tl’o te sqáqs te John

it’s John’s little brother

Tl’o te sqáqs te John means ‘it’s John’s little brother’

Pronunciation

• tl’o – it is… (the tl’ sequence sounds like a popped-t followed by an l)
• te – the
• sqáq – younger sibling
• -s – here marks that a ‘third person’ (not me or you) possesses the noun. Roughly translates as English ‘of”.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling
Note: this audio has been edited from a longer audio clip, with a word removed. The full audio will be released in a following post, shortly.

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

• Note that you say literally ‘the John’. This is normal in Halq’emeylem.
• Note that the –s ending, roughly translated above as ‘of’, actually marks that some third person (not the speaker or the hearer) possesses the noun (sqaq). In this case, that ‘third person possessor’ is John.