Lamexw kw’étslexw te sth’óqwi li te tl’ép…

Lamexw kw’étslexw te sth’óqwi li te tl’ép… means ‘If you see the fish below…’.

Literally it means: ‘If you see the fish in the deep…’ or ‘in the depths…’

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure and Vocabulary

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

• lam – literally ‘to go’, but here used as a general preposition, mainly to hold the -exw ending (see next point).
• -exw – you. – You is usually chexw, but when talking about possibilities and ‘if’ situations, you use the shorter ending -exw.
• kw’étslexw – to see.
• te – the (this can also mean a; the language does not distinguish a vs. the)
• sth’óqwi – fish (this is the noun form, referring to the thing)
• li – in – In this sense li is a general preposition, and you can also use it for at, in, on. Li also has other uses in the language.
• tl’ép – This can mean deep, but here it is probably a variant pronunciation of stl’ép – depth, bottom