He’s always jealous of him.
Wowistéleqmetes wiyóth means ‘He’s always jealous of him’.
As is common in the language, Elizabeth does not explicitly say either the subject (‘he‘) or the object (‘him‘). You have to figure out who is jealous of who from the context of the story.
Vocabulary and pronunciation
- wowistéleq – jealous
- wowistéleqmet – jealous of
- -es – here marks that a ‘third person’ (i.e. someone other than you or me) is the subject. In this case, this third person subject is the understood ‘he’.
- wiyóth – always
Audio: Elizabeth Herrling
Sentence structure
The structure of the sentence is as follows:
As noted above, neither the subject (‘he‘) nor the object (‘him‘) is explicitly stated. You just figure it out from context.
Elders add the -es ending to this type of verb whenever a ‘third person’ (i.e. someone other than you or me) is the subject. In this case, the third person subject is the understood ‘he‘.
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