Strangers from distant lands… Friends of old

“La duonon el vi mi ne konas duone tiom, kiom mi volus; kaj mi ŝatas malpli ol la duonon el vi duone tiom, kiom vi meritas.”

The above may give away that I’ve been reading the Esperantisised version of The Fellowship of the Ring. If not, then perhaps this’ll jog your memory!

It’s brought to my attention neat words such as:

• tremvoĉe = with a trembling voice
• vetermakulita = weather-worn
• taŭzi = to tousle, dishevel, jostle
• pomŝarĝita = apple-laden
• mukokula = mucus-eyed

Also, I’m beginning to notice the little tricks that a good translator uses to try to capture the original flavour of a text. Let me give you an example:

There is a hobbit surname “Proudfoot”. In his speech, Bilbo refers to them collectively as “Proudfoots”, and one loud hobbit corrects him to “Proudfeet”. The humour behind this comment relies on the irregular plural of the English word “foot” (feet). So how can this humour be transferred to Esperanto when in our beautiful language all words have their plural with the simple addition of a “j” (including the word for “foot”!)?

Well, this is the solution the translator opts for:

“… [bilbo speech] … Bonkorpoj, Brokhusoj kaj Fierfutoj.“
“Fierpiedoj!” kriis maljuneta hobito…

Bilbo uses the wrong notion of “foot” (“futo” is an Esperanto word, but it isn’t the anatomical “foot”), and is subsequently corrected.

I think that’s kinda neat! I’m looking forward to comparing the rest of the translation to the original and gaining some insights!

 

The traditional way to become

A little lexical musing for you today!

We have a perfectly good word for “to become”, which is “iĝi”. We can use it by itself, or use it as a suffix (as it was originally intended):

• ŝi iĝis pala = she became pale
• ŝi paliĝis = she became pale

But, according to the PMEG, a more traditional word for “to become” is “fariĝi”. Though apparently the use of “iĝi” is on the rise. I’m glad to hear this, because of how neat the smaller word is, and because I couldn’t figure out how “fariĝi” could actually mean “become”, when it has the word for “become” in it already!!!

Firstly, I’m gonna suggest a reason why “fariĝi” is more traditional, and why “iĝi” seems to be taking over. For this, just assume that it makes perfect sense for “fariĝi” to mean “to become”, then once I’m done, I’ll suggest a reason why I now think it kinda makes sense that it does.

In my previous post, I linked you to an article by Claude Piron on the evolution of Esperanto. In that article he reveals that it wasn’t always the done thing to use affixes as words in their own right; they were always attached to proper roots. But nowadays, affixes are proper words too! We can say “endi” = “to be necessary” (from the suffix “-end”), or “emi” = “to have a tendency to” (from the suffix “-em”)!

Given that affixes couldn’t be used alone, and “iĝi” is one of the most important affixes, it couldn’t have been used alone!

So an alternative was needed, a word to attach it to, which’d maintain the “become” meaning. So that’s my guess as to why “fariĝi” is more traditional! But now affixes can be used alone, so this is far more convenient!

So why the specific word “fariĝi”?

• fermi = to close
• fermiĝi = to become closed, to be(come) closing
• fari = to do, to make
• fariĝi = “to become doing”? “to become making”? “to become made”?

For some reason, my brain couldn’t think of anything else for a while. But here’s what I think now:

See this sentence:

• la doloro faros lin viro = pain will make him a man

Look how “doloro” is the subject; it is doing the making.
See how “lin” is the direct object; he’s the one being made into something.
“Viro” is a complement, it shows the result of the action.

When you put “iĝ” on the end of a verb, the old direct object becomes the new subject, and we no longer care about the original subject (the reverse to suffix “ig”, which adds an object); it disappears. I may blog about this in more detail, but here’s what I mean:

• Ŝi farbis la domon blua = she painted the house blue
• La domo farbiĝis blua = the house was painted (lit. became painted) blue

“Blua” is our complement here; it’s the result of the action in both cases.

But notice how the original subject (ŝi) is overwritten with the object (domo) using our suffix. In the second sentence, “domo” is the new subject of the new verb (in evil speak: “iĝ” makes a transitive verb which takes a single object, into an intransitive verb). Read this section of Being Colloquial in Esperanto if you’re crazy interested and can’t wait for me to post more about it.

Back to fari:

• la doloro faros lin viro = pain will make him a man

Which with “iĝ” becomes:

• li fariĝos viro = he will be made (lit. become made) a man

The old object (lin) overwrote the old subject (doloro), which we now don’t care about, and we’re left with the complement.

Notice how “X is made Y” means “X becomes Y”!!!

• He is made a man = he becomes a man

So this is why I think I now see why “fariĝi” pretty much equals “to become”. Still, I much prefer “iĝi”!

