Paiwan Every Day 248: vengin

cuai a vengin. sau, vaiku a taqed. 

In English:

It's late. Go sleep. 

Glossary:

1. cuai: lasting for a long time. 
2. a: subject case marker
3. vengin: night
4. sa-u: go, imperative for the listener
5. vaik-u: go, imperative for the listener
6. a: ligature (LIG)
7. taqed: sleep

Reading:

From kina naluku to her daugher Yedda. 

In English, people say 'The night is young' to mean  it's not late or there's still a lot of time. But I've never heard of an expression like 'The night is old'. Is there? Or in Chinese, when referring to late night, people say 夜深了 yè shēn le 'The night is deep'. 

In Paiwan, however, we use 'lasting or a long time' to refer to a certain depth of time. cuai a vengin literally means 'the night has been lasting for some time or has been a long time ago'. It sounds like 'The night is old', doesn't it?

Young, deep, lasting, a long time ago, or old. Very interesting.