my translation of "Tribute" by Tenacious d

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

hey everybody. as some of you may know, I've been translating Tenacious D's song "Tribute" for a while and it's now finished.
I had to "loosen up" the grammar (Na'vi allows it in songs) many times to fit the melody but not too much. so you will see some grammatical mistakes. I omitted only words that are understandable from context. of course if you have suggestions tell me. enjoy.

the official video of the song:
YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

the video of the song with lyrics (if you want to listen to how it goes with the melody)

Spoiler

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5M04_qkRdY

the lyrics of the song (so you don't have to look up the video above)

Spoiler

This is the greatest and best song in the world...
Tribute.

Long time ago me and my brother Kyle here,
We was hitch hikin' down a long and lonesome road.
All of a sudden, there shined a shiny demon... in the middle... of the road.
And he said:

"Play the best song in the world, or I'll eat your soul."

Well me and Kyle
We looked at each other,
And we each said...
"Okay."

And we played the first thing that came to our heads,
Just so happened to be,
The Best Song in the World
It was The Best Song in the World.

Look into my eyes and it's easy to see
One and one make two, two and one make three,
It was destiny.
Once every hundred-thousand years or so,
When the sun doth shine and the moon doth glow
And the grass doth grow...

Needless to say
The beast was stunned.
A whip-crack went his whoopy tail,
And the beast was done.
He asked us: "Be you angels?"
And we said, "Nay. We are but men.
Rock!"
Aaaaahhh, aaaahhh, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah,
Oooohhh, whooooh, ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah!

This is not The Greatest Song in the World, no.
This is just a tribute.
Couldn't remember The Greatest Song in the World, no, no.
This is a tribute, oh
To The Greatest Song in the World, all right!
It was The Greatest Song in the World, all right!
It was the best muthafuckin' song the greatest song in the world all right.
Di, too badoom bee go dee
Go goo fligoogigoo,
Gafligoogigoo, badii! igigoo
Gi oo goo googi du badiiii!
Fligoogigoo ga fligoogi
Oh mama Lucifer

And the peculiar thing is this my friends:
The song we sang on that fateful night
It didn't actually sound anything like this song.

This is just a tribute!
You gotta believe me!
And I wish you were there!
Just a matter of opinion.
Oh what the f***!
Good God
God is lovin' now
I'm so surprised to find you can't stop me now.
The fiery ring of fire
Bbbest motherfuckin' the f***' song

All right! All right!

and now finally my version nìNa'vi

Spoiler

Fì'u lu sweya tìrol asìltsan frato
Meuiafpi

'awlie, oe tsmukansì oeyä alu Kayl
Tarmìran fya'omì angim nì'awtu
Tsakrr, zola'u atanìri teya lu a vrrtep
Kxamtsengne, fya'oä
Po poltxe
Pamtseo si
Tìrolur aswey
Fu yom mengey vitrat
Tse oel Kaylìlsì, nìn pumit alahe tsakrr oe Kaylsì, näpamìn
Ulte poltxe
San sran

Pamtseo si 'awvea 'uru re'ota
Tsafya tsa'u lolen
Kifkeyä sweya tìrol
Lolu kifkeyä sweya tìrol
Nìn menarit oey
Lu ftue fwa tse'a
'aw 'awhu lu mune
Mune 'awhu lu pxey
tsa'u lolu syay
'awlo pxaya zìsìtmì krr a
Tsawkel atanit tìng
Aysanhìl nìteng
Fra'ewll slu tsawl

Kea tìkin a plltxe
Vrrtepur lu yayayr
Nìwin takuk pori kxetsefa
Poru txopu lu
Moeru pawm
Mesirea?
Plltxe kehe
Nì'aw sutan
Rikx

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh, aaaaaahhhhh
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah
Oooooohhhh, woooohhh
Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah

Fì'u ke lu, kifkeyä sweya tìrol, kehe
Meuiafpi tsey
Ke tsun ziverok, kifkeyä sweya tìrolit, kehe, kehe!
Meuiafpi tsey
Kifkeyä sweya tìrol, oh sran
Kifkeyä sweya tìrol, oh sran
Srane loleiu sweya tìrol, kifkeyä sweya tìrol, oh sran

Ti, tu patum pi ko ti
Ko ku flikukiku
Kaflikukiku, pati Ikiku
Ki u ku kuki tu pati
Flikukiku ka flikuki
Oh mama Lutsifer

Ulte 'u a hek ma eylan lu fwa
Tsatìrolit rolol mì satxon asyaynga'
Ke lolu teng kaw'it na fìtìrol
Meuiafpi tsey
Zene spivaw oeti
Nìrangal tok tsatsengit
Sì'efuä lu txele
Peu? Pxasìk!
Eywa
Eywar yawne set
Furia ketsukftang 'efu nitram
Txepnga' apxasì lu a txep
Kifkeyäìri sweya txantsansa tìrol

Oh sran
Oh sran

[Sireayä mokri]

Txantsana tìrol lu nìngay ulte txantsana tìralpeng. Aysäfpìl oeyä:

Pamtseo si
Tìrolur aswey

Pamtseo si 'awvea 'uru re'ota

There should be a case here.

Fu yom mengey vitrat

Tse oel Kaylìlsì, nìn pumit alahe

I don't think that pumit alahe would suffice for "each other". Maybe oe Kaylsì näpamìn?

