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#1
03-02-2011, 11:54 PM
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I think the word for writing is wrong
As you (should) know, pamrel is the na'vi word for writing. It comes from 'pam'-sound, and 'rel'-image.
I don't like the rooting. To me, a 'sound-image' implies a phoneme, the smallest discrete unit of speech. I believe a better choice is 'lì’urel', or 'word-image'. Doesn't this make better sense? What is writing but word images anyway? Perhaps a 'sound-image' could be a letter. Anohter, but not as good, suggestion would be 'tìlawkrel', or 'discourse-image', but this word might be better suited for a book. Can anybody run this past Doc Frommer or Taronyu?
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#2
03-03-2011, 01:52 AM
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Etymology doesn't have to make sense. There are lots of words in English whose meanings and roots don't seem to match perfectly.
Anyway, "sound-image" doesn't strike me as particularly ill-fitting. Written language is a fairly novel concept to the Na'vi. I could see them as conceptualizing it as a way of making images that represent sounds. At least, that's how we humans tend to think when we're first learning to read or write an alphabet-based language. Words are just strings of letters at first, and you read and write by "sounding it out."
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All Avatar writings ------------------- Selected writings: You came back How do you make up after you've done the unforgivable? Jake and Neytiri have a conversation in the wake of Hometree's destruction, during their first real moment alone following his return as Toruk Makto. The Last Train Home Fourteen years after the war, a lone spaceship appears in the sky. The former members of the Avatar program watch its approach – expecting the worst, fearing for their adopted home. Then the ship lands. And suddenly, nothing makes sense anymore. Five seconds too late This is a different kind of Jake/Neytiri romance, the story that would've unfolded had she been delayed for just five seconds while trying to reach him following the fight with Quaritch.
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#3
03-03-2011, 08:56 AM
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Letters don't directly correspond with sounds, though. I don't know, I'm pretty much with Sothis here - 'sound-image' makes perfect sense to me. Particularly as written Na'vi aims to be phonetic.
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#4
03-03-2011, 10:53 PM
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Exactly - languages don't always directly and literally translate either, even with borrowed words/concepts.
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#5
03-04-2011, 09:32 PM
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FYI, there is an official way to suggest words to Dr. Frommer: The Language Expansion Project (you must be a member of learnnavi.org to view it).
It is however extremely unlikely that Dr. Frommer will decide to change a word that has already made it into the dictionary.
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