skw’áy kw’eset p’áth’et

Skw’áy kw’eset p’áth’et means ‘we can’t sew (it)‘ or ‘we couldn’t sew (it)’. Tense is often understood from context, in the language.

Pronunciation

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

This phrase has the following structure:

Note how the Elder uses the ending –et for ‘we‘ in this structure. In other structures, ‘we‘ would be tset; the form varies for certain types of sentences, and sentences starting with skw’ay are one special structure.