Mimele’ó:ylha means ‘doll‘. The origin of the word is not entirely clear, but it appears to come from the meaning ‘little child made of wood’.
Pronunciation
Mimele’ó:ylha sounds like this: mee-muh-luh-EYE-luh, except that instead of a regular l the l sound in the last syllable is the Halq’eméylem ‘hissy-l‘ (lh). The hissy l (lh) is like a regular l, but with more friction and no vibration in the throat.
Audio: Elizabeth Herrling, Elizabeth Phillips
Word structure
Mimele’ó:ylha comes from the base word méle – child.
The ‘dimunitive’ (‘little’) form for méle is mímele – little child. Elders make dimunitive forms like this by partly doubling (‘reduplicating’) the the base word, and changing the first vowel to /i/.
The endings on the base are unclear, but may be related to the ending –yó:lh, which occurs in some words related to wood, as in siyólh – wood, or chiyólh – gather firewood.
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