smált

Smált means ‘rock’ or ‘stone’. You can use it for any size of stone—and even for a whole mountain.

Pronunciation

Smált sounds like SMALT, with the same vowel as in English ‘hat‘.

Audio: Elizabeth Phillips

Note: Some speakers elongate the vowel more, written smá:lt. Both spellings are ‘correct, and in this case the difference is not significant.

Plural form

Smált has a special plural form, like this: smelmált – rocks, stones, mountains (audio here).

smelmált

Elders make this type of plural by doubling (‘reduplicating’) the first part of the word, as follows:

First, you identify the CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) sequence at the start of the word (the s- prefix doesn’t count)

You double (‘reduplicate’) the consonant-vowel-consonant sequence

You change the first vowel, and put the emphasis (stress or pitch) on the second vowel

There are other ways of forming the plural in the language, but Elders use this ‘CVC reduplication’ pattern with many words.