isá:le

two

‘Isá:le’ is the way you say the number ‘two’, for general counting.

Pronunciation

Here is how you can pronounce isá:le:

• Basically, you just say “ee-SA-luh”
• The “a” is like the vowel in English hat or bad.
• Some speakers have a high or high-falling pitch on the “a”, and the vowel is somewhat longer (this is what the accent and colon mark).  Just stressing the vowel a bit is fine.

Using the Word

Here are some good contexts for using this word:

• Counting to ten on your fingers.
• Counting numbers one to ten.
• Doing arithmetic like addition or subtraction.

Note that there are special forms of the numbers if you are counting people, canoes, trees, and certain other objects (some examples appear below). Isá:le is just the general ‘all purpose’ form for counting.

Related Words

Here are some other words related to isá:le:

• yáysele – two people (special form for counting people)
• isó:les – two dollars (special form for counting dollars)
• islá:wes – two paddles (special form for counting paddles)

Note: the audio sample above is by Elizabeth Herrling – Th’áth’elexwot and Rosaleen George – Yámelot. If you don’t see an audio player above, you can try here.