Pandoran

Pandoran (or Pxantorar) is an extraterrestrial auxlang made by the European Space agency to function as a middle ground between Na'vi and the Romance languages. The Académie Langues Extraterrestres was commissioned by the EU and NASA in 2203 and the language was completed in 2209. Testing showed the same level of difficulty for Na'vi and human learners, and massive improvement in learning the others' language(s) after acquiring Pxantoran.

Introduction

Pandoran is largely agglutinative, with many fusional elements. It is reasonably balanced, but with a slight tendency towards right-branching. It has three numbers, three persons, 5-way agreement (like genders or noun classes), six cases, and follows nominative-accusative alignment. Honorifics are a smaller part of the language. There is no grammatical evidentiality, nor mirativity. There are two orthographies commonly in use. The sound system is unusual (in human terms) in that makes frequent use of ejectives and a glottal consonant, and has many uncommon consonantal clusters.

The stated goal was introduce humans to Na'vi, and introduce the Na'vi to some of the more popular aspects of European languages.

Phonology

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	/m/	/n/		/ŋ/
Ejective Stops	/pʼ/	/tʼ/		/kʼ/
Voiceless Stops	/p/	/t/		/k/	/ʔ/
Affricate		/ts/
Voiceless Fricatives	/f/	/s/			/h/
Voiced Fricatives	/v/	/z/
Rhotic		/r/
Lateral		/l/
Glides	/w/		/j/

The voiceless stops are unaspirated at the beginning and middle of a word. They are also unreleased at the end of a word, as well as at the end of a syllable when followed by another consonant.

	Front	Mid	Back
High	/i/		/u/
Near-high	/I/
Mid	/e/		/o/
Low	/æ/	/a/

aj, aj, ew, and ej are diphthongs. r and l are also syllabic consonants.

Syllable structure is highly unusual.

• 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, or ts} + {p, t, k, pʼ, tʼ, kʼ, m, n, ŋ, r, l, w, or j} may start a syllable.

• p, t, k, pʼ, tʼ, kʼ, ʔ, m, n, l, r, or ŋ may occur in syllable-final position. • ts, f, s, h, v, z, w, and j may not occur in syllable-final position. • There are no consonant clusters in syllable-final position. • A syllable with a syllabic consonant must start with a consonant or consonant cluster and must not have a final consonant.

Stress is not predictable but phonemic. See the lexicon for each word.

Orthography

The Pandoran alphabet consists of 26 symbols. There seven vowels are and twenty consonant sounds. There are also four diphthongs and two syllabic consonants.

Letters of the Ckul alphabet
Aa	Ää	Ee	Ff	Hh	Ii	Ìì	Kk	Ll	Mm	Nn	Ngng	Oo	Pp	Pxpx	Rr	Ss	Tt	Tsts	Txtx	Uu	Ww	Yy	Zz

Two orthographies are maintained in different contexts. Signage on Pandora is in the Na'vi-writing style (distinguished by its use of x for ejective-consonants) while human beings continue to text and chat in European-style (distinguished the use of ñ for the velar nasal). This is current area of debate, and we will present both styles in this section, in an effort to remain unbiased. However, throughout the rest of this document, the Na'vi-style will be used, as it was originally laid out by the ALE.

"Na'vi Style" Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	m	n		ng
Ejective Stops	px	tx		kx
Voiceless Stops	p	t		k	'
Affricate		ts
Voiceless Fricatives	f	s			h
Voiced Fricatives	v	z
Rhotic		r
Lateral		l
Glides	w		y

"European Style" Consonants

	Labial	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Nasals	m	n		ñ
Ejective Stops	p	t		k
Voiceless Stops	b	d		g	q
Affricate		c
Voiceless Fricatives	f	s			h
Voiced Fricatives	v	z
Rhotic		r
Lateral		l
Glides	w		j

"Na'vi Style" Vowels

	Front	Mid	Back
High	i		u
Near-high	ì
Mid	e		o
Low	æ	a

"European Style" Vowels

	Front	Mid	Back
High	i		u
Near-high	y
Mid	e		o
Low	æ	a

Morphophonology

In certain situations, several consonants undergo mutation (also called lenition).

Consonant	px	tx	kx	p	t	k	ts	'
Mutation	p	t	k	f	s	h	s

Affixes that cause mutation are marked with a + sign, instead of a - sign for merely attaching.

Morphology

Nouns

Nouns are also characterized by their theme vowel, indicated with an X. It may be A, E, I, O, or U.

• Nominative: -(X)
• Accusative: -(X)m
• Genitive: -(X)r
• Dative: -(X)p
• Topical: -(X)tswe

The parentheses indicate that the theme vowel is only used as need for phonotactical reason.