I had some real trouble explaining this, so if you need clarification, don’t hesitate to ask!

 

Ya mouth’s full o’ words

Found some really inventive words today! If you’ve been paying close attention to the Lernu forums since at least… December, maybe? Then you might have seen my source: an article by Claude Piron, because I think someone may have linked to it a while back.

Besides being an incredibly interesting article on the evolution of Esperanto, there are a couple of anecdotes about some pretty cool uses of the word building system.

• jeskaze = if you (one) agrees, in the case of agreement
• buŝpleni (pri)= to “constantly pay lip-service (about)”, constantly talk about, mouth full of speech (about)

Jeskaze

“jes” = “yes”, and “kaze” is the adverbial form of “kazo” = “case”. So “kaze” is like “in the case”. “Kazo” apparently originally talked only about “case” in the linguistic sense (e.g. accusative case), but has since drifted to be like “affair/event”, more like “okazo”. A less risky version may well be “jesokaze”! Regardless, this word is like “in the case of yes/affirmation/agreement”. Pretty neat!

Buŝpleni

• buŝo = mouth
• plena = full/complete
• pleni = to be full/complete (see this previous post for why, and this one for an interesting point about this transformation)

So “pleni” is “to be full”, and if we add a word to the front, is says that we’re full in a particular kind of way. By adding “buŝ” to the front, we’re saying that the manner in which we’re full, is characterised by “mouth” in some way.

• Ili buŝplenas pri homrajtoj = They constantly pay lip-service to human rights / Their mouth is full of speech about human rights

Literally “they mouth-full about human rights”.

I think that’s pretty cool don’t you?

If you haven’t already, do take a read of that article; it really shows how our language has grown in some interesting ways!

“Buŝpleni” made me think up “plenbuŝe”:

• Dum la tuta manĝo, lia koramikino parolis plenbuŝe!

Know what I mean by that?

 

Unify and rise up!

I was listening to really quite an interesting talk today, but the room was SO incredibly warm, and I’d had to much for lunch. So I began to nod off… BUT! In an effort to stay awake and thinking, I began to listen really hard, and try to translate in my head what they were saying into Esperanto!

I noted down all the words that I could not translate, and subsequently tried to build words for them. And one of my favourites was for “unify”. I had no idea what the word for “unify” was! So I came up with the idea of making many things into one.

Soooo… “unu” is the word for “one”, and the suffix “ig” means “to cause/make <root>”. So “unuigi” = “to make one/to unify/to unite (something)”!

Esperanto word-building wins! I thought it was pretty neat. I later looked it up, to confirm, and found this definition in Reta-Vortaro:

• Kunigi plurajn objektojn en unu tuton = To make together several objects into one whole

Also, wanna know something weird?

Well, according to my wordpress stats, someone found my blog today, by googling “esperanto porn”!

 

Whichth hour is it?

In Esperanto this is how you’d say it’s 3 o’clock:

• Estas la tria (horo)

Which is literally:

• It’s the third (hour)

Which I think is nice and simple.

The little interesting thing today, is in asking the question “what time is it?”

• Kioma horo estas? = What time is it?

Specifically “kioma” is the cool bit. It comes from “kiom” which is a correlative word (see previous post), meaning “how much/many”. I just like the simplicity of why the “a” is there:

I think the PMEG’s explanation is pretty neat:

You use “kiom” to ask for:

• Unu, du, tri… = One, two, three…

And you use “kioma” to ask for:

• Unua, dua, tria… = First, second, third…

So “kioma horo estas” is like “which-th (or even “how many-th”) hour is it?”, to which you reply with “the fourth”!

EDIT:

I just found why “which-th” was so natural to my brain. I had indeed read it before. Check out this page of “Being Colloquial in Esperanto”. It has a neat little sentence that is ambiguous in English:

• Which of his sons are you?

Is the answer “the third” or “charles”?

But in Esperanto “kioma” asks for “whichth” (the third): which one are you in order?

And “kiu” asks for “which” (charles): which son are you?

 

Yes and no – with your head

Two fantastic verbs today: kapjesi and kapnei (pronounced respectively “kap-YES-ee” and “kap-NEH-ee”).

So for us English folk and many others, “kapjesi” means “to nod” and “kapnei” means “to shake ones head”.

However!

These words are both awesome for two related reasons:

1. What a perfect and to the point construction they have!

• “kapjesi” is “kapo” (head) and “jesi” is “to say yes” or “to assent”.
• “kapnei” is “kapo” (head) and “nei” is “to say no” or “to deny”.
• So you are saying “yes” or “no”, using your head!
• Ŝi konsentas, do ŝi kapjesas = She agreed, so she nodded.

