Troubled badgers are best left to their own thoughts

I gone done made some new words didn’t I?

I managed to find inspiration to add more to my fantasy parody in the making. And that’s mostly owed to a set of very strange and vivid dreams.

Anyways, while I was on a roll, I created a couple words I like:

• “Foriru!” ŝi bojis ĝeniĝbrove. = “Go away!” she barked with a troubled frown.
  • ĝeni = to trouble
  • ĝeniĝi = to be troubled (see posts about the affix “iĝ”, which is like “to become <root>” or “to be <root>ed”)
  • brovo = (eye)brow
  • So literally “troubled-brow-ly”

• Li komencis kuri, stumblis, malstumblis, sed tiam falis. = He started to run, stumbled, found his feet, but then fell.
  • “mal” is a prefix which reverses the meaning of the word that it goes in front of (see previous posts)
  • So “malstumbli” literally means “to un-stumble”. I just love the idea of “un-stumbling”!

Ĝenatajn melojn oni lasu kun iliaj propraj pensoj

 

Badgers proven to be more evil than squirrels.

I met some lovely Esperantists today! It was quite a shock being greeting in Esperanto for the first time! My brain was slightly confused, despite how much I’d prepared by listening to Esperanto radio. And I definitely need to practice speaking more, not for pronunciation, but for actually coming up with sentences on the spot!

I came up with 2 words I liked this week!

1. Plendema = fussy

• plendi = to complain
• -em = a suffix which means “tendency to <root>”. See previous posts.

2. Korloko = soft spot (as in “I have a soft spot for a good curry”).

• koro = heart
• loko = location
• So it’s like saying “There’s a place in my heart for….”

And also a phrase that I kinda like:

• Ni rekafu baldaŭ! = We should go for a coffee again soon!

Neat huh?

 

Got a question for you, ain’t I?

Aren’t affixes lovely? They are like the sprinkles of word building; shove some nice spongy root words together and sprinkle on the affixes. Some roots are so neat and generally useful they are all but official affixes.

You may be aware that over the many years of Esperanto’s life, many have tried to introduce new prefixes and suffixes for one reason or another. You can read about the ones that remain unofficial here (for prefixes) and here (for suffixes).

Some of those seem pretty useful, and others redundant, and some are useful for certain scientific folk. If all of those were official, can you imagine the learning load?! Getting the hang of the proper use of affixes in word building is a little trickier than just lumping roots together, so we definitely don’t want a whole barrel of them, but:

If you could have just one more affix widely used and official in Esperanto, what would you have? You could pick from the unofficial ones, or make up your own! You know you want to.

I quite enjoy one of the meanings of the unofficial suffixes, “e”. Check out meaning 2.

Say you’ve got an object, e.g. a brick (briko). And you want to say the equivalent of “brick-coloured”. You’d probably go for: “brikkolora”. Meaning 2 is exactly this. Instead of relying on suffixing the full “kolora”, you would just go “brikeo”. Short an sweet.

Only thing that bothers me, is that I’m not satisfied with my pronunciation of “e” followed by a vowel. It just feels unwieldy having to pronounce “e” as in “bet” followed by another vowel. I kinda wish “eĵ” was a suffix. Something about “brikeĵa” pleases me

Though I wonder if there could be a more generally useful suffix than one that just means colour!

 

Building words from phrases

I’m a little stunned that I’ve not come across this PMEG page before… I think not anyway… Though feel free to correct me if you’ve seen me mention it before.

It’s all about making words out of phrases (rather than just shoving roots and affixes together). It’s a goldmine of inspiration for word building, and gets you thinking about how to really play with your words.

I’ll probably write a couple posts over time on it, and today will be concentrating on the section entitled “Vortigo per A-finaĵo aŭ E-finaĵo”, which, as you may know, means something like “making a word with an A-ending or an E-ending”.

Now, you may recall that A-words (adjectives) are used to describe O-words (nouns). So if you’ve got your O-words (which shows a thing or concept), you can describe the kind of thing using an A-word:

• melo = a badger
• blua melo = a blue badger

E-words, describe everything else, and you’ll mostly see them describing actions.

• ŝi kuris = she ran
• ŝi rapide kuris = she ran quickly

So, what this section of the page talks about, is taking a phrase of some sort, and smooshing it into a single word, and then using it to describe something where that original phrase would apply.

A simple example is the first one.

• sur tablo = on a table
• surtabla lampo = a table-top lamp, a lamp which is on the table

You can even make an adverb version, if you’d rather describe an action:

• Ili sidis surtable = They sat on the table (literally like: they sat on-table-ly)

Instead of:

• Ili sidis sur la tablo

Just look at the flexibility of those examples on that page though!

This one’s really cool:

• kun blanka ĉapelo = with a white hat

You could be boring and start a sentence as below, which is going to be slow starting and lengthy despite the simple property you’re trying to express:

• La homo kun blanka ĉapelo… = The person with a white hat

Or you could set yourself up for a more interesting/complex yet succinct sentence with:

• La blankĉapela homo… = The person with a white hat / the white-hatted person

Ain’t that grand?

Here’s one that I just thought of:

• en la dorsa poŝo = in the back pocket
• La endorspoŝa telefono… = The back-pocketted phone… / the phone in the back pocket…

Written out long you’d have to go for:

• La telefono, kiu estas en la dorsa poŝo… = the phone which is in the back pocket

Ĝis!

