Na'vi/Numbers

As the Na’vi have four digits per hand, they have a base-eight ("octal") number system. Until recently, they only counted up to sixteen, their number of fingers and toes, any number greater than that being simply pxay "many".

There are numerals for the numbers one through eight. Above that, one counts eight-one for nine, eight-two for ten, etc., until sixteen, which is two eights. At sixty-four (eight eights), a new numeral comes in, zam, which is the octal equivalent of decimal 'hundred'.

Cardinal numbers

units decimal octal ’aw one 1 múne two 2 pxey three 3 tsìng four 4 mrr five 5 púkap six 6 kínä seven 7 vol eight 10

'teens' decimal octal voláw nine 11 eight-one vomún ten 12 eight-two vopéy eleven 13 eight-three vosìng twelve 14 eight-four vomŕr thirteen 15 eight-five vofú fourteen 16 eight-six vohín fifteen 17 eight-seven mévol sixteen 20 two eights

eights decimal octal vol eight 10 eight mévol sixteen 20 two eights pxévol twenty-four 30 three eights tsìvol thirty-two 40 four eights mŕrvol forty 50 five eights púvol forty-eight 60 six eights kívol fifty-six 70 seven eights zam sixty-four 100 zam

'hundreds' decimal octal zam 64 100 zam mézam 128 200 two zam pxézam 192 300 three zam tsìzam 256 400 four zam mŕrzam 320 500 five zam púzam 384 600 six zam kízam 448 700 seven zam vózam 512 1000 eight zam

The second series above continues with mevoláw 'two-eights-one', mevomún 'two-eights-two', etc.; the units are similarly suffixed to the other multiples of eight. Thus all numbers up to at least kivohín "sixty-three" (octal 77) are single words. Numbers between zam and mezam (one-hundred twenty-eight, octal 200) are not attested. The 'hundreds' continue with pxezam etc. Higher orders are vozam 512 (octal 1000: thus mevozam for octal 2000 etc.) and zazam 4096 (octal 10,000: thus mezazam for octal 20,000 etc.).

When a number modifies a noun, the singular form is used for the noun. In addition, as an attributive, the number itself requires the attributive affix a:

zìsìt amrr "five years",

’awa tìpawmìri "regarding one (particular) question",

munea ’eveng "two children"

(compare meveng "children" when there are two of them).

Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers take the (unstressed) suffix -ve. However, the forms are somewhat irregular; they are generally based on the short/combining forms of the numerals, but "third" and "eighth" are based on the long/final forms.

units decimal octal ’áwve first 1st múve second 2nd pxéyve third 3rd tsìve fourth 4th mŕrve fifth 5th púve sixth 6th kíve seventh 7th vólve eighth 10th

'teens' decimal octal voláwve ninth 11th vomúve tenth 12th vopéyve eleventh 13th vosìve twelfth 14th vomŕrve thirteenth 15th vofúve fourteenth 16th vohíve fifteenth 17th mévolve sixteenth 20th

The series continues with mevoláwve "seventeenth (21st)", etc. *Zamve (*zave ?) is not attested. As these are adjectives, they take a when modifying nouns directly: a’áwve / ’áwvea, etc.

Converting between octal and decimal

Conversion from English decimal to Na’vi octal numbers can be tedious. It may be easier to count on your fingers by tucking in your pinkies so that you have the same eight fingers as a Na’vi has: English "ten" is therefore 1 set of hands plus 2 extra fingers, or Na’vi 12 vomun. Converting from Na’vi back to English is more straightforward, if you think of the Na’vi number as so-many eights plus so-many: Na’vi "72", for example, would be "seven eights (7×8=56) and two", or English 58. Because eight is a power in binary arithmetic, many of the Na’vi numbers are also binary units which may be familiar from computing; vozam (octal 1000), for example, is decimal 512.

Derivations of numbers

Numerals form various derivatives, such as ’awpo "an individual", nì’awve "first(ly)" (as in, "I was here first"), ’awsiténg "together" (one-make-same), kawtu "no-one" (not-one-person), kawkrr "never" (not-one-time), nì’aw "only" (one-ly), and nì’awtu "alone" (one-person-ly), all from ’aw "one"; also nìmun "again" (second-ly) and perhaps muntxa "mated" from mune "two".

There are two words for "once", ’awlie and ’awlo, the difference of which is not clear. "Twice" is melo.