and some less-than-accurate information about it is currently floating around online, I asked Paul if he could write up a formal description of Na?vi as a Language Log guest post. He wasn't able to reveal everything about the language, but what he has sketched out should whet the appetite of even the most diehard xenolinguistics buffs.
[Guest post by Paul Frommer]
Given the interest that?s already been shown in Na?vi, I?m grateful to Ben Zimmer for the opportunity to post a few highlights of the language to Language Log. As will be apparent, the information below is not intended to be anything like a complete description; the Phonetics and Phonology section is the most complete, but the Morphology and Syntax sections are mere sketches. Given my contractual obligations, a more thorough treatment awaits another venue. But I hope this sketch will answer a few questions and perhaps serve to counterbalance some of the erroneous information that has made its way to the Internet. Needless to say, comments are welcome.
Phonetics and Phonology.
Na?vi has 20 consonants, 7 vowels, 4 diphthongs, and 2 syllabic ?pseudovowels,? rr and ll.
1. Consonants.
The consonants are (in the ?official? Na?vi transcription):
Ejectives:pxtxkx
Voiceless Stops:ptk?
Affricate:ts
Voiceless fricatives:fsh
Voiced fricatives:vz
Nasals:mnng
Liquids:r, l
Glides:wy
Note the following:
The red consonants can occur as the first element of a syllable-initial consonant cluster.
The blue consonants can occur in syllable-final position.
Note also:
px, tx, kx, ts, and ng are digraphs representing the three ejectives, the affricate, and the velar nasal respectively.
In the ?scientific? transcription, ts is replaced by c and ng by g. For commercial purposes, however?and also for ease of reading by the actors?the ?official? transcription is preferred.
The letters b, d, j, and q never appear in Na?vi.
2. Vowels, Diphthongs, and ?Pseudovowels?.
Vowels.
Na?vi has a 7-vowel system:
i , ìu
eo
äa
Transcription and phonetics:
i[i]
ì[I]
e[?] Note: always lax
ä[æ]
u[u] or [U]
o[o]
a[a]
Diphthongs.
Na?vi has 4 diphthongs: aw [aw], ew [?w], ay [aj], ey [?j].
3. Syllable structure and phonotactic constraints.
Every syllable has a single vowel or diphthong at its center. Each vowel or diphthong in a word corresponds to a separate syllable. A single vowel or diphthong may be a syllable by itself.
Within syllables, Na?vi vowels and diphthongs can be preceded by either one or two consonants. They can also be followed by one consonant. That is, the syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C), where V represents a vowel or a diphthong. Restrictions on which consonants can occur in which positions are given below.
Initial consonants. Any consonant can occur at the beginning of a syllable.
Consonant clusters. Clusters of two consonants can occur, but only in syllable-initial position and only in the following combinations:
f, s, ts + {p, t, k, px, tx, kx, m, n, ng, r, l, w, y}
There are thus 39 possible initial C-clusters, all of which are attested in the lexicon.
Final consonants. Only certain consonants occur in syllable-final position. These are:
Ejectives:pxtxkx
Stops:ptk?
Nasals:mnng
Liquids:r, l
Pseudovowels. In CV syllables, the liquids l and r can replace the vowel. When they are syllabic they are lengthened (the r is very strongly trilled, the l always front and ?light?) and written ll and rr respectively.
Note: Sequences of stop + liquid, though they cannot occur initially, may be found medially. In such cases, however, a syllable boundary intervenes. Example: ikran ?banshee? divides as ik-ran, not *i-kran.
4. Vowel clusters.
Na?vi allows unlimited sequences of vowels in a word. If no glottal stop intervenes, the vowels in such clusters glide smoothly from one to another. Each such vowel represents a separate syllable.
Examples: tsaleioae (6 syllables), meoauniaea (8 syllables)
5. Phonetic detail and phonology.
Voiceless stops are unaspirated. In final position they are unreleased.
Na?vi r is a flap, as in Spanish pero or Indonesian surat.
Word stress in Na?vi is unpredictable and distinctive. Stress must thus be specified for each word. (In learning materials only, the stressed syllable in a word is underlined.)
E.g. tute ?person?, tute ?female person?
Lenition. Following certain adpositions and prefixes, initial consonants mutate as follows:
px, tx, kx?p, t, k
p, t/ts, k?f, s, h
Glottal stop:
??Ø
8 C?s participate in rule: px, tx, kx, ?, p, t, ts, k.
12 C?s do not: f, s, h, v, z, m, n, ng, r, l, w, y.
Word Classes and Morphology.
1. Nouns.
Nouns are inflected for case and number but only rarely for gender.
Number.
Number (singular, dual, trial, plural) is indicated by prefixes, each of which triggers lenition:
Short plurals: When the plural marker ay- is prefixed to a word beginning with a lenitable consonant, it may be dropped after lenition has occurred.
Example : The plural of tokx ?body? is ay+tokx. Thus we have :
*aytokx ? aysokx ?bodies?
But now the plural is marked redundantly, first by the prefix itself and second by lenition of the initial consonant of the singular. So the ay- may be optionally dropped, yielding tokx ?body? vs. sokx ?bodies?.
Case.
Nouns and pronouns take six cases (counting Topical as a case): Subjective, Agentive, Patientive, Genitive, Dative, Topical. The case system is tripartite?i.e., it distinguishes between intransitive subjects (S), transitive subjects (A), and objects (P). Case morphemes are suffixes, generally with several allomorphs. Changes to the noun base sometimes occur with the Genitive.
The Topical form of a noun or pronoun establishes a loose semantic connection to the clause and has a wide range of uses. It may be translated along the lines of ?with regard to,? ?as for,? ?turning to,? ?concerning,? etc., but it can also appear where a genitive or dative might be expected.