Adjectives

Adjectives agree with the noun the modify in theme vowel and case. Only is used substantively can they take number markings or other determiners. Predicative adjectives only agree in theme vowel, and are seen to be in the nominative.

Determiners

Every noun must have a determiner. The main determiners attached directly, around a noun. If a noun does not have one any of these components then the quantifier or possessive adjective must immediately precede it.

Specifier +FOCUS		Quantifier + FOCUS		Number		Genus + FOCUS		NOUN + CASE	Genus -focus		Quantifier -focus		Specifier -focus
1. the/this	'ìl-	1. all/every	txot-	1. dual	tu+	1. kind	ken-		1' kind	-ner	1' all/every	-tal	1' the/this	-ll
2. this/that	ste-	2. each/per	kxät-	2. plural	flu+						2' each/per	-tä	2' this/that	-tse
3. what/which	tswi+												3' what/which	-tswi
4. an/some	'al-												4' an/some	-lìg

For a given morpheme pair, to occur on the left brings it into focus. Compare this to putting its partner on the right, which does not attract focus. For example, tswisukx is WHICH captain?, whereas tukxtswi is Which CAPTAIN?.

Certain English words require two of these bound morphemes to translate. For example 'all' + 'dual' = 'both'.

Pronouns

	Singular	Dual	Plural
1st excl	me	pin	no
1st incl		'ämpi	ngo
2nd	txu	tutx	vo
3rd sent.	fru	kxoro
3rd anim.	'ani	pxeku
3rd inanim.	fpe	tsla

Third person plural pronouns are ambiguous for number. They can optionally take dual or plural marking to be clear.

Verbs

Verbs are classified by their theme vowel, which is A, E, I, O, or U. It is written in the pattern as V.

Active endings

	Singular	Non-Singular
1ex	-Vm	-Vmut
1in	-Vng	-Vngut
2	-Vt	-Vtxit
3	-Vtx	-Vng

Passive endings

	Singular	Non-Singular
1ex	-Vr	-Vmur
1in	-Vl	-Vmul
2	-Vrìt	-Vmìni
3	-Vtxur	-Vntxur

The "to be" verb, is irregular, as in all natural languages:

	Singular	Non-Singular
1ex	sum	sumut
1in	sung	sungut
2	et	etxit
3	etx	sun

In general,

	Aorist	Perfective	Imperfect
Future	<äs>	<är>	<äp>
Present	<s>	<r>	<p>
Past	<ìs>	<ìr>	<ìp>

Derivational morphology

New words can regularly be derived from (Vulgar) Latin. Below are listed the procedures transmuting a word via Latin orthography into Pxantorar. These require you to think through whether a given consonant would have palatalized in Vulgar Latin. Recall that CiV or CeV changed into CjV, or that Ce or Ci changed into Cje or Cji. Latin c's, x's, and q's are not written here. Remember that nasals assimilated to place of articulation of the following consonant. u and w's are not distinguished.

• ī -> i
• ì -> ì
• a -> ä
• ā -> a
• ū -> u
• ō -> o
• ē -> e
• gn -> ng
• Nf -> fN
• gu -> p
• [pbv][rlN] -> f[rlN]
• geminate stop -> -voice ejective
• [kg][rlw] -> ts[rlw]
• ps -> sp
• [td][rl] -> ts[rl]
• strV -> tsyV

• b -> p vs bj -> fp
• p -> px vs pj -> fpx
• [vw] -> [vw] vs [vw]j -> fw
• N -> N vs Nj -> fN
• d -> t vs dj -> z
• t -> tx vs tj -> tstx
• g -> k vs gj -> iy
• k -> kx vs kj -> skx

Syntax

Constituent order

There is a tendency towards TSVO (Topic, Subject, Verb, Object), but it is not rigidly followed.

Example texts

Ngor pxatri, tswi stxat ìn Skxälup,
Sivantsìfiki txur nomem,
Txur reng ätvivenetx,
Txur voluntxa fivitx,
Fretswon 'ìlSkxälupìn tswon 'ìlMuntupìn,
Tivon ngop oz ngor pxanim kxotizan,
e' ngotswe pxertivon 'ìltepìtum,
fretswon ngo pxertonomut ngor flusepìtorim,
e' ìntivukx ngom ke ìn txotsentxatstxom,
ki livìfre ngom te ìlmälor.
'Amen.

Our Father, who stands in the Heaven,
May you sanctify your name;
May your kingdom arrive,
May your will be done,
Just as in the Heaven, so in the World,
Give us today our bread of the day,
and as for us, forgive the debts,
Just as we forgive the debtors,
and induct us not into all temptation,
but from us from the evil one.
Amen.

Other resources

• Pandoran/Swadesh - The Swadesh list, compared to Latin and Romance languages