2. These words seem to reflect the true spirit of how Esperanto spans cultures. No matter what your culture does with their head to indicate “no” or “yes”, these words have you covered! For example… I’ve heard that in Bulgaria for instance they shake their head for “yes” and nod it for “no”. But you always know that “kapjesi” is to agree with a head gesture!

 

Outsmart the Badgers

Another couple words I like today! One sneaked in at the last minute; I discovered it a second ago whilst looking for something else!

I just love to pronounce this first one: “superruzi”. It’s pronounced “soo-pehr-ROO-zee” (IPA: super’ruzi). Remember to trill those “r”s and pronounce them as two distinct “r”s! Pronounce every letter in Esperanto words! If you find this a smidgin troubleful, try pronouncing separately the components “super” then “ruzi” and speed up as you get used to it!

It means “to outsmart/outwit”. “Ruzi”‘s definition on Lernu.net gives “to deal subtly, dodge, shuffle, to be cunning, tricky”. And “super” is like “over, above”. In verb form “superi” is like “to exceed/surpass”. And RetaVortaro explains “superruzi” as “superi per ruzo”: “to surpass by means of subterfuge/trickery/cunning”. Pretty cool construction too really!

Ni superruzos la melojn!

Next, I just like the construction of this word: “Aliiĝi”. Okay… I kinda like the overabundance of “i”s too . It’s pronounced “al-ee-EE-jee” (IPA: ali’idʒi).

It means “to change/alter”.

It’s talking about the subject altering. e.g.

• hieraŭ, mi aliiĝis = yesterday, I changed (as in, it was me that changed)

You can’t use it to say “I altered the colours” (that would be “aliigi”!). This is clear in its literal meaning:

• It’s made from “alia” = “another/other”; “alio” is like “something else”.
• The ending “iĝ” is like “to become <root>”.
• So “aliiĝi” means “to become something else”.

So using it to say “I altered the colours” will actually come out as “I became something else… the colours” HUH? Because no matter what object (e.g. colours) you try to tack onto it, “aliiĝi” is always referring to the subject as being the thing that changes.

The suffix “ig” means “to cause <root>”, so “aliigi” is like “to cause to be something else”. See why you’d use this word instead to alter the colours?

Ĝis!

 

Mopping and Finger-showing

I happened upon a word meaning “to point” today! It was “fingromontri” (pronounced “fin-gro-MON-tri”; IPA: fingro’montri). It’s made up of the components “fingro” and “montri” (“finger” and “to show/indicate” respectively). I love how it is literally just “to finger-show”, it neatly expresses “fingre montri” = “to show with a finger”, exactly what pointing is.

I also found a word that I just love pronouncing over and over, “ŝvabri” (pronounced “SHVA-bri”; IPA: ‘ʃvabri). It means “to mop/swab”. Again, I think the “ŝ” plus consonant combo at the beginning is what gets me going!

And… Have you been lurking around Lernu.net lately? In one of the English threads one of the users pointed out a funny word “intimo”… Does it mean intimacy, or fear of women?

 

Mouse necks

Similar to a previous word “tiama” (see previous post), I came across “ĝistiama”, which instead of describing something that is “of that time”, it describes something that is “until that time”. It describes something that existed (or did something, or was in a particular state) earlier and up to a specified time.

• En 1872 mi renkontis lin, li estis la ĝistiama reĝo de la meloj = In 1872 I met him, he was king of the badgers up until then (= the until then king of the badgers).

Also… I was totally confused today. I was reading one of Claude Piron’s Esperanto books and came across the word “muskolo”. I had absolutely no idea that it means “muscle”!

Guess what I did know though?!

I know that “muso” = “mouse” and “kolo” = “neck”!!

I simply stared in confusion for a few minutes, as out of nowhere, in a perfectly sensible sentence, I was reading “mouse-neck” or some suchlike!!!

 

Changing, whether one wants to or not

I was looking up a few words in the Lernu.net dictionary when I came across a little gem: “vole nevole”, it means “whether one wants to or not”. Such a neat little construction! It comes from the action root “vol-”.

“Voli” means “to want/wish”. Its adjective form (“vola”) means “willful, desired”, and so the adverb “vole” means “willfully”. And just like we use “pli malpli” for “more or less”, “vole nevole” is used for what is essentially “willfully or not willfully”.

Also! I’ve noted down another word. I came across it on one of my usual strolls around the ole PMEG. You’ll find it near the bottom in the “Vortfarado” (word building) section! It’s “tiama”, it’s an adjective derived from the table-word “tiam”. “Tiam” means “then/in that time”. But “tiama” is able to describe a noun (0-word). It usually translates as something like “of that time” or “then”:

• En 1872, mi renkontis la tiaman meloreĝon= In 1872, I met the badger-king of that time

Seems pretty neat!

 

Remember me?

Ĉu vi memoras min?