Example:
Oeritapeyäfahewakewongontuteyalängu.
I-TOPfromhissmellaliennosefullis-NEG-ATTITUDE
?My nose is full of his alien smell.?
2. Pronouns.
Like nouns, pronouns exist in singular, dual, trial, and plural forms. In the first person dual, trial, and plural, a distinction is made between inclusive and exclusive forms.
3. Verbs.
Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood/dependency, and speaker attitude, but not for person or number. Verb inflections are effected exclusively through infixes, which are of two types?first position and second position.
With monosyllabic verb roots, first-position infixes simply come before second-position ones. With multisyllabic roots, however, first-position infixes occur in the penultimate syllable and second-position ones in the final syllable.
First-position infixes indicate tense, aspect, or mood; there are also participial and reflexive infixes in this position, the latter being in ?pre-first? position so it can co-occur with other first-position infixes. Second-position infixes indicate speaker attitude?positive orientation, negative orientation, or uncertainty/indirect knowledge. Many of these infixes are optional on the sentence level. (In discourse, however, overt indication of tense or aspect may be required.)
Aspect is perfective or imperfective. Tense has five points on the time line: present, past proximate, past general, future proximate, future general. Verbs can be inflected for tense alone, aspect alone, or a combination of tense and aspect.
Selected examples:
Root: taron ?hunt?
Note: English translations are only approximate and represent one of several possibilities.
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?
Many more such forms exist.
Including second-position infixes:
tìrmareion ?was just now hunting (and the speaker feels positive about it)?
tayarängon ?will hunt (and the speaker feels negative about it)?
In the last two examples, the root is indicated in red. Such forms raise an interesting question: To what extent can a root be obscured by inflections and still be recognizable? When Na?vi listeners hear tìrmareion, for example, do they immediately recognize it as a form of the verb taron? By the same token, are speakers able to produce such forms spontaneously? I?d like to think the answer to both questions is yes, but the matter requires further study; we need more samples of discourse from Pandora!
4. Adjectives.
Adjectives are invariant and undeclined. A derivational prefix forms adjectives out of other parts of speech.
5. Adpositions.
These can either precede or follow their heads with no semantic distinction; in the latter case, they?re bound to the noun or pronoun. E.g., ?with you? = hu nga or ngahu.
Certain adpositions, when in pre-nominal position, trigger lenition. There?s no predicting which do and which don?t?they simply have to be learned. (Adpositions are marked in the lexicon as either ADP+ or ADP-.)
Because of the ?short plural? phenomenon, ADP+ adpositions can yield ambiguous structures. Example: mì ?in? is ADP+; does mì sokx mean ?in the body? or ?in the bodies?? The language has developed ways of dealing with these potential ambiguities.
Syntax.
The most notable aspect of Na?vi syntax is the freedom of word order. The case system allows all 6 sequences of S, O, and V. Additionally, adjectives, genitives, and relative clauses can either precede or follow their heads.
Nouns and adjectives are tied together by the morpheme a, which comes between them and is attached as a bound morpheme to the adjective. For example, ?long river? is either ngima kilvan or kilvan angim.
There?s obviously a lot more to say about syntax?for example, how the language handles subordination and complementation. That will be for another time.
*
Inglish Site.23.
*
TO THE THRISE HO-
NOVRABLE AND EVER LY-
VING VERTVES OF SYR PHILLIP
SYDNEY KNIGHT, SYR JAMES JESUS SINGLETON, SYR CANARIS, SYR LAVRENTI BERIA ; AND TO THE
RIGHT HONORABLE AND OTHERS WHAT-
SOEVER, WHO LIVING LOVED THEM,
AND BEING DEAD GIVE THEM
THEIRE DVE.
***
In the beginning there is darkness. The screen erupts in blue, then a cascade of thick, white hexadecimal numbers and cracked language, ?UnusedStk? and ?AllocMem.? Black screen cedes to blue to white and a pair of scales appear, crossed by a sword, both images drawn in the jagged, bitmapped graphics of Windows 1.0-era clip-art?light grey and yellow on a background of light cyan. Blue text proclaims, ?God on tap!?
*
Introduction.
Yes i am getting a little Mobi-Literate(ML) by experimenting literary on my Mobile Phone. Peoplecall it Typographical Laziness(TL).
The first accidental entries for the this part of this encyclopedia.
*
This is TempleOS V2.17, the welcome screen explains, a ?Public Domain Operating System? produced by Trivial Solutions of Las Vegas, Nevada. It greets the user with a riot of 16-color, scrolling, blinking text; depending on your frame of reference, it might recall ?DESQview, the ?Commodore 64, or a host of early DOS-based graphical user interfaces. In style if not in specifics, it evokes a particular era, a time when the then-new concept of ?personal computing? necessarily meant programming and tinkering and breaking things.
*
Index.
96.Naga or NAGA.
97.Aragami.
98.Na?vi language.
*
96.Naga or NAGA.
Naga or NAGA may refer to:
1.N?ga, a group of serpent deities in Hindu and Buddhist mythology.
2.Phaya Naga, mythical creatures. believed to live in the Laotian stretch of the Mekong River.
3.Naga fireball, a phenomenon seen along the Mekong.
N?ga (IAST: n?gá, Burmese pronunciation: [n??á]) is the Sanskrit and P?li word for a deity or class of entity or being, taking the form of a very great snake?specifically the king cobra, found in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism. A female N?ga is a n?g? or n?gi??.
