Naʼvi language facts for kids

The Naʼvi language (Naʼvi: Lìʼfya leNaʼvi) is a made-up language. It was created for the 2009 movie Avatar. In the Avatar movies, the Naʼvi language is spoken by the Naʼvi. They are a group of smart human-like beings who live on the moon Pandora.

A professor named Paul Frommer created the language. He teaches at the USC and knows a lot about languages. Naʼvi was designed to sound exactly how the movie's director, James Cameron, wanted it to. It had to be a language that the human characters in the movie could learn. Also, the actors needed to be able to say the words easily. But it also had to sound unique, not too much like any real human language.

When the first movie came out in 2009, Naʼvi had about 1,000 words. Only its creator, Paul Frommer, fully understood its grammar rules. Since then, Frommer has added many more words. Now, the language has over 2,600 words. He has also shared the grammar rules. This means Naʼvi is now a complete language that people can learn and use.

How the Naʼvi Language Began

The Naʼvi language started when James Cameron was first working on Avatar in 2005. He felt the alien characters needed a full, real-sounding language. Cameron had already made up about 30 words for this alien language. But he wanted a language expert to create the rest of it.

His movie company, Lightstorm Entertainment, asked the linguistics department at the University of Southern California. They were looking for someone to create this language. A professor there, Edward Finegan, thought Paul Frommer would be perfect for the job. So, he told Frommer about it. Frommer and Cameron met to talk about Cameron's ideas for the language. At the end of their talk, Cameron welcomed Frommer to the team.

Cameron's first list of words had a "Polynesian feel" to them. Frommer used these words to create three different sets of sounds. These sounds showed what an alien language might be like. One set used changing tones, another used different vowel lengths. The third set used special sounds called "ejective consonants." Cameron liked the sound of the ejectives the most. This choice helped Frommer decide on the main sounds for the Naʼvi language. He then spent six months building the rest of the language. This included its word structure, sentence rules, and first vocabulary.

Growing the Naʼvi Language

Paul Frommer created new Naʼvi words as they were needed for the movie script. By the time actors were being chosen for Avatar, the language was developed enough. Actors had to read and say Naʼvi lines during their auditions.

During filming, Frommer worked with the actors. He helped them understand their Naʼvi lines. He also taught them how to say the words correctly. Sometimes, actors would make mistakes when speaking Naʼvi. If a mistake made sense for their human character learning the language, it was kept in the movie. Other times, the mistakes were even added into the language itself!

Frommer added more words in May 2009 for the Avatar video game. The game needed Naʼvi words that were not in the movie script. Frommer also translated four songs written by Cameron into Naʼvi. He helped singers pronounce the words when recording James Horner's Avatar music. When the movie came out in December 2009, Naʼvi had about 1,000 words.

Work on the Naʼvi language has continued even after the movie. Frommer is creating a big collection of Naʼvi words and rules. He hopes the language will "have a life of its own." He thinks it would be "wonderful" if many people started learning it. And that's exactly what happened! More and more people are learning Naʼvi. The community of learners, working with Frommer, has helped the language grow a lot.

Frommer also has a blog called Na’viteri. On his blog, he regularly adds new words and explains grammar rules. This blog has been a huge source of Naʼvi's growth.

How Naʼvi Works

The Naʼvi language was built with three main ideas in mind. First, Cameron wanted the language to sound alien but also nice to hear. Second, since humans in the story learned the language, it had to be possible for real humans to learn it too. Third, the actors needed to be able to say their Naʼvi lines without too much trouble.

The final language has some features that are rare in human languages. For example, verbs change by adding small parts inside the word. While all Naʼvi language parts can be found in human languages, their combination makes Naʼvi unique.

