Song Translation - Your Protector, by Fleet Foxes

[Kayrìlien]

First of all, here's a link to a YouTube video of the original song, for those of you that have not heard it:

Fleet Foxes - Your Protector (only sound)

I was listening to this CD on my way to class this morning, and while I have previously translated another of Fleet Foxes' songs (Blue Ridge Mountains), it struck me that this one seemed rather relevant to Avatar after giving it another listen. After listening to the song, imagine it being sung from the perspective of a Na'vi warrior who is facing the impending prospect of war with the aysawtute. Think about it; only a very small change in the plot and you can definitely see Tsu'tey singing this to Neytiri.

Instead of trying to preserve exact meaning, I tried to make the Na'vi version rather singable, so there are a couple omissions, hopefully none of which render the Na'vi lyrics meaningless. I didn't do the trilinear gloss thing this time; the grammar and vocabulary are either rather simple or intentionally changed/incorrect for rhythmic purposes.

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Your Protector, by Fleet Foxes
Hawnuyu Ngeyä, Na'vi Translation by Kayrìlien Rolyu, 4-29-2010


She left a week to roam
Poan holum fte sop
Your protector's comin' home
Hawnuyu ngeyä terätxaw
Keep your secrets with you, girl,
Ma poan, nari sivi
Safe from the outside world
Nga kxuke nìtxan lu

You walk along the stream
Tìran ìlä fayfya
Your head caught in a waking dream
Re'o lu spe'etu unilä
Your protector's comin' home,
Hawnuyu ngeyä terätxaw
Comin' home
Kelkune

As you lay to die beside me, baby, on the morning that you came
Tseng a nga oehu tìyerkup krr a ngal oeti kolameie
Would you wait for me?
Oeri ngal pivey srak?
The other one would wait for me!
Lapo oeri pasyeiey!

As you lay to die beside me, baby, on the morning that you came
Tseng a nga oehu tìyerkup krr a ngal oeti kolameie
Would you wait for me?
Oeri ngal pivey srak?
The other one would wait for me!
Lapo oeri pasyeiey!

You rode with the devil!
Molakto hu vrrtep!
You rode with the devil!
Molakto hu vrrtep!

Tell your brother to be good
Tsmukanur peng livu sìltsan
Tell your sister not to go
Tsmukeru peng ke kivä
Tell your mother not to wait
Sa'nokur peng ke pivey
Tell your father I was good
Sempulur peng futa (oe) lamu sìltsan

As you lay to die beside me, baby, on the morning that you came
Tseng a nga oehu tìyerkup krr a ngal oeti kolameie
Would you wait for me?
Oeri ngal pivey srak?
The other one would wait for me!
Lapo oeri pasyeiey!

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Tell me what you think! If you see an egregious error, please let me know...there might be something that I did unintentionally besides the syllabic omissions I made for the sake of rhythmic flow.

Irayo!

Kayrìlien

[Ftiaronsem]

Kaltxi Kayrìlien

Unfortunatelly I am far away from being able to judge the correctnes of the translation. Therefore I can only say that I consider this great work. I know how far I am from such a translation ;-). So we would just need someone with a good voice to sing it^^. Unfortunetelly I can't help with this either ;-)

Irayo Kayrìlien

[Kayrìlien]

Kaltxì ma Ftiaronsem! I had almost forgotten that I had translated this song; I guess there aren't as many fans of Fleet Foxes as there should be.

Irayo for your compliments! I've loved thee song ever since I heard it, and because most of the lyrics in their songs are rather simple, they're also easy to translate. I should probably go through it again now that I have another month of Na'vi under my belt.

Hehehe...regarding singing it, Robin's voice is somewhat hard to mimic, considering he has incredibly powerful resonance and yet a rather strong Northwest accent. (A good example of this is one of their other songs, where the word "darkening" sounds more like "donkey neck".)

I have a low-quality recording of my own, though it's just myself singing while I play simplistic accompaniment on the piano. Once I'm done with school (next Thursday...w00t!) I'll probably upload all of my random Na'vi lyrics songs to YouTube.

Thanks again for reading and listening!

Kayrìlien