Lamexw kw’étslexw te sth’óqwi li te tl’ép, os lheq sus tl’o kw’e le ew í:tet o, kw’áy kw’ses kwíyx̲thets! means ‘If you see the fish below, it’s always like they’re just sleeping, they can’t move!’
Audio: Elizabeth Herrling
Structure and Vocabulary
The structure of this phrase is as follows:
- lam – literally ‘to go’, but here used as a general preposition, mainly to hold the -exw ending (see next point).
- -exw – you. – You is usually chexw, but when talking about possibilities and ‘if’ situations, you use the shorter ending -exw.
- kw’étslexw – to see.
- te – the (this can also mean a; the language does not distinguish a vs. the)
- sth’óqwi – fish (this is the noun form, referring to the thing)
- li – in – In this sense li is a general preposition, and you can also use it for at, in, on. Li also has other uses in the language.
- tl’ép – This can mean deep, but here it is probably a variant pronunciation of stl’ép – depth, bottom
- os – a sentence connective, similar to Engish so. Sometimes osu.
- lheq – can mean always or sometimes
- su – so
- –s – here marks that there is a ‘third person’ (someone or something other than you or me) subject.
- tl’o kw’e… – it is that…
- le – this is an untranslatable ‘auxiliary’, often used with third person subjects (here the understood ‘they‘) It my be a reduced form of lam – to go.
- ew … o – just… (Together, these two little words mean ‘just‘. Another example would be ew swíyeqe o – just a man. Both words are used in other ways, but in combination they give the meaning ‘just…’.)
- í:tet – sleeping (see ítet)
- kw’ay – can’t, (it is) impossible
- kw’es – that
- -es – here, marks (‘agrees with’) an (understood) third person subject (someone other than you or me). In this sentence the understood third person subject is ‘they‘
- kwíyx̲thet – to move oneself
- -s – this –s again marks the presence of the (understood) third person subject.
No comments yet.