Sounds and Writing

Naʼvi does not have certain sounds like 'b', 'd', or 'g'. But it does have special "ejective" sounds like 'px', 'tx', and 'kx'. It also has 'll' and 'rr' which act like vowels. There are seven main vowel sounds: 'a', 'ä', 'e', 'i', 'ì', 'o', 'u'. All the sounds were made so that human actors could say them. But Naʼvi can have unusual groups of sounds, like in the word fngap (meaning "metal").

Naʼvi words can be very simple, like just one vowel. Or they can be more complex, like skxawng (meaning "moron").

In the Avatar story, the Naʼvi language is not written down. But for the actors, the language is written using the Latin script (the same alphabet English uses). Some Naʼvi words include: zìsìt ("year"), fpeio ("ceremonial challenge"), ’awve ("first"), muiä ("fair"), tireaioang ("spirit animal"), tskxe ("rock"), kllpxìltu ("territory"), and uniltìrantokx ("avatar" or "dream-walk-body").

Vowel Sounds

Naʼvi has seven single vowel sounds. It also has four diphthongs (vowel sounds that glide from one to another), like 'aw' and 'ey'. There are also two special sounds, 'll' and 'rr', which act like vowels.

Vowel sounds can appear one after another, like in tsaleioae. This word has six syllables. Naʼvi does not use vowel length or tone to change word meaning. But it does use stress. For example, túte means "person," but tuté means "female person."

Consonant Sounds

Naʼvi has twenty consonant sounds. Some sounds, like 'f', 'v', 'ts', 's', 'z', 'h', can only appear at the beginning of a syllable. Other sounds can be at the beginning or end. The special 'px', 'tx', 'kx' sounds are written with an 'x'.

The sounds 'p', 't', 'k' are soft, like in Spanish or French. When they are at the end of a word, you don't hear a strong puff of air, similar to how some English words end. The 'r' sound is a quick flap, like the 'tt' in the American English word "latter."

How Sounds Change

Some sounds in Naʼvi change after certain prefixes (small parts added to the beginning of a word). For example, the special 'px', 'tx', 'kx' sounds become 'p', 't', 'k'. And 'p', 't', 'ts', 'k' sounds become 'f', 's', 'h'. The '’' sound disappears completely.

For example, po means "s/he." The plural form, meaning "they," is ayfo. Here, the 'p' sound changes to an 'f' after the prefix ay-. Sometimes, the plural prefix can be left out. So, ayfo can become just fo.

Grammar Rules

Naʼvi has free word order. This means you can often arrange words in a sentence in different ways. For example, "I see you" (a common Naʼvi greeting) can be said in a few ways:

• Oel ngati kameie
• Ngati oel kameie
• Oel kameie ngati

As sentences get more complicated, some words, like adjectives (describing words) and negatives, need to stay in a more fixed spot. This depends on what they are describing.

For example, "Today is a good day" can be:

• Fìtrr lu sìltsana trr
• Sìltsana trr fìtrr lu

The adjective sìltsan(a) (good) must stay with the noun trr (day). It can be before or after the noun.

Nouns

Nouns in Naʼvi have more ways to show how many of something there are than most human languages. Besides singular (one) and plural (more than one), they have special forms for two items (called "dual"). They also have forms for three items (called "trial"), which is very rare in human languages.

The plural prefix is ay+. The dual prefix is me+. Both of these prefixes can cause sounds to change in the noun. For example, the plural of tokx ("body") can be aysokx or just sokx.

Nouns can sometimes show if they are masculine or feminine, but this is optional. There are no words for "a" or "the" in Naʼvi.

Naʼvi nouns also change their endings to show their role in a sentence. This is called "case." It's a bit like how in English we say "he" (subject) and "him" (object). Naʼvi has special endings for:

• The object of a sentence (like "the ball" in "he kicks the ball"). This uses the ending -ti.
• The person doing the action in a sentence with an object (like "he" in "he kicks the ball"). This uses the ending -l.
• The subject of a sentence that doesn't have an object (like "he" in "he runs"). This has no special ending.

Because of these case endings, the order of words in a Naʼvi sentence is very flexible.