Here we go starting to get into the swing of things again! Took some time off from work and I think I’m ready for it come Monday! Managed to do a lot of Esperanto reading during the time off; got a few ideas for blog posts.

We’re kicking off with a word and a phrase. The word is “ĵaluza” (pronounced “zha-LOO-za”, where “zh” is a French “j”; IPA: ʒa’luza). It means “jealous”. I simply love it because of its sound. The “ĵalu” bit sounds weird and interesting, and the “uza” bit almost sounds like jealousy (the concept) to me. I know, I’m strange.

The phrase is what I think is a pretty neat rendering of the phrase “as soon as”. I think I came across it whilst reading something by Claude Piron. It’s “tuj kiam”, literally meaning “immediately when”. Ekz:

• Li forkuris tuj kiam li ŝin vidis = He ran away as soon as he saw her

It feels like it makes more sense than “as soon as”.

Let’s say we have this: “X as soon as Y”.

Where X and Y are two separate events. “Soon” feels like it is talking about a notion of earliness/lateness (if something happens soon, then it happens earlier than something later).

So to me, “X as soon as Y” says that X is as late/early as Y (since “as” shows comparison), which is kinda what we want and probably achieves the same result, but it feels messy/imprecise. We want to say that whenever Y happens, X happens immediately then, enter: “tuj kiam”!

 

Foaming teddy bears

I can’t remember why, but I had an urge to find out what the Esperanto expression for “teddy bears” is the other day, but to my dismay, I was having difficulty locating it in dictionaries! So I resorted to google and soon came across an amusing little cartoon. And for some reason the phrase really clicked with me: pluŝaj ursoj = teddy bears (pronounced “PLU-shy OOR-soy”; IPA: ‘pluʃaj ‘ursoj). Especially “pluŝaj”, it sounds really pleasant in a cute way, which is exactly the feeling I get from “teddy”.

Additionally, something else made sense to me. Do you know about the star constellation whose proper name is “ursa major”? Perhaps you know it by the name “big dipper” or “great/big bear”? Oddly, I never really paid attention to what “ursa major” actually meant, but of course it’s just latin for something like “bigger bear”. So it’s no real surprise we’ve got “urso” for bear in Esperanto!

The next word for today means “to foam/to froth”, and it is “ŝaŭmi” (pronounced “SHAU-mee”; IPA: ’ʃawmi). I liked this word when I came across it because it’s awesome along couple dimensions:

1. The opposing marks above the “s” and the “u” (going in opposite directions) give it a very quirky and interesting look.
2. The actual sound of the word itself is not only fun (I love pronouncing the “ŝaŭ” bit), but also to me it really feels like foaming, do you get the same feeling?!

 

Not always obeying the rules

Remember the little word “si”? I have a post about it here, where it has strict rules about how it is used. Namely, it always refers to the subject of the verb. But there are some occasions where it breaks those rules, and those are in certain fixed expressions.

“per si (mem)” = by itself/themself (alone), by means of themself/itself (alone):

• Oni komprenas liajn gestojn per si mem = His gestures by themselves alone are understood

Notice how “oni” is the subject here, but that “si” refers to the gestures.

“inter si” = between/among themselves, mutually with each other

• “Lingvo Internacia” kaj “lingvo tutmonda” estas du tute malsamaj objektoj, kiujn miksi inter si oni neniel devas = “Lingvo Internacia” and “lingvo tutmonda” are two totally different things, which must in no way be mixed up with eachother

Notice how the direct object is “kiujn” referring to the two different terms, and so “si” is referring to the direct object! I’m just using these examples to show those times that this rule is broken, but that doesn’t mean that the fixed expressions always work this way:

• Ili parolis inter si = They spoke/talked among themselves

“Si” here is properly referring to the subject. Context will usually make this clear!

“siatempe” = “in/at that time, in the concerned time, etc.”

It can be used regardless of what the subject is, because it just always refers to an implied time, independent of the subject:

• Mi volis siatempe proponi regulon = I wanted at the time to propose a rule

If it had to refer to the subject strictly (like “je sia tempo” would have to), then it would be “at my time”. But it doesn’t!

Check out the PMEG page from which I took most of my examples. You’ll also find a couple more expressions there too! Good ole PMEG.

 

Loyal as one pleases

A pretty word and an awesomely constructed word today!

The pretty word is “lojali”:

• Meaning: “to be loyal”, from “lojala” meaning “loyal, faithful”.
• Pronunciation: loy-AL-ee
• IPA: loj’ali

Don’t you think it looks quite interesting having the tall stalks of the “l”s equally spaced either side of the low tail of the “j”? That plus its very short, snappy syllables finishing on a subtle “i”, makes for a pretty word indeed!

