Qasu élmetst kwe’s las tu thatíl

Qasu élmetst kwe’s las tu thatíl means ‘And they’d wait until it was very dark’.

Structure and Vocabulary

This phrase has the following structure:

• qasu – and so,
• élmetst – variant of ólmetst – to wait
• kw’es – usually means that, but here means until
• la this is an untranslatable auxiliary, but related to lám – to go.  Here it marks the change of state, as in English  ‘go dark‘.
• -s -here the -s ending marks that a ‘third person’ (not me or you) is the subject. In this case, the subject is the understood third person ‘it’.
• tu – very
• thatíl – get dark

Note: though the English translation includes ‘they’ and ‘it’, these words are just understood from context in this sentence, as is common in the language.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrlig