“Chxw xwe’í:t os éwelh qwelsthóx?” x̲et’e.

“How come you never talk to me?”, he said.

“Chxw xwe’í:t os éwelh qwelsthóx?” x̲et’e. means ‘”How come you never talk to me?”, he said.’

Literally: you (are) doing.what that never talk.to.me? said (he)

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• x̲et’e – to say,
• chexw – you, talking to one person (this commonly shortens to chxw in fast speech)
• xwe’ít – what is __ doing? what happened? (see xwe’ít, chxw xwe’i:t)
• os – meaning is similar to ‘that‘ (see structure notes below
• ewelh – never
• qwélstexw – to talk to
• -óx – me
• qwelsthóx – talk to me

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure notes

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

Note that there is no explicit word for ‘he‘ in this sentence, this is just understood from context.  (You could also say x̲et’e tútl’o, to make ‘he‘ explicit).