The awesomely constructed word is “laŭplaĉe”:

• Meaning: “as one pleases” from “laŭ” meaning “according to, along, by”, and “plaĉe” meaning “pleasingly, in a pleasing way”. So “laŭplaĉe” is like “according to a pleasing manner, how one pleases”.
• Example: vi povas elekti laŭplaĉe = you can choose as you please
• Pronunciation: lau-PLA-che
• IPA: law’platʃe

Such simple roots smooshed together to create a versatile word. In English, to express the same idea we have to change the words a bit in different circumstances, notice how “as one pleases” must became “as you please” in the example sentence. But “laŭplaĉe” will always mean that the subject of an action is doing said action according to how they please. Mojosa.

 

A very touching nostril

Many apologies for such a long and unexpected absence… Slowly pulling myself together! Hmm, how would you express that in Esperanto… Is it very idiomatic English? Or do you see it in other languages?

We do have “tiri” = “to drag,draw,pull, tug”, and so “kuntiri” = “to draw/drag/tug/pull together”. So, could one use “sin kuntiri” = “to pull oneself together” do you think?

• Mi malrapide kuntiras min = I’m slowly pulling myself together

I quite like the metaphor of being all in pieces, and tugging everything back in place. So given that the metaphor in itself makes sense, then perhaps it’s permissible.

Anyways, before I got sidetracked, I was about to put a couple words all up in your faces!

The first of which is “kortuŝa” (pronounced: “kor-TOOSH-a”; IPA: “kor’tuʃa”), which means “moving/touching” (as in a thing that evokes emotion). This word is mojosa for two reasons!

The first being that in my opinion the sound is pleasant, and oddly matches how I think “touching” should sound. The “tuŝa” is just really gentle and pleasant, and with the addition of “kor” it’s like a strong starting note.

Secondly, its construction is pretty damn cool. “Tuŝi” means “to touch”, and “koro” is heart. Lump them together, and make it an adjective with an “a”, and you get a description of something that touches your heart!

The next word is “naztruo” (pronounced: “naz-TROO-o”; IPA:”naz’truo”), which means “nostril”. I simply found this word incredibly amusing because it’s literally made up of “nazo” = “nose” and “truo” = “hole”. So we have “nose-hole”!

 

Fines on daydreaming

Late posting tsk tsk. Ĉi tiu semajno … malfacilis. Today is for three words I came across. I think they’re neat because of the way they are constructed. The meaning goes together nicely.

1. pripensinda = worth thinking about
2. revpensi = to think wishfully, to daydream unrealistic thoughts (the action noun form “revpensado” = “wishful thinking”)
3. monpuni = to fine (to charge someone money as a penalty)

Here’s how they’re made, and hence why they’re neat!

1. “pensi” = to think, “pri” means “about, concerning”. So “pripensi” is “to think about, to consider”. The suffix “-ind” means “worthy of <root>”. So something which is “pripensinda” is worthy of consideration, worth thinking about.
2. “revo” = “dream, daydream”. So to “revpensi” is to think in a way characterised by dreaming, or daydreaming.
3. “puni” = “to punish, to correct”, and “mono” = “money”. So the action “monpuni” is to perform some kind of correction or punishment, characterised by money. I.e. the taking of it!

 

Word building on fire

I was pleased today. I decided that I wanted to know how to say “to kindle” (as in start a fire) in Esperanto. And instead of looking it up, I tried to think of the most logical way of constructing it…

Okay so I need to start with “to burn” (bruli), but this means, that the subject is burning (mi brulas = I am burning: i’m actually on fire, not burning something else). So I need to make it “cause something to burn”, by adding the appropriate suffix “bruligi” = “to burn (something)”. Then I need to add in the idea of the burning just starting, “ekbruligi”! (see post on ek).

The reason I was pleased, is that I then looked up this word, and found its entry in the dictionary to mean exactly as I planned! I think I’m really understanding word building now.

I really like the rhythm of the word “ekbruligi” too! It’s nice and bouncy.

 

Oh, by the way

Awesome word today: parenteze (pronounced pa-ren-TE-ze)

It means “by the way”.

The reason it’s awesome in my opinion, is because it makes way more sense (i.e. what do we actually mean by, “by the way”?? What way??).

We often use “by the way” to introduce a parenthetical statement (a statement which is not grammatically necessary, and is like an afterthought, or additional explanation. This was in fact a parenthetical statement by the way, and it is placed in parentheses (in brackets (another parenthetical statement)).

The Esperanto word for “parenthesis” is “parentezo”. By changing the noun ending “o” to the adverb ending “e”, we make the word more like “in a parenthetical manner, parenthetically” in other words, “by the way”!

 

Chocolate born to chirp

A desire suddenly happened upon me to look up pleasant-sounding words with the letters “ĝ” and “ĉ” in them, which respectively are pronounced as “g” in “gem” and “ch” in “chin”.