In Sanskrit, a n?gá (???) is a cobra, the Indian cobra (Naja naja). A synonym for n?gá is pha?in (?????). There are several words for "snake" in general, and one of the very commonly used ones is sarpá (????). Sometimes the word n?gá is also used generically to mean "snake". The word is cognate with English 'snake', Germanic: *sn?k-a-, Proto-IE: *(s)n?g-o-.
In the great epic Mahabharata, the depiction of nagas tends toward the negative. An epic calls them "persecutors of all creatures", and tells us "the snakes were of virulent poison, great prowess and excess of strength, and ever bent on biting other creatures" (Book I: Adi Parva, Section 20). At some points within the story, nagas are important players in many of the events narrated in the epic, frequently no more evil nor deceitful than the other protagonists, and sometimes on the side of good.
The epic frequently characterizes nagas as having a mixture of human and serpent-like traits. Sometimes it characterizes them as having human traits at one time, and as having serpent-like traits at another. For example, the story of how the naga prince Shesha came to hold the world on his head begins with a scene in which he appears as a dedicated human ascetic, "with knotted hair, clad in rags, and his flesh, skin, and sinews dried up owing to the hard penances he was practising." Brahma is pleased with Shesha, and entrusts him with the duty of carrying the world. At that point in the story, Shesha begins to exhibit the attributes of a serpent. He enters into a hole in the Earth and slithers all the way to bottom, where he then loads the Earth onto his head. (Book I: Adi Parva, Section 36.)
Enmity with Garuda.
The great nemesis of the nagas in the Mahabharata is the gigantic eagle-king Garuda. Garuda and the nagas began life as cousins. The sage Kasyapa had two wives (amongst his 13 wives, all prajapati Daksha's daughters), Kadru and Vinata, the former of whom desired many offspring, and the latter of whom desired few but powerful offspring. Each got her wish. Kadru laid 1000 eggs which hatched into snakes, and Vinata laid two, which hatched into the charioteer of Surya the sun god and Garuda. Through a foolish bet, Vinata became enslaved to her sister, and as a result Vinata's son Garuda was required to do the bidding of the snakes. Through compliant, he chafed and built up a grudge that he would never relinquish. When he asked the snakes what he would have to do in order to release his mother, Vinata, from her bondage, they told him he would have to bring them amrita, the elixir of immortality. Garuda stole the elixir from the gods and brought it to the serpents in fulfillment of their requirement, but through a ruse prevented them from partaking of it and achieving immortality. From that point onward, he regarded them as enemies and as food. (Book I: Adi Parva, Sections 16ff.)
Kadru.
Manasa, the goddess of serpents.
Kadru, the ancestral mother of snakes, made a bet with her sister Vinata, the stakes being that the loser would be enslaved to the winner. Eager to secure victory, Kadru requested the cooperation of her offspring in order to fix the bet so that Kadru would win. When her offspring balked at the request, Kadru grew angry and cursed them to die a fiery death in the snake-sacrifice of King Janamejaya, the son of Parikshit, who was the son of Abhimanyu the son of Arjuna. The king of the snakes Vasuki was aware of the curse, and knew that his brethren would need a hero to rescue them from it. He approached the renowned ascetic Jaratkaru with a proposal of marriage to a snake-goddess, Manasa, Vasuki's own sister. Out of the union of the ascetic and the snake-maiden was born "a son of the splendor of a celestial child." This son was named Astika, and he was to be the savior of the snakes.
In accordance with Kadru's curse, Janamejaya prepared a snake sacrifice of a type described in the scriptures, the Puranas. He erected a sacrificial platform and hired priests and other professionals needed for the rites. Following the proper form, the priests lit the sacrificial fire, duly fed it with clarified butter, uttered the required mantras, and began calling the names of snakes. The power of the rite was such that the named snakes were summoned to the fire and were consumed by it. As the sacrifice took on genocidal proportions, Astika came to the rescue. He approached Janamejaya and praised the sacrifice in such eloquent terms that the king offered to grant him a boon of his choosing. Astika promptly requested that the sacrifice be terminated. Though initially regretful of his offer, Janamejaya was true to his word, and the sacrifice came to an end. (Book I: Adi Parva, Sections 13-58.)
Stories involving the n?gas are still very much a part of contemporary cultural traditions in predominantly Hindu regions of Asia (India, Nepal, and the island of Bali). In India, n?gas are considered nature spirits and the protectors of springs, wells and rivers. They bring rain, and thus fertility, but are also thought to bring disasters such as floods and drought.
N?gas are snakes that may take human form. They tend to be very curious. According to traditions n?gas are only malevolent to humans when they have been mistreated. They are susceptible to mankind's disrespectful actions in relation to the environment. They are also associated with waters?rivers, lakes, seas, and wells?and are generally regarded as guardians of treasure.
They are objects of great reverence in some parts of South India, where it is believed that they bring fertility and prosperity to their venerators. Expensive and grand rituals like the Nagamandala and the N?g?r?dhane are conducted in their honor.
Another example comes from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Women gather at Hindu temples to worship n?gas (considered snake goddesses in south Indian Hinduism). At the temples, the n?gas take the form of snakes carved into stones. Hindu women gather around the stones to make offerings to the female snake goddesses. These goddesses are believed to make women fertile, protect the women and her family, and bring prosperity. The snake goddess is represented as an anthill or a snake that lives inside an anthill or stones with snake carvings on them. In each form, women of Tamil Nadu honor the n?gas with offerings. Hindus in Tamil believe a person who harms or kills a snake will be inflicted with a condition known as n?ga dösam which causes infertility and delays in marriage. N?ga dösam can only be reversed through varying degrees of worship to n?ga.
A third example comes from certain communities called N?gavan??, including the Nairs of Kerala and the ethnically related Jain Bunts of Karnataka. These communities trace their ancestry to n?gas.