There are also other case endings: -yä for possession (like "my" or "of the"), and -ru for the receiver of an action (like "to him"). There's also a special marker -ri to introduce the main topic of a sentence. This marker takes the place of any other case ending.

For example, in the sentence: Oe-ri ontu teya l⟨äng⟩u This means "My nose is full (of his distasteful smell)." The -ri on "Oe" (I) makes "I" the topic. So, "nose" is understood to be "my nose."

Naʼvi also uses small words called "adpositions" to show a noun's role. These can go either before the noun (like English "with you") or after the noun (like ngahu for "with you"). When they go after the noun, they are like the many case endings found in languages like Hungarian.

Naʼvi pronouns (words like "I," "you," "we") have a special feature called "clusivity." This means there are different words for "we" depending on if you are including the person you are talking to or not. There are also special forms for "the two of us," "the three of us," and so on. Pronouns don't change for gender, but you can optionally say "he" or "she."

Adjectives

Naʼvi adjectives (describing words) do not change their form. They can go either before or after the noun they describe. They use a special syllable a that attaches closest to the noun. For example, "a long river" can be:

• ngim-a kilvan (long-a river)
• kilvan a-ngim (river a-long)

This free word order also applies to possessive words and relative clauses (phrases that describe a noun). This allows for a lot of freedom in how you express things.

The a- part is only used when an adjective describes a noun directly. If an adjective is used with the verb "to be," it doesn't use a-. For example:

• kilvan ngim lu (river long be) means "The river is long."

Verbs

Verbs in Naʼvi change to show when an action happened (tense) and how it happened (aspect). But they don't change based on who is doing the action (like "I am" vs. "we are").

Verb changes happen by adding small parts, called "infixes," inside the verb. For example, "to hunt" is taron. But "hunted" is t⟨ol⟩aron, with the ⟨ol⟩ infix inside.

There are two main places for these infixes. The first place is for tense (past, present, future) and aspect (if the action is finished or ongoing). It can also show mood (like if something is a command). The second place is for how the speaker feels about the action (positive or negative) or how certain they are about it.

Here are some examples with the verb taron ("hunt"):

• taron (hunts)
• t⟨ìm⟩aron (just hunted)
• t⟨ay⟩aron (will hunt)
• t⟨er⟩aron (hunting, ongoing)
• t⟨ol⟩aron (hunted, completed)
• t⟨ì⟨r⟩m⟩aron (was just hunting)

You don't always need to mark tense and aspect if the meaning is clear from the rest of the sentence.

The second infix position shows the speaker's feelings. For example, in the greeting Oel ngati kameie ("I See you"), the verb kame ("to See") becomes kam⟨ei⟩e. The ⟨ei⟩ infix shows the speaker is happy to meet you. But in Oeri ontu teya längu ("My nose is full (of his smell)"), teya lu ("is full") becomes teya l⟨äng⟩u. The ⟨äng⟩ infix shows the speaker dislikes the smell.

Here are examples with both infix positions filled:

• t⟨ìrm⟩ar⟨ei⟩on (was just hunting): The speaker is happy about it.
• t⟨ay⟩ar⟨äng⟩on (will hunt): The speaker is worried or bored about it.

Naʼvi Words and Vocabulary

The Naʼvi language currently has over 2,600 words. It even includes a few English words that have been borrowed, like kunsìp ("gunship"). You can find the full dictionary online at dict-navi.com. The community of Naʼvi speakers is also working with Dr. Frommer to keep growing the language.

Naʼvi is a very flexible language. You can combine words to make new meanings. For example:

• rol ("to sing") can become tìrusol ("the act of singing").
• ngop ("to create") can become ngopyu ("creator").

People also use existing words to describe new things. For example, eltu lefngap ("metallic brain") means "computer." And palulukantsyìp ("little thanator") means "cat."

See also

• Kiliki language
• Fictional language
• List of constructed languages