So here are some that I’ve found, and enjoy the sound of:

1. Ŝanĝiĝi = (Shan-JEE-jee) to change (not change something else. The subject of this verb is the thing that’s changing). E.g. nun ke li havas amanto, li ŝanĝiĝis = now that he has a lover, he has changed (he  changed, became changed). From “ŝanĝi” = “to change (something into something), plus “-iĝi” = “to become <root>”, so “ŝanĝiĝi” = “to become changed into something”.
2. Naskiĝi = (Nask-EE-jee) to be born.
3. Ĉokolado = (Cho-ko-LA-do) Chocolate.
4. Ĉasaĵo =  (Cha-SA-zho, where “zh” is pronounced like “s” in “pleasure”) game, quarry (in a hunt). “Ĉasi” = “to chase/hunt”, and the suffix “-aĵ” means a concrete thing characterised by the root word. Therefore “Ĉasaĵo” is a thing that is chased/hunted, i.e. quarry.
5. Ĉifi = (CHEE-fee) to crumble, crease (something).
6. Ĉirpi = (CHEER-pee) to chirp.

In 1, I love the “jee-jee” bit, especially when you have the word in past tense “ŝanĝiĝis”, finishing with the “s” makes it sound very flowing to me.

In 2, I think I almost like the “nask” sound almost as much as “ĝ”!

3 sounds bumpy in a rhythmic way, it’s kinda fun to say over and over…

4 and 5 are generally quite pleasing to pronounce, but the “ĉir” in 6 is my favourite sound out of the three. There’s something much more pleasing about its sound than how “chir” would be pronounced in English (“chirp” sounds so bland in comparison).

 

Behold!

It’s a funky word day. In the spotlight we have “jen” and its variants. It’s pronounced “yen”. Easy!

It’s kinda like “see this/behold/voila”. In this state, it’s an interjection (words like “hello”,”bye”,”uh oh!”.

You might use it like this:

• Jen ĉi tiuj libroj… = See these books/check out these books

It can often replace “here” (ĉi tie), and other non-interjection words that talk about a particular thing or place. It adds more emphasis on drawing attention:

• Jen estas pomo = Behold it’s an apple (instead of “ĉi tie estas pomo”)

So what happens when we bother it with endings?

Adverb ending “e”:

• Jene = thus/in the way I’m about to show
• Kompletigu la dokumenton jene…. = Complete the document thus (in the following way)….

Adjective ending “a”:

• Jena = that which follows (what I’m about to show)
• Antentu la jenajn punktojn… = Pay attention to the following (which I’m about to show) points

Noun ending “o”:

• Jeno = the thing which follows
• Por defendi kontraŭ la meloj, oni bezonas la jenon… = In order to defend against the badgers, you need the following (things)…

According to the PMEG, when using several “jen”s in a sentence, they introduce alternatives. Here’s an example from that page:

• la maro estis ja jen ruĝa, jen verda, jen blua

I find this tricky to directly translate, it’s kinda like when we do this in English:

• The sea was here red, there green, and there blue!

In this kind of sentence “here” and “there” would mostly be interpreted as different locations or parts of the sea. But “jen” can mean equally this or that the colour changed (so the person beheld different colours of sea). Almost like, if you imagined you were there at the time:

• Behold red! Now behold green! Now blue!

I love the the simplicity of the word. And how it’s meaning neatly fits into the equally useful words “jena,jene, and jeno”.

The main PMEG page for it is here.

 

Yet more

Recently been looking at “Laŭ”, a word I think I might have mentioned liking the sound of before (edit: indeed I have! Here). It means “According to/following/along”. I’ve been trying to find or think of uses in word building, because it has such a useful meaning, but is such a neat and tiny word.

So here are some that I’ve found:

• laŭleĝa = legitimate, legal (leĝ0 = law, leĝa = legal, so lit. “according to law”)
• laŭe = accordingly, according to that, conforming to that
• laŭvorte = verbatim, word-for-word (vorto = word, so lit. “according to words”)
• laŭiri = to go along (iri = to go)
• laŭnature = according to nature (naturo = nature, nature = naturally, so lit.”by naturally, along naturally”)
• laŭcela = adequate (cela = goal,aim,purpose, so lit. “according to purpose”)
• laŭplane = according to plan (plano = plan)

I love the sound of “laŭe”. I think I am indeed hooked on the “aŭe” sound.

I also feel like these words really neatly express the concepts identified. Sentences like:

• Mi laboras laŭplane = I am working according to plan

So neat!

 

Be beautiful with nightmare make-up

A few words that I like today! I like them mostly for their actual sound when spoken:

• Koŝmaro = nightmare. Pronounced “Kosh-MA-ro” (trill that “r”!)
• Ŝminki = to make-up (a verb for putting on make-up, e.g. “ŝminki sin” = “to make-up oneself, to put make-up on (oneself)”. Pronounced “SHMIN-kee” (try not to say “shming-kee”, but it’s not the end of the world…)

I have a feeling it is again the “ŝ” being following with the consonant that has tickled my fancy. It’s just a quirky sound.

