This and That, and Stuff

Kaltxì nìmun! And welcome to Lesson 6.

This time, let's talk about "this" and "that" a little bit, and about using words marked as adp. in the dictionary. Words such as in, under, behind, across, etc.

Topics

This and That

These and Those

More adp. Words

Vocabulary Used

This and That

So, to get started... This and that. How many times have you wanted to say something in Na'vi like This tree is tall and That plant is poisonous, etc? Well, it's super easy to do this. We have fì- and tsa- which go onto the beginning of nouns.

For example:

fìutral tsawl lu.
fì-utral tsawl lu
This tree is tall.

Lu tsa'ewll txumnga'.
Lu tsa-'ewll txumnga'.
That plant is poisonous.

The Na'vi word 'u means thing. Adding one of the above to the beginning of the word makes the pronouns this and that:

These two words, unlike the prefixes in the previous table, can stand alone and be used like any other noun.

For example:

fì'u lu tsko.
this is a bow.

tsa'u lu niktsyey.
that is a food wrap.

These and Those

Mìftxele, It's very similar and just as easy to say these and those. It's just fì- and tsa- combined with me+, pxe+, or ay+ (remember those? ) So you get these things that you can add to the beginning of any noun:

Some examples:

fìmesute lu tstunwi.
fì-me+sute lu tstunwi.
these people[2] are kind.

fayewll lehrrap lu.
fay-ewll lehrrap lu.
these plants are dangerous.

lu tsapxeyaney 'om.
lu tsa-pxe-yaney 'om.
those canoes[3] are purple.

Again these are just prefixes and can't stand alone as the pronouns these or those. For the pronouns, we have these:

Starting with the word 'u (thing):

Starting with the word fì'u (this thing; this) or tsa'u (that thing; that):

More adp. Words

Now. Remember in Lesson 3 I said that me+, pxe+, and ay+ weren't the only things that cause a word to change its first letter? Well, I'm about to list every single other word that does this. This would be a good list to remember, or reference at least.

These words here are all adp. in the dictionary. They are used like this...

oel wutsoti hawl fpi soaia.
I prepare dinner for the family.

Ìlä Feyral, muntxa soli Ralu sì Newey.
According to Peyral, Ralu and Newey were married.

Note here that proper nouns, i.e. official names of people or places, are in fact also subject to the sound/letter change just like any other noun. Also, here we see ìlä+ (according to) used as a separate word before the name Peyral, (and causing it to become Feyral).

tsampxisre hawl aysamsiyu.
The warriors prepare right before the war.

Here we see pxisre+ (right before) attached to the end of the noun tsam (war).

Some notes

As you see, In these examples, the adp. words are all either separate before, or attached after the noun they go with. All adp. words work like that. The adp. words in the table from before have that + sign again, meaning that they make the first letter change thing happen so watch out!

Vocabulary Used