RFC: munea nantang - my stab at a Coyote Tale

[eanayo]

Kaltxì, ma smuk!

Inspired by William's great translation of a Navajo Coyote Tale, I thought I'd concentrate my efforts on translating some Native American material, too. This has been in my pipeline for quite a while (talk about pipeline stall, for the CompSci people), and now I'd finally like you to comment on my preliminary work and finish this with the help of the community.

tl;dr:

Spoiler

I would very much appreciate any comments and suggestions for improvements, even if they mean that I need to scrap large parts of what I've done so far. So don't just restrict your comments to "I'd use adposition X instead of X", but also say if some more fundamental changes would be beneficial. I've already taken quite a few liberties with the translation, so there is plenty of leeway to get the grammar and narrative right. I will update the original post with any suggestions made.

The original is from Haruo Aoki, Nez Perce Texts, University of California Publications in linguistics, Volume 90, University of California Press 1979, titled "Two Coyotes" and has been told by Harry Wheeler.

Note that I do not have any sound background knowledge of Native American cultures and their narrative structures. My apologies if this should violate any narrative conventions that were not in the source material. I would also apologize to anyone who actually knows Na'vi for my cringe-inducing attempts to learn the language, and to the Nez Perce for botching one of their stories for said attempts.

As for this post, I will slightly deviate from the recommended formatting for the Beginners forum, but I hope that it still understandable even without dedicated affix markings. The text is divided into (arbitrary) numbered lines. Several lines are combined into blocks, each block has Na'vi at the top, followed by English and a comment on the last line. At the very end is the original English translation, as given in Aoki.

0 munea nantang
0 Two Viperwolves

1 ngay sì mowan lu fìvur a tìyìng ayngaru
2 munea nantang tarmìran kilvanìlä vay 'ora.
3 tsatsengeta mefol tsole'a sutet a kelku si tsraymì asim.
1 This stroy which I am about to give to you is true and enjoyable
2 Two viperwolves were walking along the river, up to a lake.
3 From there they saw people (who) live in a nearby village.
Dropped tense from now on for narrative. Not sure from what point on I should drop the (perfective) aspect, too.

4 poan poeru poltxe san
4 He said to her, "
I applied William's construct of giving each character a specific gender to make distinction much easier.

5 kä! sìk ulte poe 'eyng san kehe. nga kä sìk
5 Go!", and she responded, "no, you go!"
From here on, I'm only marking aspect in if it's different from perfective. Not really sure about that, either.

6 ulte poan plltxe san kehe sìk.
7 ulte mefo perängkxo fìfya krr atxan.
8 poan plltxe san nga salew set
9 sutel nagti tsaye'a ye'rìn ulte plltxe san
6 and he said "no"
7 and they conversed like this for a long time.
8 he said, "you go now.
9 (the) people will see you soon and say, '
I am a bit torn between immediate future or normal future and ye'rìn

10 tsatsenge nantang terìran sìk
10 there is a viperwolf walking.'"
Strictly speaking, there should be a second sìk to also end the direct quote of the viperwolf. I suppose we don't have any canonical sources on nested direct speech?

11 san oe ke lu nantang sìk
12 san slä oeng lu tengfnel
13 oeng lu teng (mì?) frafya
11 "I am not a viperwolf"
12 "But we are the same kind.
13 We are equal in every way.
Really not sure about the mì, I'd actually go for an adverb (describing teng), but nìfrafya seems like a bit of a stretch. Also wondering if nìwotx wouldn't work ("we are completely the same")

14 oeng lu menantang sìk.
14 We are both viperwolves.
I deliberately kept the dual on nantang to emphasize the meaning of "the two of us are both viperwolves - there are two viperwolves, and those are the two of us"

15 san kehe. oe lu lapo (nì'aw) sìk
15 No. I am (only) another one
I /really/ don't want to use nì'aw here, since (in my opinion) it conveys the meaning of "exclusively" and not "merely", as would be required here.

16 fìfya mefo perängkxo.
17 krromaw poe poanur plltxe san
16 This way they conversed.
17 After some time she said to him, "
krromaw (C) W. Annis.

18 salew nga set. sìk
19 sute tsun tsive'a tsengit a poan tìyìran
18 You go now."
19 The people could see the place where he was about to walk
Classic case of RTFM.

20 poan terìran ne 'ora a krr
21 sute plltxe san tsatsenge nantang terìran 'oralok sìk
22 fo tìng nari nantangur atusìran
20 When he was walking towards the lake
21 People said, "there is a viperwolf walking near the lake"
22 They watched the walking viperwolf.
I'd actually like "They watched the viperwolf walking", but can't figure that out.

23 poan plltxe san ngal stolawm futa fo pìmlltxe srak? nantang lu nga.
24 za'u nga kop.
25 fo paylltxe nìteng teri nga. nantang lu nga sìk
26 san sran. nìsyong oe sìk.
27 ulte poe tìran tsatsengeta kop
28 Tsakrr sute plltxe san Lapo nìmun. Lapol tsatsengit tok sìk
23 Did you hear what they just said? You are a viperwolf.
24 Now you come, too!
25 They will speak likewise about you. You are a viperwolf.
26 "Yes, I will follow (you) (now)."
27 and she walked from there, too
28 Then people said, "Another one again. There is another one."
I'd really like to have an exclamation, but apparently nang doesn't work here.

