Kxì (see below) nìmun, ma eylan. I’ve been gone from the blog a long time, and many questions you’ve asked me still remain unanswered—oeru txoa livu mìftxele. But rest assured I haven’t been wasting my time. Kifkeymì Uniltìrantokxä tìkangkem si oe kawl slä nì’o’ nì’aw. 🙂

I’m currently working on a big post with a lot of new vocabulary, which I hope to complete shortly. Tsakrrvay, let me respond to a question that was posed by the LEP last year: how to ask and answer negative questions in Na’vi. The LEPers provided some very interesting examples from German, where “doch” and “nein” are used in the answers to such questions, and asked if there’s anything parallel in Na’vi. This discussion won’t cover every possibility, but it will at least make a start.

Negative questions are a lot more complicated than they might seem—at least that’s what I’m discovering! At first, it appears that a negative question simply turns a negative statement into a question: You aren’t hungry. –> Aren’t you hungry? I didn’t see you yesterday. –> Didn’t I see you yesterday? He has no shame. –> Has he no shame?

But what do those negative questions actually mean? What is the speaker trying to find out—and trying to get across? In other words, even if the syntax is straightforward, what are the semantics of these questions?

Take a simple positive question like “Are you John?” What’s being asked? Well, the speaker is considering the statement “You are John” and asking for confirmation: Is that statement true? In other words, “You are John—true or false?” If it’s true, the other person answers “Yes,” which means “The statement you’re asking about is correct.” A fuller answer would be, “Yes, I’m John.” If the statement is not correct—if the person is in fact David, not John—the answer is “No,” which means “The statement you’re asking about is not correct.” So far so good.

What happens, however, if the statement being turned into a question is negative? For example, “You are not John,” which becomes the negative question “Aren’t you John?” If we follow the analysis in the previous paragraph, the speaker is considering the statement “You are not John” and asking for confirmation: “You are not John—true or false?” A response of “Yes” should then mean, “The statement you’re asking about is correct—I am not John.” And “No” should mean, “The statement you’re asking about is incorrect—I am indeed John.”

But that is not what people usually mean when they ask such questions. When a speaker asks someone, “Aren’t you John?” there’s a pre-existing belief on her part that this person is in fact John, and she’s asking for confirmation of that belief. “I believe you’re John. That’s correct, isn’t it?” An alternative form of the question gets this across more clearly: “You’re John, aren’t you?” In this case, an answer of “Yes” means, “Your pre-existing belief is correct. I am John.” And “No” means “Your pre-existing belief is incorrect. I am not John.” Confused yet?

I’m happy to report that with srak(e) questions Na’vi, such pre-existing beliefs don’t enter the picture, and the situation is more straightforward. That is, a question of the form Srake [X] or [X] srak , where X is some statement, simply asks whether or not X is true. It doesn’t matter whether X is a positive or a negative statement. An answer of “Srane” means that X is true. Kehe means X is not true. The questions do not imply any pre-existing beliefs on the part of the questioner. For example:

Nga lu Txewì srak? means: “Please tell me if the statement ‘You are Txewi’ is true or false.” An answer of “Srane” means, “Yes, it’s true.” “Kehe” means “No, it’s not true.”

Nga ke lu Txewì srak? means: “Please tell me if the statement ‘You are not Txewi’ is true or false.” Just as above, an answer of “Srane” means, “Yes, it’s true. I am not Txewì.” “Kehe” means “No, it’s not true. I am indeed Txewì.”

How, then, would you convey the idea of the English question “Aren’t you Txewì?” with its pre-existing belief? In Na’vi it would simply be, “Nga lu Txewì, kefyak?” That’s exactly parallel to the English “You’re Txewì, aren’t you?” which is to say, “You’re Txewì–isn’t that true?” And as in English, an answer of “Srane” means “Your pre-existing belief is correct—I am Txewì,” while “Kehe” means “Your pre-existing belief is incorrect—I’m not Txewì.”

There’s more to be said about this subject, but I think that’s quite enough for now. 🙂

Oh, by the way:

kxì (intj.) ‘hi, hiya”

This was a nice suggestion from the LEP members for a more casual greeting than kaltxì, to be used among friends.

Kxì, ma ’eylan! Kempe leren?

‘Hey dude! What’s happenin’?’

Hayalovay!