N?gas live in P?t?la, the seventh of the nether dimensions or realms. They are the children of Kashyapa and Kadru. Among the prominent n?gas of Hinduism are Manasa, the nagaraja or King of the n?gas ?e?a and Vasuki.
N?gas also carry the elixir of life and immortality. Garuda once brought it to them and put a cup with elixir on kusha grass but it was taken away by Indra. The n?gas licked the kusha grass, but in doing so cut their tongues on the grass, and since then their tongues have been forked.
Vishnu is originally portrayed in the form sheltered by a ?e?an?ga or reclining on ?e?a, but the iconography has been extended to other deities as well. The serpent is a common feature in Ganesha iconography and appears in many forms: around the neck, use as a sacred thread (Sanskrit: yajñyopav?ta) wrapped around the stomach as a belt, held in a hand, coiled at the ankles, or as a throne. Shiva is often shown garlanded with a snake. Maehle (2006: p. 297) states that "Patanjali is thought to be a manifestation of the serpent of eternity".
Traditions about n?gas are also very common in all the Buddhist countries of Asia. In many countries, the n?ga concept has been merged with local traditions of great and wise serpents or dragons such as the Burmese nat (Burmese: ????; MLCTS: IPA: [na?]). In Tibetan religion, the n?ga was equated with the klu (Tibetan: ????) that dwell in lakes or underground streams and guard treasure. In China, the n?ga was equated with the Chinese dragon (Chinese: ?; pinyin: lóng).
The Buddhist n?ga generally has the form of a great cobra, usually with a single head but sometimes with many. At least some of the n?gas are capable of using magic powers to transform themselves into a human semblance. In Buddhist painting, the n?ga is sometimes portrayed as a human being with a snake or dragon extending over his head. One n?ga, in human form, attempted to become a monk; when telling it that such ordination was impossible, the Buddha told it how to ensure that it would be reborn a human, able to become a monk.
In the "Devadatta" chapter of the Lotus Sutra, the daughter of the dragon king, an eight-year-old longnü (n?ga), after listening to Mañju?r? preach the Lotus Sutra, transforms into a male Bodhisattva and immediately reaches full enlightenment. This tale appears to reinforce the viewpoint prevalent in Mahayana scriptures that a male body is required for Buddhahood, even if a being is so advanced in realization that they can magically transform their body at will and demonstrate the emptiness of the physical form itself.
N?gas are believed to both live on Mount Meru, among the other minor deities, and in various parts of the human-inhabited earth. Some of them are water-dwellers, living in streams or the ocean; others are earth-dwellers, living in underground caverns.
The n?gas are the servants of Vir?p?k?a (P?li: Vir?pakkha), one of the Four Heavenly Kings who guards the western direction. They act as a guard upon Mount Sumeru, protecting the d?vas of Tr?yastri??a from attack by the as?ras.
Among the notable n?gas of Buddhist tradition is Mucalinda, N?gar?ja and protector of the Buddha. In the Vinaya Sutra (I, 3), shortly after his enlightenment, the Buddha is meditating in a forest when a great storm arises, but graciously, King Mucalinda gives shelter to the Buddha from the storm by covering the Buddha's head with his seven snake heads. Then the king takes the form of a young Brahmin and renders the Buddha homage.
It is noteworthy that the two chief disciples of the Buddha, Sariputta and Moggall?na are both referred to as Mah?n?ga or "great n?ga". Some of the most important figures in Buddhist history symbolize nagas in their names such as Dign?ga, N?g?rs?na, and, although other etymons are assigned to his name, N?g?rjuna.
In the Vajray?na and Mah?siddha traditions, nagas in their half-human form are depicted holding a naga-jewel, kumbhas of amrita, or a gter-ma (Tibetan: ???????, Wylie: gter ma, Lhasa dialect IPA: [te?m?]; "hidden treasure, concealed text") that had been elementally encoded by adepts.
Norbu (1999: p.?) states that according to tradition, the Prajñap?ramita gter-ma are held to have been conferred upon N?g?rjuna by the Nagaraja, who had been guarding them at the bottom of a lake.
For Malay sailors, n?gas are a type of dragon with many heads; in Thailand and Java, the n?ga is a wealthy underworld deity. In Laos they are beaked water serpents.
Thailand.
In Thailand Nagas figure in some stories of the Thai folklore and are represented as well in Buddhist temples as architectural elements. Phaya Naga is a well-known Naga said to live in the Mekong river. Thai television soap opera Manisawat (???????) is based on a naga legend.
Lake Chinni.
In Malay and Orang Asli traditions, the lake Chinni, located in Pahang is home to a naga called Sri Gumum. Depending on legend versions, her predecessor Sri Pahang or her son left the lake and later fought a naga called Sri Kemboja. Kemboja is the former name of what is Cambodia. Like the naga legends there, there are stories about an ancient empire in lake Chinni, although the stories are not linked to the naga legends.
Cambodia.
Cambodian Naga at the Royal Palace in Phnom Penh.
In a Cambodian legend, the n?ga were a reptilian race of beings under the King Kaliya who possessed a large empire or kingdom in the Pacific Ocean region until they were chased away by the Garuda and sought refuge in India. It was here Kaliya's daughter married an Indian Brahmana named Kaundinya, and from their union sprang the Cambodian people. Therefore Cambodians possess a slogan "Born from the N?ga". As a dowry, Kaliya drank from an area of the waters of Southeast Asia and exposed the land for his daughter and son-in-law to inhabit and thus, Cambodia was created.
