Iti kw’es xwíléxs te John

John is standing here.

Iti kw’es xwíléxs te John means ‘John is standing here‘.

Literally it means ‘Here that stands the John‘.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• íti – here
• kw’es – that
• xwíléx – to stand
• -s – here the –s marks that a ‘third person’ (other than ‘you’ or ‘me’) is the subject of the sentence
• te – the (in Halq’eméylem you usually say te even before proper names, so literally ‘the John’)

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

Notes:

• The –s ending is required here beacause the subject (the person doing the standing, i.e. ‘John‘) is a ‘third person’ (i.e. neither you nor me, but some third person)
• Note that in Halq’eméylem you usually have to say literally ‘the John’, i.e. using ‘the‘ before a proper name.