NA'VI TRANSLATOR

Na'vi Language Translator: Type a Line, See the Gloss

Any engine can hand you Na'vi-shaped letters. This one shows the gloss, so you can see where the sentence stops being Na'vi.

Reverse lookup of Oel ngati kameie word by word

Sindarin phrasebook showing Mae govannen and its gloss

Sources panel naming Frommer, Okrand, Peterson and Tolkien

Translator showing Oe ke tslolam with its perfective gloss

Screens from the published Kelutral translator — every word marked published, rebuilt or missing.

Kelutral translator showing Oel ngati kameie with a word-by-word gloss underneath — **“I see you.”** — The attested line, kept whole: oel (I), ngati (you), kameie (see, with feeling).

Translator flagging the word bicycle in red because Na'vi has no published word for it — **Where the line breaks** — “Bicycle” has no published Na'vi. It stays red instead of becoming a confident guess.

Translator rendering My brother is a hunter with a note about the particle ma — **Every word published** — “My brother is a hunter.” The note is the point: add ma before a person you address.

Phrasebook of twelve Na'vi lines, each with a literal gloss and a usage warning — **Twelve lines, glossed** — The phrasebook keeps the literal gloss and one warning per line — including when not to use it.

Pronunciation guide for kx, px, tx and ä with plain-English descriptions — **Sounds English lacks** — kx, px, tx and ä: the four places an accent gives you away.

Name reshaping panel turning six English names into Na'vi spellings — **David becomes Tavit** — Reshaping a name the language cannot spell, without losing the person.

Open questions and answers about Na'vi grammar inside the translator — **Ask the speaker** — Why oel ngati kameie and not oe nga kame — answered in plain language.

Klingon phrasebook with six attested lines and literal glosses — **The same for Klingon** — Star Trek's tlhIngan Hol: six attested lines, each with a literal gloss.

High Valyrian phrasebook including Valar morghulis and its answer — **And High Valyrian** — Valar morghulis and the answer it always expects.

LIVE WORK

Open the translator

Type into the published Na'vi translator. Nothing is hidden: attested words, rebuilt ones and missing ones are all labelled.

A lexicon you can read, not a black box

The whole page runs on one rule: a word you cannot source is not a word. Lexicon, phrasebook and name panel sit on the same data, so the gloss is the output, not a footnote.

Word by word, always — Every line shows its gloss underneath — which word means what, and which ending carries who did it.
Gaps stay visible — No published Na'vi for “bicycle”? It stays red, with the three workarounds a speaker would use. Nothing is invented to look complete.
Four languages, same rules — Na'vi, Klingon, High Valyrian and Sindarin: the famous lines are kept whole, with their literal gloss and their source.

Before you put it on anything permanent

Is Na'vi a real language?

Yes. Paul Frommer, a linguist at USC, built it for Avatar before filming under one rule: the actors had to be able to say it. He kept publishing vocabulary afterwards, and a community tracks it.

Can a translator actually convert English into Na'vi?

Not fully, and any page that says it can is guessing. Na'vi marks the doer and the one acted on with endings, and puts tense inside the verb. A word-for-word engine loses both, which is why this one shows the gloss instead of hiding it.

What does “oel ngati kameie” mean?

“I see you.” Literally: I (as doer) you (as the one seen) see-with-feeling. It is a claim about understanding someone, not a hello.

Why do some words come back red?

Because there is no published Na'vi word for them. Bicycle, phone, tattoo — the tool says so and gives the three honest workarounds: compound attested words, borrow and reshape, or describe the thing.

How do you say hello in Na'vi?

Kaltxì. Add ma before a name — kaltxì, ma tsmuke. The follow-up is ngaru lu fpom srak, and srane is yes.

Can I turn my name into Na'vi?

You can reshape it: b becomes p, d becomes t, g becomes k, j becomes y, x becomes ks, and clusters break with ä or ì. David becomes Tavit. It is a spelling a Na'vi mouth can say, not a translation of who you are.

What is the Disney Na'vi Translator everyone finds?

A park toy from Pandora in Animal Kingdom: a card reader with fifteen cards, lights and a recorded voice. It teaches pronunciation. It does not translate, which is why people go searching for one afterwards.

Is it accurate enough for a tattoo?

Treat it as a first draft. A glossed line shows you where the risk is; a fluent speaker should still read it before it goes under your skin.

Build one for the line you actually need

Name the line and Studio builds the lexicon, the phrasebook, the speaker and the scene around it — with every gap marked.

Build My Na'vi Translator