Also, pleasingly, today I was buying lunch at the university, and came across some bottled mineral water, branded with the name “Belu”. It made me smile.

Since in Esperanto, “belu” is the imperative form (probably future post!) of the verb “beli” = “to be beautiful” (from the quality-like root “bel-”, so “bela” = “beautiful”). The point being that, “belu” means “be beautiful!”

So I bought it.

 

Idiot doctrine

Perhaps an example of Esperanto humour today… I came across this word: “Idiotismo”. It means “Idiom”. An idiom is a word or group of words whose meaning is based only on usage. In other words, just by looking at the words you can’t tell what they mean, in fact, often they’ll seem to mean something completely different!

For example “She kicked the bucket”. “To kick the bucket” is an idiom, it means “to die”. A non-native speaker only beginning to learn English may wonder what on earth you’re talking about!

Esperanto has very few idioms. As a language, it makes quite a lot of sense!

So the funny thing is that “Idioto” means “Idiot” and “Ismo” means “doctrine/-ism”. So in the eyes of Esperanto, an idiom (“Idiotismo”) is made up of those words! It’s the same as “Idiot doctrine” or an “Idiotism”!

Amusing.

 

Baby branch

Fewer posts this week I’m afraid! Tough week. Hopefully I’ll have some ideas sorted out for next week!

Onwards!

I found an awesome usage of word building today: branĉido = sprout/shoot

• Branĉo = branch
• -id suffix means “offspring of <root>”, “born of <root>”.
• Pronounced “branch-ID-o”

Now, there is a word “ŝoso” (pronounced “SHO-so”, quite pretty itself), which means “sprout/shoot”. But I like the logic of “branĉido”!

The “-id” suffix can also be used metaphorically! There is a another constructed language called “Ido” based off of Esperanto, short for “Esperantido”, offspring of Esperanto!

 

Ahead of before

I think this letter is very pretty: ŭ

Maybe even as pretty as “j”s… 

I’ve been enjoying it quite a bit. You will most often find it after an “a” or an “e”. It’s somewhat like a “w”.

• Antaŭ is like “ANT-ow”, like “ow” in “cow”.
• Eŭropo is like “Ayw-ROP-o”, like “ayw” in “wayward”.

It’s sometimes used to spell foreign words with “w”s in them, or in onomatopoeic words.

Today’s post is about “antaŭ”. Both it’s prettifulness, and how it makes some pretty varied words in word building.

• Antaŭ = ahead of, in front of, before (in terms of both time and space)

So without further delay, here are some combinations I found interesting:

• Antaŭe = ahead, formerly, previously
• Antaŭa = previous, last, prior, former
• Antaŭvidi = to foresee (vidi = to see, so somewhat like “to see beforehand”)
• Antaŭsento = presentiment, an intuition about the future (before-feeling)
• Antaŭzorgo = precaution (zorgo = care, so like “care beforehand”
• Antaŭdiri = to forecast, to prophesy, to foretell (diri = to say,tell)
• Antaŭparolo = foreword (parolo = speech)
• Antaŭlasta = the one before last, penultimate (lasta = last)
• Antaŭsigno = indication, omen (signo = sign,signal)
• Antaŭdecidi = to decide in advance
• Antaŭjuĝo = prejudice (juĝo = judgment, so “judge beforehand”)
• Antaŭafero = a preliminary (afero = thing, a before thing)
• Antaŭtempa = premature (tempo = time, before-time)

What a variety!

I love the sound of the first two. The “ŭe” and “ŭa” sounds I think are the ones to blame!

Do comment if you know of any other interesting words made from “antaŭ”!

 

It happened just now!

So, saying something happened in the past is easy, right?

The most common way is to use the simple past tense ending “is”:

• Kuri = to run
• Mi kuris = I ran/I was running (at some point in the past)

How do you say that the past event you’re talking about only just happened? Easy! And in a similar way to English:

• Mi ĵus kuris = I just ran/ I was just running

Note that “ĵus” is pronounced like “zhooss” where “zh” is a french “j” or like “s” in English “pleasure”.

A useful bit of knowledge indeed.

The thing that makes it slightly cooler than English, is that “ĵus” enjoys exclusive rights over this particular usage. What do I mean by this? Well, “just” in English can also mean something like “only” as in “I have just 20 dollars”, and a couple other things too.

But in Esperanto, “ĵus” is used only for this temporal concept of having just happened. So whenever you are discussing the past tense, this can be used to bring it to the immediate past.

I also just like the sound of it!

