2.1 - Sound System

## Overview

The Na'vi language has 20 consonant sounds, 7 vowel sounds and two vocalic resonants Frommer calls "pseudovowels."

## 2.1.1 - Consonants

**2.1.1.1** The voiceless stops are unaspirated at the beginning and middle of a word and unreleased at the end. However, within a phrase a final stop coming before a vowel will in natural speech be released as the words flow together, **oel set omum**. Unreleased stops will be most noticeable at major pauses, as in **oel omum set.**

**2.1.1.2** The **r** is an alveolar flap. The **l** is clear and front, as in "leaf", not the velarized, "dark-l" of English "call".

**2.1.1.3** Frommer devised a scientific orthography in which two of the digraphs were written as a single letter, **c** for **ts** and **g** for **ng**. The digraph system was easier for the actors, but it has also been used by Frommer in media interviews and in most of his own email. The scientific orthography is only seen in a few early emails to and from Frommer.

**2.1.1.4** Because plain stops can be used as syllable codas, the more common ejective notation, **p’**, is too ambiguous: **tsap’alute** is not **\*tsapxalute**.

## 2.1.2 - Vowels

**2.1.2.1** The phoneme **u** is always [u] in open syllables, and may be either [u] or [ʊ] in closed syllables. **Lu** is always pronounced [lu], while **tsun** may be either [tsun] or [tsʊn].

**2.1.2.2** The diphthongs are **aw**, **ay**, **ew** and **ey**. Only in diphthongs will **w** or **y** be seen at the end of a syllable (**new**) or before a final consonant (**hawng**).

## 2.1.3 - Pseudovowels

The pseudovowel **rr** is a syllabic, trilled [r̩ː],, and **ll** is a syllabic [l ̩ː]

## 2.1.4 - Syllable Structure

Na'vi has a strict but straightforward syllable structure.

* A syllable is permitted to have no onset consonant (i.e., it may start with a vowel).
* A syllable is permitted to have no coda consonant (i.e., it may end with a vowel).
* Any consonant may start a syllable.
* A consonant cluster of **f s ts** + **p, t, k, px, tx, kx, m, n, ng, r, l, w, y** may start a syllable (e.g., **tslam**, **ftu**).
* **P t k px tx kx ' m n l r ng** may occur in syllable-final position.
* **Ts f s h v z w y** may *not* occur in syllable-final position.
* There are no consonant clusters in syllable-final position.
* A syllable with a pseudovowel must start with a consonant or consonant cluster and must not have a final consonant; this plays a role in lenition (2.2.1) and the declension of nouns (3.1.1.1).

**2.1.4.1** Since a syllable may lack a consonant onset or coda, it is not unusual to see several vowels next to each other in a word. In that case each vowel is a syllable, **muiä** [mu.i.æ], **ioang** [i.o.ɑŋ].

**2.1.4.2** In general, the sequence VCV will be syllabified V.CV rather than VC.V, so **tsenge** is [tsɛ.ŋɛ] not \*[tsɛŋ.ɛ]. Onomatopoeia may override this, as in **kxangangang** [k’ɑŋ.ɑŋ.ɑŋ], where the echo effect is desired.

**2.1.4.3** There are no long vowels in Na’vi, meaning identical vowels will not occur next to each other (but see 2.3.1).

**2.1.4.4** Double consonants do not occur in root words, but may occur at morpheme boundaries, for example in derivations, **tsukkäteng** < **tsuk-** + **käteng**, or with enclitics **Mo’atta** < **Mo’at** + **ta** (2.1.5.3).

**2.1.4.5** As is usual in most Human languages, some interjections break the rules, such as **oìsss**, a sound for anger, or **saa**, a threat cry.

## 2.1.5 - Stress Accent

Every Na’vi word has at least one stress accent, which is not predictable. In a very few situations otherwise identical words may differ only by accent, such as **tute** *person* vs. **tute** *woman*.

**2.1.5.1** For this word alone, *woman*, an accent may be written in normal Na’vi to indicate the accent, **tuté**.

**2.1.5.2** Some word creation processes may cause accent shifts (5.1.2.3, 5.1.8).

**2.1.5.3** All adpositions as well as a few conjunctions and particles may be enclitic. They give up their own stress accent and effectively become part of the word to which they are attached, and are written so, **tsane** (< **tsaw** + **ne**), **horentisì** (< **horenti** + **sì**).

**2.1.5.4** Though a noun compound is written as a single word, the individual parts of that compound may each retain their original accent, as in **tireafya’o** *spirit path*.

## 2.1.6 - Spoken Alphabet

Except for **tìftang**, the glottal stop, the names of the phonemes encode information about how the sound is used. They also have unusual capitalization when written out:

**2.1.6.1** Vowels and diphthongs are simply pronounced and spelled as themselves. The pseudovowels take a leading glottal stop, since they require a consonant onset (2.1.4)

**2.1.6.2** The name for consonants which cannot end a syllable are formed by adding **ä**, as in **Tsä**. Those which can end a syllable use the vowel **e** and repeat the consonant at the end of the name, **PeP**.