It's song time!

[Ngawng]

Kaltxì....does this make any sense? I tried my best to translate an awesome song about encouraging native peoples to be strong.

Oe pate set hu vur
sawtute-yä z<us>up-a tì-nawm-ru
Nga-l spaw lu tam z<er>upa nì'ul alìm ftu tsawke srak?
Taluna tsakrr ayfo s<er>i tì-pe'un
Tsakrr ayoeng Na'vi plltxe nì-txur, ayfo ke stawm
Tafral rä'ä t<ay>erkup fpi-ay-vrrtep
Oe p<er>eng nga-ru tsa'u lu tsleng

Ka'u sì piak s<iv>i, ka'u r<iv>un
Nga spaw ayfo-l h<ay>awnu nga-ru
Slä nga ke omum
Kifkey ayfo ngop m<er>unge mìso tìr-ey

Ayfol t<ay>ìng ayfo-yä ay-tsleng ulte ayfo-l p<ay>eng kempe lu muiä
P<ay>änutìng nga-ru tì-nawm nga tslam si
Ayfo-l ke fpe' ayfo-yä ay-eveng tsl<er>am txon-mì

red = edits

[Feiane]

Hi there! I love songs! What is this to the tune of?

I probably can't help that much because I'm new and all that good stuff, but here's some things I thought about:

1) Ay-tawtute-yä z<us>up-a tì-nawm-ru
Are you saying "The great fall of the Sky People" or are you saying "The greatness of the falling sky people" ? Or something else? You've got me completely confused. Why the -ru ending on tìnawm? If I were to translate this literally it would be "Sky People's falling to greatness" but that doesn't make sense to me D:

2) Nga spaw ayfo-l h<ay>awnu nga-ru. This looks like you're trying to say "You believe that they will protect you" but the problem with your sentence is you don't have anything separating the clauses. How about:
Ngal spaw fi'ut a ayfol ngati hayawnu
You(ERG) believe this-thing(ACC) that they(ERG) you(ACC) protect(FUT)
Quite literally, You believe this "they will protect you" thing

3) Ayfol t<ay>ìng ayfo-yä ay-tsleng You can't put ay- on a non-noun. tsleng is an adjective... perhaps it would be proper to say aytìsleng instead? Or is it aysìsleng...

Hopefully someone more knowledgeable comes along!

[Ngawng]

Kaltxì, ma Feiane

Irayo so much for the help...Gosh I feel silly I'm such a noob D:

With the sky people thing I was trying to say something along the lines of 'the sky people's diminishing glory'.

I seem to always be getting my case suffixes wrong  Does anyone know of a place on the interwebs where I can learn more about them? D;



Irayo ma aytsmuk

[Feiane]

Don't feel silly... I've never even tried translating this much text at once yet!

As for learning more about suffixes, I've been using Na'vi in a Nutshell as a reference when I look up a grammar rule. But if you want it explained in person you could always visit Teamspeak

You may also want to read about Lenition. Certain prefixes (ay+ and me+ for example) will change/soften the first letter if the word starts with a px tx kx p t ts k or '

Aytawtute should be aysawtute or (short form) sawtute.
It's just like how you went from po (singluar) -> ayfo (plural) which by the way you could also simply write as fo