Tsawkel atanit tìng
Aysanhìl nìteng

Plltxe san kehe

Ke tsun ziverok, kifkeyä sweya tìrolit, kehe, kehe!

Kifkeyä sweya txantsansa tìrol

Seems too ungrammatical even for a song.

Lam fwa set zene fko rivun ayrolyut sì famtseotut a lu sìltsan fte tsat rivol nìNa'vi

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

Pamtseo si
Tìrolur aswey

Pamtseo si 'awvea 'uru re'ota

There should be a case here.

like in many other cases I didn't put cases for the song to fit the melody. but I think it could be sung with those cases too so I'll add them.

Fu yom mengey vitrat

fixed.

Tse oel Kaylìlsì, nìn pumit alahe

I don't think that pumit alahe would suffice for "each other". Maybe oe Kaylsì näpamìn?

that's the best way I found to fit the melody, but it could be sung like that too, so changed.

Tsawkel atanit tìng
Aysanhìl nìteng

fixed.

Plltxe san kehe

it won't fit the melody with the san. I dropped san...sìk several other times too because of that. I think that's enough understanable.

Ke tsun ziverok, kifkeyä sweya tìrolit, kehe, kehe!

fixed. works well with the melody.

Kifkeyä sweya txantsansa tìrol

Seems too ungrammatical even for a song.

what's incorrect in that? anyway, I'll just remove txantsan and put kifkey in the topical. that will give me the syllable I need.

[Sireayä mokri]

like in many other cases I didn't put cases for the song to fit the melody. but I think it could be sung with those cases too so I'll add them.

I think cases should not be omitted anyway, that would only bring ambiguity.

it won't fit the melody with the san. I dropped san...sìk several other times too because of that. I think that's enough understanable.

You can drop the last e in kehe. In my opinion plltxe san keh sounds even better than plltxe kehe.

what's incorrect in that?

You can't stack adjectives like that. It's either sweya tìrol atxantsan or tìrol alu swey sì txantsan.

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

it won't fit the melody with the san. I dropped san...sìk several other times too because of that. I think that's enough understanable.

You can drop the last e in kehe. In my opinion plltxe san keh sounds even better than plltxe kehe.

oh I like this. and it's good because in the song they say "nay".

what's incorrect in that?

You can't stack adjectives like that. It's either sweya tìrol atxantsan or tìrol alu swey sì txantsan.

as far as I understand, when I say sweya txantsana tìrol I think of txantsana tìrol as a whole big noun and describe it with swey. otherwise, using a lu will be the only way Na'vi handles many adjectives and it doesn't work well in fast speech in my opinion. it makes it look like a list. and also swey lu fì'u alu txantsana tìrol is too long.
it's the same way with all kinds of fwa which make a big noun and also the same with "big verbs" like tsun tivam (and thus we can use agentive).
for example we know that if we have a noun, an adjective that describes it (or genitive), and also an adposition, we can put the adjective between the other two words. we think of the noun and the adjective as one big noun to which we refer.
those are at least my thoughts.

[Sireayä mokri]

otherwise, using a lu will be the only way Na'vi handles many adjectives and it doesn't work well in fast speech in my opinion.

That's what Frommer said about this case. Two adjectives can "sandwich" a noun, there's no problem here. But what if you have three, four, five etc.? Putting all of them in a row seems awkward at the very least. Personally, I would avoid it even with proper nouns, e.g. mipa eltu lefngap, not *eltu lefngap amip. 

[Alyara Arati]

It's not easy trying to fit Na'vi words to a song in English, or any song for that matter.  And I know.  So excellent work!  Now that I've heard "Tribute", it reminds me a little of this song ("The Devil Went Down to Georgia), which may be slightly off topic since I haven't put Na'vi words to it, but oh well. 

The chorus, at least, should be:

txep mì ayram, tul ma evan
vrrtep lu mì srr'ongä tseng
yayo hametsìr tìkxey si
nantang frìp srak? keh ma 'evi

and, no, it doesn't make sense in English either.

Spoiler

fire on the mountain, run boys run
devil's in the house of the rising sun
chicken in the bread pan picking out dough
granny does your dog bite? no child no

I believe some of these are titles to old fiddle songs.

[eejmensenikbenhet]

First: Great Translation , I hope you don't mind if I don't look at whether you made mistakes or not because I'm a real skxawng
Second: Why Pamrel nìNa'vi nì'aw? Why not Pamtseo nìNa'vi nì'aw?

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

because it's not a song by me. it's just a translation. I think it doesn't matter where I put this.

[Blue Elf]

Great job, ma Tsamsiyu! It's not easy to translate songs even when you don't care about word lengths.
Translation is excellent, I tried reverse translation and it was same as original in about 80-90 percent (question is, who is better - if you in EN->Na'vi direction or me in opposite,  )
Nawma sa'nok ngaru lrrtok soli nìlaw. You are really clever

[Tswusayona Tsamsiyu]

nga lu nìtxan tstunwi ma tsmuk. irayo nìtxan nìtxan.
I really like Tenacious D. they sing well and are also funny. me and my friends sing their songs together in school every day.

[eejmensenikbenhet]

because it's not a song by me. it's just a translation. I think it doesn't matter where I put this.

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Enjoy!