Sásq’ets – Phrase 1 (partial)

(from Sasq’ets Story, page 1)

oluplhát te máqe 

very thick  the snow

 The snow is/was very thick

This section is part of the first line in Rosaleen George’s Sasq’ets (Sasquatch) story …

Vocabulary and Audio for Phrase

Here are the words that appear in the phrase:

• olu – very
• phlát – thick
• te– the
• máqe– snow (you use this for snow on the ground)

And here is audio for the full phrase:

Audio: Rosaleen George

Translation notes

• As in many languages, there is no word in Halq’eméylem corresponding to the English words ‘be‘ or ‘was‘.
• You could translate this phrase by itself as either ‘The snow is very thick‘ or ‘The snow was very thick’.
• In Halq’eméylem the subject (here te maqe – the snow) often comes last in the sentence. That is why the word-order is different from English.

Other Notes

In Rosaleen’s Sasq’ets story, olu plhát te máqe is part of a longer phrase: Lets’áxw kw’selh olu plhát te máqe.

Lets’áxw kw’eselh..  means literally ‘One time it was that…‘.  We will return to this part of the phrase in a later post.