Tl’eqámeth’ te sqá:qs tl’ John.

John’s little brother is tall.

Tl’eqámeth’ te sqá:qs tl’ John means ‘John’s little brother is tall.’

Literally it means ‘Tall is the little.brother of the John’.

Vocabulary and Pronunciation

• tl’eqtámeth’ – tall
• te – the
• sqá:q – younger sibling
• tl’ – special form of the, used before names (pronounced as popped-t followed by an l or lh sound)

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling
Note: in this sentence Elizabeth is speaking very fluently and she does not pop the t’ in tl’ very strongly.  In slower speech the t in tl’ would be popped.

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

In Halq’eméylem you usually say the equivalent of English the before proper names, which is why you say literally ‘the John’ in this sentence.

The word tl’ means the, but tl’ is only used before names.  Even with names, you only use tl’ only in certain sentence patterns, including the possessor-relation as in this sentence.