“Olsu stl’í kw’es yeláwels x̲wém kw’el kyó,” x̲ét’e tútlo.

He said “I want my car to be faster”.

“Olsu stl’í kw’es yeláwels x̲wém kw’el kyó,” x̲ét’e tútlo. means ‘He said “I want my car to be faster”‘.

Literally it means: ‘ “So my want (is) that more fast (is) my car,” said he’.

Vocabulary and pronunciation

• x̲ét’e – to say
• tútl’o – he, him
• osu – so (this is a general sentence connecter, not always translatable into English)
• -l – my (the ‘full’ form for my is tel, but in some structures it becomes just -l)
• olsu– so my (here the -l ending goes ‘inside’ of osu, to make olsu – so my)
• stl’í – a want, a need (see el stl’í kw’es)
• kw’es – that
• yeláwel – more (see yeláw)
• -s – the -s has several uses in the language, in this case it marks that there is a ‘third person’ subject (i.e. the thing we are talking about is not you or me). See futher notes on this ending below in this post.
• x̲wém – fast
• kw’el – my (you would normally say tel, but you use kw’el when talking about distant objects, or objects that exist as possibilities)
• kyó – car

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure

The structure of this phrase is as follows:

See Olsu stl’i kw’es yeláwels x̲wém kw’el kyó for more information about that part of the phrase.