Li the T’eqw’ótem osu xwe ew tl’o tútl’o yétl’q’thet tútl’o

Saturday it’s himself that he paints

Li the T’eqw’ótem osu xwe ew tl’o tútl’o yétl’q’thet tútl’o means ‘Saturday it’s himself that he paints’.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Vocabulary and Structure

This phrase has the following structure:

See:

• T’eqw’ótem – Saturday (variant of T’óqw’tem)
• yétl’q’t – to paint (it)
• yétl’q’thet tútl’o – (he) paints himself)
• tútl’o – he, him

Notes:

• Elizabeth Herrling here uses the (rather than the more usual te) for ‘the‘ in this phrase. Though some speakers use the only for females, there is significant variation in how these words are used, and Elizabeth tends to vary.
• Note that Elizabeth uses T’eqw’ótem here for Saturday, rather than T’óqw’tem. The root for both is t’eqw’ót (‘to cut it’, used for string-like objects), so the variation makes sense.
• The ew particle marks emphasis, here apparently emphasizing him. In Elizabeth’s pronunciation, the xwe and ew run together to sound like xwu.