29 poe poanur plltxe san
30 nga tsun fot stivawm srak? Oe ke lu nantang. Lapo lu oe.
31 sute oer syaw fìfya. Lapo lu oe sìk.
29 She said to him,
30 Can you hear them? I am not a viperwolf. I am another one.
31 The people called me like this. I am another one.
Hah! That's probably the first Na'vi story that works with a word play

32 fìvur 'i'a
32 This story ends
Well... this really sucks.

Right, now I hope you've enjoyed the read and am looking forward to any comments of yours.

Original as by Aoki:

Spoiler

1 One more story which is wonderful, true and funny.
2 Two coyotes were going upriver and came to a big bench.
3 From there they saw people living below near the river.
4 The two friends said to each other:
5 "Go!", and the second one said, "no, you go!",
6 and the first one said, "no".
7 And they argued and contested for a long time.
8 Then one said, "Then you go first.
9 They will see you soon and say,
10 'There is a coyote going on the trail'"
11 "I am not a coyote"
12 "But you are just the way I am.
13 We are the same in every way.
14 We are both coyotes."
15 "No, I am just 'another one'"
16 In this way they argued.
17 Then the second one said to the first,
18 "You go first"
19 There was a ridge on which people could see everything from below
20 When he started walking and went over a small ridge
21 the people below said, "There is a coyote going upstream"
22 They came out and watched the coyote going.
23 "See?" he said "See what they said? You are a coyote.
24 Come! You too!," he said,
25 "They will say the same of you. You are a coyote."
26 "All right. I will go."
27 and he also slowly started walking on the trail from there.
28 Then (people said), "Ah, another one again. There is another one."
29 Then he came to the first, saying,
30 "See? I am not a coyote. I am 'another one'
31 See, the people said that I am 'another one'".
32 That's all

[Ftiafpi]

From my brief skim it seems like you've done a good job. I'm sure there's little details that could be fixed but to me it looks like there are no major errors.

Anyway, good story, it translates pretty well, I think a native Na'vi would get the meaning. I enjoyed reading it and can't wait for some of the more advanced speakers here to chime in, a lot of your questions are good ones.

[wm.annis]

Inspired by William's great translation of a Navajo Coyote Tale, I thought I'd concentrate my efforts on translating some Native American material, too.

Yay!  I've started a trend. 

I cannot comment on everything all at once, so I'll start with just a few comments.  A quick glance, though, seems pretty good.

From there they saw people living below near the river.
tsatsengeta mefol tsole'a futa sute kelku seri tsraymì asim.
From there they saw people living in a nearby village.
Dropped tense from now on for narrative. Not sure from what point on I should drop the (perfective) aspect, too.

I'd probably avoid futa here, and just go with people directly as the direct object, mefol tsole'a sutet a kelku si...

The two friends said to each other:
poan poeru poltxe san
He said to her, "
Couldn't quite figure out how to get the "to each other" done, apart from a /weird/ reflexive, so I just let specific characters speak.

This is tricky.  Perhaps you could instead say, "one said to the other" 'awpo poltxe laporu...

And they argued and contested for a long time.
ulte mefo perängkxo fìfya krr atxan.
and they conversed like this for a long time.

Ooh, good one.

[eanayo]

Irayo, ma mesmuk!

I really appreciate your comments (and am glad that you like the story, of course)

Yay!  I've started a trend.  

Well, as you said yourself: This kind of material is much closer to what a "real" Na'vi story would be than translations of pop songs - so I think that's a really good way to produce culturally relevant material in Na'vi. I'd personally love to see more such stories.

(line 3)
I'd probably avoid futa here, and just go with people directly as the direct object, mefol tsole'a sutet a kelku si...

Ah, yes! Much better! Changed the OP. Relative clauses always seem to hide from me

(line 4)
This is tricky.  Perhaps you could instead say, "one said to the other" 'awpo poltxe laporu...

Me likes. So, just to be sure: You'd have something like 'awpo poltxe... in line 4, lapo 'eyng... in line 5, and 'awpo plltxe in line 6 ("one said..." "the other one answered" "the (first) one said")? Which would be fairly close to the original again

I've also added line numbers to the OP to make referencing a bit easier.

Thank you so much again for your comments so far!

[eanayo]

Sorry for the double-post almost-necro bump, but I just thought I'd give anyone who's still interested / following an update:
I re-formatted the OP to make it easier to read (yay!).
Also, the following lines were changed or otherwise tampered with:
1: proper introduction
4: still haven't applied the 'awpo / lapo thing, mainly because I want to save lapo for the later pun.
13: more thoughts on the comments
19: RTFM about adpositions in relative clauses, so that should be ok now.
19: how mean to make alìm an adverb all of a sudden!
26: added intentional mood

And now if you'll excuse me, there is some exam revision waiting for me, which I actually meant to do earlier. Thank you, Internet, for being such a good source of distraction.