ó:lhstexwes i te kyó

O:lhstexwes i te kyó means ‘They (were) loading it on the car(s)’. ‘They‘ and ‘it‘ are both understood from context.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The phrase consists of these elements:

• ó:lhstexw – to be loading (this is the –ing form of ólhstexw)
• -es – here, marks that there is a third person subject (someone other than you or me). The subject in this case is the understood ‘they’
• i – This word has a number of uses in the language. Here the Elder uses it as a preposition. Used as a preposition, i can mean ‘in‘, ‘at‘, or ‘on‘.
• te – the
• kyó – car (here Elizabeth is referring to a railway car). The word is singular in form, but singulars can have a plural interpretation in the language.
  

  car