The Seven-Headed N?ga serpents depicted as statues on Cambodian temples, such as Angkor Wat, apparently represent the seven races within N?ga society, which has a mythological, or symbolic, association with "the seven colors of the rainbow". Furthermore, Cambodian N?ga possess numerological symbolism in the number of their heads. Odd-headed N?ga symbolise the Male Energy, Infinity, Timelessness, and Immortality. This is because, numerologically, all odd numbers come from One (1). Even-headed N?ga are said to be "Female, representing Physicality, Mortality, Temporality, and the Earth."
Naga guarding Anouvong's Wat Sisaket in Vientiane.
Laos.
Naga are believed to live in the Laotian stretch of the Mekong river or estuaries. Lao mythology maintains that the Naga are the protectors of Vientiane, and by extension, the Lao state. The Naga association was most clearly articulated during and immediately after the reign of Anouvong. An important poem from this period San Lup Bo Sun (or San Leupphasun Lao: ?????????) discusses relations between Laos and Siam in a veiled manner, using the Naga and the Garuda, to represent Laos and Siam, respectively. The Naga is incorporated extensively into Lao iconography, and features prominently in Lao culture throughout the length of the country, not only in Vientiane.
Mekong.
Naga emerging from the mouth of a Makara in the style of a Chinese dragon
The legend of the N?ga is a strong and sacred belief held by Thai and Lao people living along the Mekong River. Many pay their respects to the river because they believe the N?ga still rule in it, and locals hold an annual sacrifice for the N?ga. Each ceremony depends on how each village earns its living from the Mekong River?for instance, through fishing or transport. Local residents believe that the N?ga can protect them from danger, so they are likely to make a sacrifice to N?ga before taking a boat trip along the Mekong River.
Also, every year on the night of the 15th day of 11th month in the Lao lunar calendar at the end of Vassa, an unusual phenomenon occurs in the area of the Mekong River stretching over 20 kilometres between Pak-Ngeum and Phonephisai districts in Nong Khai province, Thailand. Fireballs appear to rise from the river into the nighttime sky. Local villagers believe that N?ga under Mekong River shoot the fireballs into the air to celebrate the end of Vassa, because N?ga meditate during this time.
In 2000, Richard Freeman from the Centre for Fortean Zoology visited the area and talked with witnesses who claimed to have seen gigantic snakes far larger than any python. The general description was of a 60 foot serpent with black scales that had a greenish sheen. Freeman speculated that the n?ga legend was based on a real animal, possibly a giant madtsoiid snake.
A popular photograph on display in bars, restaurants, guesthouses, and markets around Thailand captioned, Queen of Nagas seized by American Army at Mekhong River, Laos Military Base on June 27, 1973 with the length of 7.80 meters is a hoax. The photograph is actually that taken by USN LT DeeDee Van Wormer, of an oarfish found in late 1996 by US Navy SEAL trainees on the coast of Coronado, California.
Java.
Illustration of Antaboga.
In Javanese culture, a Naga is a crowned giant magical serpent, sometimes winged. It is similarly derived from the Shiva-Hinduism tradition, merged with Javanese animism. The concept of Naga is prevalent in the Hindu period of Indonesia, before the introduction of Islam. In a wayang theater story a snake (N?ga) god named Sanghyang Anantaboga or Antaboga is a guardian deity in the bowels of the earth.
Philippines.
In many parts of pre-Hispanic Philippines, the naga is used as an ornament in the hilt ends of longswords locally known as kampilans.
Notable Naga.
Aadhi-Sesha, ("Limitless-Eternal") the world serpent with a thousand heads.
Balarama, origin of Ananta-Sesha.
Bakunawa, Naga is also present in the Kapampangan polytheistic beliefs, such as Lakandanum see Deities of Philippine mythology.
Kaliya, a snake conquered by Krishna.
Karkotaka controls weather.
Manasa, the Hindu goddess of Nagas and curer of snake-bite and sister of Vasuki.
Mucalinda protects the Buddha.
Padmavati, the N?g? queen & companion of Dharanendra.
Paravataksha, his sword causes earthquakes and his roar caused thunder.
Shwe Nabay (Naga Medaw), a goddess or a Nat in Burmese animistic mythology, she was believed to have married a Naga and died from heartbreak after he had left her.
Takshaka, king of the N?gas.
Ulupi, a companion of Arjuna in the epic Mahabharata.
Vasuki, king of the Nagas who helped the devas recover amrita from the Ocean of Milk.
The dragon king of the western sea in the Chinese classical novel Journey to the West becomes a naga after completing his journey with Xuanzang.
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97.Aragami.
An Aragami (?? "violent god"/"Fierce Spirit"), while apparently only one being, is actually a colony of hundreds of thousands of semi-sentient single-celled organisms under a cell core; that is, one Aragami is a superorganism with swarm intelligence, taking the form of a variety of lifeforms, plant or animal, organic or artificial, even real or mythical. These cells, called "Oracle Cells", are the only type of cell in an Aragami forming flesh, blood and bone all the same. Oracle cells have a devouring nature which caused them to spread and devour everything in their path. However, Oracle cells do not evolve like normal cells do. Each Oracle cell in existence is exactly the same as it was before the outbreak; i.e., these cells merely adapt to fulfill specific roles assigned to them from the cell core. The core is the command center over the entire colony while the individual groups of cells form working parts of the entity such as an eye, fang, or tail. The only way to truly kill an Aragami is to extract the core, thus making all the normal cells lose their cohesion; a society with a hive intelligence cannot survive without its leading mind, and so the body of an Aragami will dissipate into nothingness if it loses its mind. The only weapons created by humanity that capable of doing this (whilst still being portable) are the God Arcs (which are actually weaponized and wieldable Aragami), wielded by the God Eaters/RahLizah, which extract it by "devouring" a specific section of an Aragami's body, which contains the core.
