The Na’vi language is a fully constructed language created by linguist Paul Frommer for James Cameron’s Avatar films. It has its own sound system, grammar and a vocabulary of roughly 3,000 words, so fans can actually learn it, speak it and write in it, well beyond the lines heard on screen.
Below you will find 20 real Na’vi words and phrases with their meanings, a plain-English tour of the grammar quirks that make the language feel so alien, and a look at the people who study it for fun. By the end, you will be able to greet a friend the Pandoran way. Explore our translation services services for details.
Key Takeaways
- Na’vi was built by Paul Frommer, a linguist at the University of Southern California, starting from about 30 words James Cameron had already invented.
- The language had around 1,000 words when Avatar opened in December 2009 and has roughly tripled since then.
- Its signature sounds are the “popping” consonants spelled px, tx and kx, and it has no b, d or g sounds at all.
- Verbs change meaning through pieces inserted into the middle of the word, and word order is remarkably free.
- A real community of learners keeps the language alive online, and Frommer still publishes new words on his blog.
Who Created the Na’vi Language?
James Cameron wanted the blue-skinned people of Pandora to speak something that sounded genuinely foreign yet could be pronounced by human actors without any electronic trickery. He had drafted about 30 words himself, including the name “Na’vi,” and needed a linguist to turn them into a working language.
The job went to Paul Frommer, who earned his doctorate in linguistics at USC in 1981 and later taught at the university’s Marshall School of Business. According to USC’s account of how Na’vi was built, he heard about the search through an email forwarded by a linguistics colleague. He has said the basics took about six months, starting with the sound system.
When the first film was released on December 18, 2009, Na’vi had about 1,000 words. USC now puts the count at roughly 3,000. Frommer later created Barsoomian for Disney’s John Carter, too. For a very different kind of movie speech, see our look at the Minions language.
What Does the Na’vi Language Sound Like?
Na’vi has 20 consonants, 7 vowels and 4 diphthongs. A few choices give it an unmistakable flavor. Explore our constructed fictional languages for details.
- Ejectives. The letter pairs px, tx and kx stand for p, t and k sounds released with a sharp pop. You can hear one in kaltxì, the word for hello.
- Missing sounds. There is no b, d or g anywhere in the language.
- The apostrophe is a letter. It marks a glottal stop, the little catch in the throat in the middle of “uh-oh.” That is why “Na’vi” is two clear beats.
- Two extra vowels. The letter ä sounds like the a in “cat,” and ì sounds like the i in “bit.”
- Consonants that act like vowels. A strongly trilled rr and a light ll can form a syllable by themselves, as in nìprrte’ (“with pleasure”).
Na’vi has no tones, but stress matters. Túte with the stress on the first syllable means “person,” while tuté with the stress on the second means “female person.”
20 Na’vi Words and Phrases With Their Meanings
These entries come from the phrase, vocabulary and grammar pages of Learn Na’vi, the long-running community site, and from standard reference descriptions of the language. Keep the accents and apostrophes: in Na’vi they change the sound.
Greetings and polite phrases
| # | Na’vi | Meaning | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | kaltxì | Hello | The everyday greeting, with a popping tx. |
| 2 | oel ngati kameie | I See you | The famous film greeting. The capital S is deliberate (see below). |
| 3 | ngaru lu fpom srak? | Are you well? | Fpom means well-being or peace. Srak turns a statement into a yes-or-no question. |
| 4 | fyape syaw fko ngar? | What are you called? | Reply: oeru syaw plus your name. |
| 5 | smon nìprrte’ | Nice to meet you | A good workout for the trilled rr. |
| 6 | zola’u nìprrte’ | Welcome | Said to someone who has just arrived. |
| 7 | rutxe | Please | Another ejective tx. |
| 8 | irayo | Thanks | An easy one for English speakers. |
| 9 | kea tìkin | You’re welcome | The standard reply to irayo. |
| 10 | nga yawne lu oer | I love you | Nga is “you” and oer is a form of oe, “I.” |
| 11 | kìyevame | See you soon | A friendly goodbye. |
| 12 | hayalovay | Until next time | Another goodbye. |
| 13 | Eywa ngahu | May Eywa be with you | A farewell blessing. |
Words from the world of Pandora
| # | Na’vi | Meaning | Good to know |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | Eywa | World spirit | Often compared to Gaia. |
| 15 | Eywa’eveng | Pandora | The Na’vi name for their own world. ‘Eveng means “child.” |
| 16 | ikran | Banshee | The winged creatures the Na’vi ride. |
| 17 | nantang | Viperwolf | A pack hunter of the forest. |
| 18 | uniltìrantokx | Avatar | A compound usually glossed as “dream-walk-body.” Tokx means “body.” |
| 19 | ‘eylan | Friend | Starts with a glottal stop, written as an apostrophe. |
| 20 | skxawng | Moron | A mild, informal insult. |
What does “oel ngati kameie” really mean?
