Qasu élmetst kwe’s las tu thatíl qeyálhes me thíyt ta’ héyeqw.

Qasu élmetst kwe’s las tu thatíl qeyálhes me thíyt ta’ héyeqw means ‘And so they’d wait till it got very dark, before making the fire.’‘.

Audio: Elizabeth Herrling

Structure and Vocabulary

This phrase has the following structure:

• qasu – and so,
• élmetst – variant of ólmetst – to wait
• kw’es – usually means that, but here means until
• la this is an untranslatable auxiliary, but related to lám – to go. Here it marks the change of state, as in English ‘go dark‘.
• -s -here the -s ending marks that a ‘third person’ (not me or you) is the subject. In this case, the subject is the understood third person ‘it’.
• tu – very
• thatíl – get dark
• qeyálh – before
• -es – possibly 3rd person agreement
• me – an untranslatable auxiliary verb, marks inception or starting, similar to English ‘come to…’. Probably a reduced form of emí – to come
• thíyt – to make, prepare, fix
• ta’ – your
• héyeqw – fire
  

  fire