Generally violent in nature, Aragami only crave to consume. This is how they can adapt and evolve to fit new surroundings; they can devour native scenery and Aragami in the area until the Aragami's cells adapt to the conditions. Their desire to consume any sort or matter is controlled by the Bias Factor, which scientists from Fenrir work day and night on to perfect shielding against Aragami attacks; an Aragami will refrain from eating anything that is highly similar to its own being, unless they are extremely desperate, turned rogue, or became somewhat far more unstable. This is a behavior in Oracle cells that results in different Aragami of similar characteristics, such as Vajras, Hannibals, Marduks, and so on. Notably, the Aragami seem to be starting to evolve in new ways: some newer Aragami are starting to resemble humans.
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98.Na?vi language.
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 USC Marshall School of Business with a doctorate in linguistics. Na?vi was designed to fit James Cameron's conception of what the language should sound like in the film, to be realistically learnable by the fictional human characters of the film, and to be pronounceable by the actors, but to not closely resemble any single human language.
When the film was released in 2009, Na?vi 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 2000 words and has published the grammar, thus making Na?vi a relatively complete and learnable language.
The Na?vi 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 thirty 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 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 "Polynesian 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 consonants. Of the three, Cameron liked the sound of the ejectives most. His choice established the phonology that Frommer would use in developing the rest of the Na?vi language ? morphology, syntax, and an initial vocabulary ? a task that took six months.
The Na?vi vocabulary was created by Frommer as needed for the script. By the time casting for Avatar began, the language was sufficiently developed that actors were required to read and pronounce Na?vi dialogue during auditions. During shooting Frommer worked with the cast, helping them understand their Na?vi dialogue and advising them on their Na?vi pronunciation, stress, and intonation. Actors would often make mistakes in speaking Na?vi. In some cases, those mistakes were plausibly explained as ones their human characters would make; 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 Na?vi words that had not been needed for the film script and thus had not yet been invented. Frommer also translated into Na?vi four sets of song lyrics that had been written by Cameron in English, and he helped vocalists with their pronunciation during the recording of James Horner's Avatar score. At the time of the film's release on December 18, 2009, the Na?vi vocabulary consisted of approximately 1000 words.
Work on the Na?vi 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. Apparently, 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. Na?viteri has been the source of the vast majority of Na?vi growth independent of Frommer's contract with 20th Century Fox.
The Na?vi 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 learnt 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 Na?vi dialogue without unreasonable difficulty. The language in its final form contains several elements which are uncommon in human languages, such as verbal conjugation using infixes. All Na?vi linguistic elements are found in human languages, but the combination is unique.
Phonology and orthography.
Na?vi lacks voiced plosives like [b] [d] [?], but has the ejective consonants [p?] [t?] [k?], 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 [f?ap] "metal".
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 script for the actors of Avatar. Some words include: zìsìt "year", fpeio "ceremonial challenge", ?awve "first" (?aw "one"), muiä "fair", tireaioang "spirit animal", tskxe "rock", kllpxìltu "territory", uniltìrantokx "avatar" (dream-walk-body).
Vowels.
There are seven monophthong vowels:
Typefrontback.
Highi [i]u [u]
~ [?]
ì [?]
Middlee [?]o [o]
Lowä [æ]a [a]
as well as four diphthongs: aw [aw], ew [?w], ay [aj], ey [?j], and two syllabic consonants: ll [l?] and rr [r?], 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 trilled, and the ll is "light", never a "dark" (velarized) *[??].
These vowels may occur in sequences, as in the Polynesian languages, Swahili, and Japanese. Each vowel counts as a syllable, so that tsaleioae has six syllables, [tsa.l?.i.o.a.e], and meoauniaea has eight, [m?.o.a.u.ni.a.?.a].
Na?vi 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 (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" (l?ol?u), lolängú "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 [?] (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 have no external inspiration.
TypeLabialAlveolarPalatalVelarGlottal
Ejectivepx [p?]tx [t?] kx [k?]
Plosivep [p]t [t] k [k]? [?]
Affricate ts (c) [ts]
Fricativef [f]
v [v]s [s]
z [z] h [h]
Nasalm [m]n [n] ng (g) [?]
Liquid/glidew [w]r [r]
l [l]y [j]
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 skxawng "moron"). However, in addition to appearing before vowels, f ts s may form consonant clusters with any of the unrestricted consonants (the plosives and liquids/glides) apart from ?, making for 39 clusters. Other sequences occur across syllable boundaries, such as Na?vi [na?.vi] and ikran [ik.?an] "banshee".
The plosives p t k are tenuis, as in Spanish or French. In final position, they have no audible release, 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 plosives 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. 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 tsmukan "brother" can be smukan (from aysmukan).
Grammar.
Na?vi has free word order. For example, the English "I see you" (a common greeting in Na?vi), can be as follows in Na?vi:
Oel ngati kameie
Ngati oel kameie
OR
Oel kameie ngati
All forms of "I see you" in Na?vi are completely correct. As sentences become more complex though, 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"
Fìtrr lu sìltsana trr
Sìltsana trr fìtrr lu
In this case, the adjective sìltsan(a) (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:
Fìtrr lu trr asìltsan
More information about this can be found in the Adjectives section.
Nouns.
Nouns in Na?vi show greater number distinctions than those in most 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 common 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. 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 tokx "body" is either aysokx or just sokx.
Masculine and feminine nouns may be distinguished by suffix. There are no articles (words for "a" or "the").
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. The use of such case forms leaves the word order of Na?vi largely free.
There are two other cases?genitive in -yä, dative 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,
Oe-riontuteyal?äng?u
I-topnosefullbe?pej?
"My nose is full (of his distasteful smell)", lit. "As for me, (my) nose is full"; 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 adpositions. Any adposition may occur as either as a preposition 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 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".
