lex̲éywa

Lex̲éywa means ‘to torchlight’. It refers to a traditional way of fishing at night, where you use a fire in a special container in your canoe to lure and stun the fish.

Pronunciation

Lex̲éywa sounds like luck-EH-wah, except that the instead of ck you say the Halq’eméylem hard-x sound (x̲). To make the hard-x (x̲), you touch the back of your tongue to your uvula (more info on x̲ is here).

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling, Elizabeth Phillips

Some Elders say this word slightly differently, like this: lex̲íwa (sounds like luck-EE-wah). Both forms are ‘correct’.

-ing form

Lex̲éywa has a special ‘-ing‘ form , to describe an ongoing action, like this: halx̲éywa – torchlighting (audio here).

Elders make this type of –ing form by adding an prefix ha- (in this case, the they also drop another vowel, e).