 

Fiery Slime in the Loo!

Fajra ŝlimo en la necesejo!

Three words I liked today:

1. Fajra = Fiery (from fajro = fire)
2. Ŝlimo = slime/sludge/mud
3. Necesejo = toilet/toilet room/loo

Pronunciation notes:

1. The “aj” is pronounced like the english word “eye”. And trill that “r” of course!
2. Ŝlimo is pronounced like “Sh-lee-mo”
3. Necesejo is pronounced like “Net-ses-ay-o” (the “ej” is pronounced like “ay” in “hay”).

The reasons I like them:

1. This is just a sexy word. Maybe would be cool as a girl’s name? I don’t have many favourite words beginning with “f”, but that “ajra” combo sounds delightful!
2. There is scarcely anything more fun than pronouncing an “ŝ” before a consonant. And this really does make a sound that makes me think of slime. Cool.
3. “Necesejo” literally means something like “necessary place” or “place of necessity” from “necesa” = “necessary” and the suffix “-ej”, which means “place for <root>” or a place characterised by the root (ĉevalo = horse, ĉevalejo = stable). I think this translation is a neat way of rendering “toilet”, just feels right!

Shorter and sweeter post than last time! A little easier on the eyes

 

To suddenly know!

I was reading “Gerda Malaperis!” (Gerda disappeared!) by Claude Piron and came across this word: ekscii

Remember that “c”s are pronounced like “ts”s and those two “i”s are pronounced separately! Like:

• ekst-see-ee

Not only does the word look bizarrely cool, but I thought the meaning was pretty nifty too.

“Ek-” is a prefix usually put on the front of an action, that makes a new word that emphasises the start, or sudden beginning of the action. See my previous post talking about it.

“Scii” (which in itself is a pretty interesting word, it’s the word I have most trouble pronouncing fluently in a sentence, especially when a word ending in “s” comes before it…) means “to know”.

So the result is literally something like “to suddenly know”. More usually translated as “to find out”! I’d been wondering how to say that in Esperanto, given that translating “find” and “out” together makes no sense… Find outside?

 

More emphasis!

A little useful word: mem

This is another emphasis word (friday’s emphasis word).

“Mem” goes after a word in order to stress that we’re talking about just that thing, not another.

It often translates as “itself/herself/himself/self”. But it must not be confused with reflexive pronouns.

• Mi mem batalis! = I myself fought! (No one else did)
• Mi batalis kontraŭ mi = I fought with myself (“mi” is acting as a reflexive pronoun in the second instance)

Notice how “mem” can only intensify the sentiment you’re conveying. Whereas a reflexive pronoun is another entity that can take part in an action. In order to further show that they perform a different function, look at it in the same sentence as a reflexive pronoun:

• Oni pensas pri si mem = People think about themselves (but slightly more emphasised, like “themselves alone”).

I came across the above example when reading here.

Couple more examples:

Mi aŭdis la belan kanton mem = I heard the beautiful song itself (No other song but this particular one).
Ŝi mem kompletigis la laboron = She herself finished the work (she finished without help)

Short and sweet!

 

Yes indeedy!

The sneaky “ja”, it just crops up all over the place. I hadn’t paid much attention to it beforehand, because you can almost get away with not knowing about it. Without it, you’ll get the gist of the sentence, but not the nuances.

I don’t know why I left it so long to look it up. It’s quite prettiful.

(Little note, remember to pronounce it “ya”!)

It’s function is to emphasise. This is often achieved using English “do” or words like “certainly” or “indeed”:

• Mi ja legas = I do read.
• Vi ja kuraĝas = You certainly are courageous
• Mia amiko ja ekzistas = My friend does exist (indeed exists)!

I think the sound of the word really nicely fits its function. Something about also stressing the sound gives it a real feeling of emphasising the phrase. Whereas “do” and “does” feels a bit empty to me now.

Notice how it emphasises the truth of the phrase. If you combine it with a negative word, it can (you guessed it) emphasise the negative!

• Via amiko ja ne ekzistas! = Your friend certainly doesn’t exist!

Now a warning from the PMEG. Even though alone “ja” emphasises the truth or positiveness of a phrase, it is not a replacement for “yes”.

The Esperanto word for “yes” is “jes” (pronounced the same). You can even emphasise your yes: “Jes ja!” It’s like saying “Yes, it is indeed such!” (since the main verb here is implicit: “it is such” (“yes, it is such”. Which will hopefully help you remember not to say “Ja jes” which is not correct, because the “ja” is supposed to refer to this implicit “it is such” phrase after “jes”. It does not modify “jes”:

• Jes, tiel estas. = Yes, it is such (yes, it is that way )
• Jes, tiel ja estas = Yes, it is indeed such

See how it’s modifying “estas” rather than “jes”.

Overall, a handy little word.