te sqá:qs tútl’o

his little brother

Te sqá:qs tútl’o means ‘his little brother’ (literally ‘the little-brother of him’).

Pronunciation

• te sounds like tuh.
• sqá:q sounds like SKACK (except instead of k you say the Halq’eméyelm q).
• tútl’o sounds like TOOT-la, except that the t is ‘popped’, by combining it with a catch in the throat (‘glottal stop‘).

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

• te sqá:q-s tútl’o
• the little.brother-of he/him

Note that:

• The -s ending marks ‘possession’, something like English ‘of’.
  tútl’o by itself means ‘he’ or ‘him’, but because this phrase includes possession by he/him, the fluent translation is ‘his’.

Related Examples

Here are some examples of similar phrases:

• te sqwemá:ys tútl’o – his dog
• te méles tútl’o – his child
• te lá:lems tútl’o – his house

This pattern is also similar to te lá:lems tl’ John – John’s house