Na?vi pronouns encode clusivity. 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.
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 syllable a, which is attached on the side closest to the noun. For example, "a long river" can be expressed either as,
ngim-akilvan
long-attrriver
or as,
kilvana-ngim
riverattr-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:
kilvanngimlu
riverlongbe
"The river is long"
Verbs
Verbs are conjugated for tense and aspect, 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 t?ol?aron, with the infix ?ol?.
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, reflexive, and causative forms, the latter two of which may co-occur with a tense/aspect/mood infix by preceding it. Tenses are past, recent past, present (unmarked), future, and immediate future; aspects are perfective (completed or contained) and imperfective (ongoing or uncontained). The aspectual forms are not found in English but are somewhat like the distinction between 'having done' and 'was doing'.
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 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 (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 kam?ei?e 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 l?äng?u to indicate the speaker's distaste at the experience. Examples with both infix positions filled:
t?ìrm?ar?ei?on [hunt?rec.impv??laud?] "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?] "will hunt": The speaker is anxious about or bored by it
Lexicon
The Na?vi language currently has around 1,500 words. These include a few English loan words such as kunsìp "gunship". The published lexicon, including the odd inflectional form, has been posted online. Additionally, fan communities have attempted to add to the language or learn what already exists. However, as Na?vi is a very modular language, the total number of usable words far exceeds the 1,500 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 Na?vi corpus, such as eltu lefngap "metallic brain" for "computer" and palulukantsyìp "little thanator" for "cat".
James Cameron's sci-fi blockbuster Avatar is opening this weekend with much fanfare. As has been widely reported, Cameron enlisted a linguist, Paul Frommer of USC's Marshall School of Business, to create the Na?vi language, spoken by the inhabitants of the alien world Pandora. We first heard about the development of Na?vi nearly three years ago, when Cameron was hyping the as-yet-unnamed language of Pandora as one that would "out-Klingon Klingon." (See my post, "Advances in cinematic xenolinguistics," Jan. 29, 2007.) When I decided to write about Na?vi and other alien tongues of the silver screen for the New York Times Magazine On Language column, I finally got to learn the real story of the language's construction from Paul Frommer himself ("Skxawng!," NYT, Dec. 6, 2009).
Paul generously shared a great deal of material describing Na?vi's phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax, hardly any of which found a place in my On Language column. But since there is already tremendous interest in the language, and some less-than-accurate information about it is currently floating around online, I asked Paul if he could write up a formal description of Na?vi as a Language Log guest post. He wasn't able to reveal everything about the language, but what he has sketched out should whet the appetite of even the most diehard xenolinguistics buffs.
[Guest post by Paul Frommer]
Given the interest that?s already been shown in Na?vi, I?m grateful to Ben Zimmer for the opportunity to post a few highlights of the language to Language Log. As will be apparent, the information below is not intended to be anything like a complete description; the Phonetics and Phonology section is the most complete, but the Morphology and Syntax sections are mere sketches. Given my contractual obligations, a more thorough treatment awaits another venue. But I hope this sketch will answer a few questions and perhaps serve to counterbalance some of the erroneous information that has made its way to the Internet. Needless to say, comments are welcome.
Phonetics and Phonology.
Na?vi has 20 consonants, 7 vowels, 4 diphthongs, and 2 syllabic ?pseudovowels,? rr and ll.
1. Consonants.
The consonants are (in the ?official? Na?vi transcription):
Ejectives:pxtxkx
Voiceless Stops:ptk?
Affricate:ts
Voiceless fricatives:fsh
Voiced fricatives:vz
Nasals:mnng
Liquids:r, l
Glides:wy
Note the following:
The red consonants can occur as the first element of a syllable-initial consonant cluster.
The blue consonants can occur in syllable-final position.
Note also:
px, tx, kx, ts, and ng are digraphs representing the three ejectives, the affricate, and the velar nasal respectively.
In the ?scientific? transcription, ts is replaced by c and ng by g. For commercial purposes, however?and also for ease of reading by the actors?the ?official? transcription is preferred.
The letters b, d, j, and q never appear in Na?vi.
2. Vowels, Diphthongs, and ?Pseudovowels?.
Vowels.
Na?vi has a 7-vowel system:
i , ìu
eo
äa
Transcription and phonetics:
i[i]
ì[I]
e[?] Note: always lax
ä[æ]
u[u] or [U]
o[o]
a[a]
Diphthongs.
Na?vi has 4 diphthongs: aw [aw], ew [?w], ay [aj], ey [?j].
3. Syllable structure and phonotactic constraints.
Every syllable has a single vowel or diphthong at its center. Each vowel or diphthong in a word corresponds to a separate syllable. A single vowel or diphthong may be a syllable by itself.
Within syllables, Na?vi vowels and diphthongs can be preceded by either one or two consonants. They can also be followed by one consonant. That is, the syllable structure is (C)(C)V(C), where V represents a vowel or a diphthong. Restrictions on which consonants can occur in which positions are given below.
Initial consonants. Any consonant can occur at the beginning of a syllable.
Consonant clusters. Clusters of two consonants can occur, but only in syllable-initial position and only in the following combinations:
f, s, ts + {p, t, k, px, tx, kx, m, n, ng, r, l, w, y}
There are thus 39 possible initial C-clusters, all of which are attested in the lexicon.
Final consonants. Only certain consonants occur in syllable-final position. These are:
Ejectives:pxtxkx
Stops:ptk?
Nasals:mnng
Liquids:r, l
Pseudovowels. In CV syllables, the liquids l and r can replace the vowel. When they are syllabic they are lengthened (the r is very strongly trilled, the l always front and ?light?) and written ll and rr respectively.