Na’vi has two verbs for seeing. Tse’a is seeing with the eyes. Kame is seeing into someone: understanding and recognizing who they are. That deeper sense is why fans write the English as “I See you,” with a capital S.
The phrase is also a tidy grammar lesson. Oel is “I” marked as the doer, ngati is “you” marked as the one being seen, and kameie is kame with ei tucked inside, a sign that the speaker feels good about it. Explore our how languages evolve over time for details.
What Makes Na’vi Grammar So Unusual?
Frommer did not simply swap English words for alien ones. He gave Na’vi structures that are rare among human languages. These are the quirks learners talk about most.
Verbs change from the inside
English adds endings to verbs (“hunt,” “hunted”). Na’vi uses infixes, pieces slotted into the middle of the root. Take taron, “hunt.” Insert am and you get tamaron, “hunted.” Insert ay and you get tayaron, “will hunt.” A second slot can show the speaker’s mood: ei for a positive feeling and äng for a negative one.
Three roles, three markings
Most languages group the subject of “she sleeps” with either the subject or the object of “she sees him.” Na’vi keeps all three apart, a pattern linguists call tripartite alignment, which the reference grammar of Na’vi describes in detail. In Nantangìl frìp tutet (“The viperwolf bites a person”), the ending -ìl marks the biter and -t marks the bitten.
Word order is up to you
Because the endings show who did what, the three words of that sentence can be arranged in all six possible orders and still mean the same thing. Speakers shuffle them for emphasis. Explore our unique linguistic structures and grammar for details.
Other quirks at a glance
| Feature | How it works in Na’vi | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Four grammatical numbers | Separate prefixes for two (me), three (pxe) and many (ay) of something. | Menantang hahaw: “Two viperwolves are sleeping.” |
| Softening consonants | Some prefixes weaken the first sound of a word, a process called lenition. | po (“he” or “she”) becomes ayfo (“they”). |
| Two kinds of “we” | Pronouns show whether the listener is included. | oeng: “you and I.” moe: “we two, but not you.” |
| Counting in eights | The number system is octal, built on eight instead of ten. | vol is 8 and zam is 64. |
Do People Really Learn and Speak Na’vi?
Yes. LearnNavi.org has been running since 2009 with a dictionary, pronunciation help, a beginner-friendly grammar guide, a forum and mobile apps. Learners write in the language too: a recent community writing competition drew both poetry and prose.
Frommer is still closely involved. On his blog, Na’viteri (the name means “concerning Na’vi”), he answers grammar questions and releases new vocabulary, with fresh words still appearing in 2026.
A fair caveat: nobody grows up speaking Na’vi, and there is no reliable count of fluent speakers. It is a hobby language with a devoted following. If its sound is what draws you in, you may also enjoy our list of the coolest-sounding languages worth learning.
What Na’vi Teaches Us About Real Translation
Na’vi is fiction, but the puzzles it creates are the same ones translators solve every day. A single English verb, “see,” splits into two Na’vi verbs with very different weight. One small infix carries the speaker’s mood. Word order shifts the emphasis without changing the facts. Swap words one for one and all of that disappears. Explore our professional document translation services for details.
Human languages work the same way. Each one packs meaning into places English does not, and a faithful translation has to carry tone and intent along with vocabulary. That is the work of human translators who know both languages and both cultures. If you need a document translated between real-world languages, our language translation services cover a wide range of language pairs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Na’vi a real language?
Na’vi is a constructed language, which means one person designed it on purpose instead of it growing naturally in a community over centuries. It is real in the sense that matters to learners: it has a consistent sound system, a full grammar and about 3,000 words, so you can form new sentences that other learners understand. It has no native speakers and no country, but people do write poetry and stories in it.
How do you say hello in Na’vi?
The everyday word for hello is kaltxì. The tx in the middle is an ejective, a t sound released with a little pop, and the final ì sounds like the i in “bit.” For a warmer greeting, the Na’vi say oel ngati kameie, “I See you,” which tells the other person that you recognize and understand who they are.
Is Na’vi based on a real human language?
No single language sits behind it. James Cameron’s first 30 or so words had what Paul Frommer called a Polynesian flavor. Frommer then drew on features found in different languages around the world, such as ejective consonants, infixes and tripartite case marking, and combined them in a way no natural language does. The vocabulary was invented, apart from a few loans from English such as kunsìp, “gunship.” Explore our book and literary translation services for details.
How many words does the Na’vi language have?
When the first film opened in December 2009, the Na’vi language had about 1,000 words. It has kept growing through the sequels, a video game and the learner community. The University of Southern California, where Frommer taught, now describes the vocabulary as approximately 3,000 words, and Frommer still announces new ones on his blog.
Is Na’vi hard to learn for English speakers?
Parts of it are friendly: there are no tones, and verbs do not change to match the person doing the action. The hard parts are the unfamiliar ones. Ejective consonants take practice, infixes mean you have to open a verb up to change its tense, and the case endings must be right because word order will not rescue you. Greetings are a sensible place to start.
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