Note: Sequences of stop + liquid, though they cannot occur initially, may be found medially. In such cases, however, a syllable boundary intervenes. Example: ikran ?banshee? divides as ik-ran, not *i-kran.
4. Vowel clusters.
Na?vi allows unlimited sequences of vowels in a word. If no glottal stop intervenes, the vowels in such clusters glide smoothly from one to another. Each such vowel represents a separate syllable.
Examples: tsaleioae (6 syllables), meoauniaea (8 syllables)
5. Phonetic detail and phonology.
Voiceless stops are unaspirated. In final position they are unreleased.
Na?vi r is a flap, as in Spanish pero or Indonesian surat.
Word stress in Na?vi is unpredictable and distinctive. Stress must thus be specified for each word. (In learning materials only, the stressed syllable in a word is underlined.)
E.g. tute ?person?, tute ?female person?
Lenition. Following certain adpositions and prefixes, initial consonants mutate as follows:
px, tx, kx?p, t, k
p, t/ts, k?f, s, h
Glottal stop:
??Ø
8 C?s participate in rule: px, tx, kx, ?, p, t, ts, k.
12 C?s do not: f, s, h, v, z, m, n, ng, r, l, w, y.
Word Classes and Morphology.
1. Nouns.
Nouns are inflected for case and number but only rarely for gender.
Number.
Number (singular, dual, trial, plural) is indicated by prefixes, each of which triggers lenition:
Short plurals: When the plural marker ay- is prefixed to a word beginning with a lenitable consonant, it may be dropped after lenition has occurred.
Example : The plural of tokx ?body? is ay+tokx. Thus we have :
*aytokx ? aysokx ?bodies?
But now the plural is marked redundantly, first by the prefix itself and second by lenition of the initial consonant of the singular. So the ay- may be optionally dropped, yielding tokx ?body? vs. sokx ?bodies?.
Case.
Nouns and pronouns take six cases (counting Topical as a case): Subjective, Agentive, Patientive, Genitive, Dative, Topical. The case system is tripartite?i.e., it distinguishes between intransitive subjects (S), transitive subjects (A), and objects (P). Case morphemes are suffixes, generally with several allomorphs. Changes to the noun base sometimes occur with the Genitive.
The Topical form of a noun or pronoun establishes a loose semantic connection to the clause and has a wide range of uses. It may be translated along the lines of ?with regard to,? ?as for,? ?turning to,? ?concerning,? etc., but it can also appear where a genitive or dative might be expected.
Example:
Oeritapeyäfahewakewongontuteyalängu.
I-TOPfromhissmellaliennosefullis-NEG-ATTITUDE
?My nose is full of his alien smell.?
2. Pronouns.
Like nouns, pronouns exist in singular, dual, trial, and plural forms. In the first person dual, trial, and plural, a distinction is made between inclusive and exclusive forms.
3. Verbs.
Verbs are inflected for tense, aspect, mood/dependency, and speaker attitude, but not for person or number. Verb inflections are effected exclusively through infixes, which are of two types?first position and second position.
With monosyllabic verb roots, first-position infixes simply come before second-position ones. With multisyllabic roots, however, first-position infixes occur in the penultimate syllable and second-position ones in the final syllable.
First-position infixes indicate tense, aspect, or mood; there are also participial and reflexive infixes in this position, the latter being in ?pre-first? position so it can co-occur with other first-position infixes. Second-position infixes indicate speaker attitude?positive orientation, negative orientation, or uncertainty/indirect knowledge. Many of these infixes are optional on the sentence level. (In discourse, however, overt indication of tense or aspect may be required.)
Aspect is perfective or imperfective. Tense has five points on the time line: present, past proximate, past general, future proximate, future general. Verbs can be inflected for tense alone, aspect alone, or a combination of tense and aspect.
Selected examples:
Root: taron ?hunt?
Note: English translations are only approximate and represent one of several possibilities.
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?
Many more such forms exist.
Including second-position infixes:
tìrmareion ?was just now hunting (and the speaker feels positive about it)?
tayarängon ?will hunt (and the speaker feels negative about it)?
In the last two examples, the root is indicated in red. Such forms raise an interesting question: To what extent can a root be obscured by inflections and still be recognizable? When Na?vi listeners hear tìrmareion, for example, do they immediately recognize it as a form of the verb taron? By the same token, are speakers able to produce such forms spontaneously? I?d like to think the answer to both questions is yes, but the matter requires further study; we need more samples of discourse from Pandora!
4. Adjectives.
Adjectives are invariant and undeclined. A derivational prefix forms adjectives out of other parts of speech.
5. Adpositions.
These can either precede or follow their heads with no semantic distinction; in the latter case, they?re bound to the noun or pronoun. E.g., ?with you? = hu nga or ngahu.
Certain adpositions, when in pre-nominal position, trigger lenition. There?s no predicting which do and which don?t?they simply have to be learned. (Adpositions are marked in the lexicon as either ADP+ or ADP-.)
Because of the ?short plural? phenomenon, ADP+ adpositions can yield ambiguous structures. Example: mì ?in? is ADP+; does mì sokx mean ?in the body? or ?in the bodies?? The language has developed ways of dealing with these potential ambiguities.
Syntax.
The most notable aspect of Na?vi syntax is the freedom of word order. The case system allows all 6 sequences of S, O, and V. Additionally, adjectives, genitives, and relative clauses can either precede or follow their heads.
Nouns and adjectives are tied together by the morpheme a, which comes between them and is attached as a bound morpheme to the adjective. For example, ?long river? is either ngima kilvan or kilvan angim.
There?s obviously a lot more to say about syntax?for example, how the language handles subordination and complementation. That will be for another time.
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