 

House found to be haunted by ghostly badgers.

Today, you get a couple of words I’ve come up with!

Firstly, we have:

malinformadi = to keep uninformed

• mal : prefix which reverses the meaning of a word
• informi : to inform
• -ad : a suffix which implies repeated or continual action (read more about ad)

Example sentence:

• Kiel antaŭzorgo, la sciuroj malinformadas la melojn = As a precaution, the squirrels keep the badgers uninformed.

It’s very much an active thing to be doing. When you are “malinformi” you are doing the very opposite of informing. Not simply just “not informing”, you are actively putting someone in the dark. The “ad” bit in the full word, stresses the ongoing, repeated process.

Next up, we’ve got:

feliĉigaĵo = something that makes you happy

• feliĉa : happy
• -ig : suffix which means “to make/cause <root>” (read more about ig)
• -aĵ : suffix which shows we’re talking about a concrete thing, which is somehow characterised by the word that comes in front of it. (read more about aĵ)

Example sentence:

• Ĉiu serĉu la feliĉaĵojn = Each person should look for the things that make them happy

At risk of blowing my own trumpet, I thought those words lend themselves to quite neat sentences

Also, please do excuse the title… I found myself giving this post a very boring title and decided to spice it up with a little strange. In future, I might use slightly more odd titles, but also try to translate them into Esperanto, you know, for kicks.

Title: Domo troviĝis hantata de fantomaj meloj

 

All poetical

I’ve been at the word building again… I recently agreed to start a symphonic metal band, and have a new found addiction to writing lyrics. So it was only a matter of time before the idea of writing Esperanto lyrics crept into my brain! Especially since the singer has already said she’d be up for singing it!

I’m currently working on a few themes, and some possible imagery and poetic language I could use. And during the process I’ve come up with all sorts of constructed words, so I thought I’d share a few!

I’ll put each in a phrase for ease of understanding.

• Ekstermensigu ĉion alian! = Put everything else out of your mind!

• Ekster = outside
• Menso = mind
• -ig is a suffix meaning “to make/cause <root>” (see previous posts)

• Ŝiaj kruelaj agoj senamigis sin = Her cruel actions, rendered her without love.

• Sen = without
• Amo = love
• -ig (as above)

• Ne donu al ŝi vian amon, ŝi estas korvundema = Don’t give her your love, she is likely to break your heart.

• koro = heart
• vundi = wound/hurt
• -em is a suffix means “has a tendency to <root>” (see previous post)

So it’s like “hurtful” but for the heart!

 

Badger vs. Squirrel

Ello again!

Mostly due to the wormy accusative “n”, Esperanto has quite flexible word order. The following phrases mean pretty much the same thing, “a badger frightened a squirrel”:

• melo timigis sciuron
• melo sciuron timigis
• sciuron timigis melo
• sciuron melo timigis
• timigis melo sciuron
• timigis sciuron melo

Are there any differences at all between these alternatives? Subtle ones, yes. The difference is one of emphasis.

I’ve had a read of the topic in the PMEG, and have distilled a few rough rules that’ll get you making use of this subtle emphasis change.

Firstly some terms:

• The “subject” is the thing doing the action. In our case, the subject is “melo” : the badger.
• The “direct object” is the thing receiving the action. In our case, the direct object is “sciuro”: the squirrel.
• Our action here is “timigi” = “to frighten”.

The usual word ordering is “subject – action – direct object”. So anything that departs from this ordering generates emphasis in some way.

Here’s the rules:

1. If the subject is moved to the end (everything else remaining same), then the emphasis is on the subject:
   • timigis sciuron melo : a badger did the frightening, not anything else.
2. If the action is moved to the front (everything else remaining same), then the emphasis is on the action:
   • timigis melo sciuron : a badger frightened a squirrel, it didn’t e.g. kiss it.
3. If the direct object is moved to the front (everything else remaining same), then the emphasis is on the direct object:
   • sciuron melo timigis : a squirrel was frightened, not e.g. a vole.

Next, let’s look at a phrase that has a prepositional relationship (e.g. inside/on/under/with/against):

• La melo loĝis en truo = The badger lives in a hole

Two rules here:

1. Move the prepositional relationship to the front, and the prepositional relation is emphasised:
   • en truo la melo loĝis : the badger lives in a hole, not e.g. in a box.
2. Move also the subject to the end and then the subject is emphasised:
   • en truo loĝis la melo : the badger lives in a hole, not e.g. the squirrel.

There are exceptions, and particular words that act in different ways. These are generally quite obvious when you come across them. One of the key exceptions is “ki-” correlatives (kiu, kie, kia, kiel, kiam, kiom, kio). These are usually at the front of their part of the phrase. You can read more in this PMEG section.

Ta-ta!

 

No need to resort to that!

If you’ve been lurking around here for a while, you may have read my series on Esperanto’s participles. If you haven’t and you have no idea what I’m talking about, why not take a stroll over there now?

They are incredibly useful things. You can even use them to create complicated verb tenses. However, one of those old posts shows why resorting to participles for complicated tenses can be a little on the inelegant side.

In today’s post I’ll be sharing a few PMEG tips on how to avoid resorting to complex tenses.

Take the following sentence:

• When you phoned me, I was eating.

This implies that when I received your call, I was in the middle of eating. How might we say this in Esperanto?

• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi manĝis.

Using the simple past tense, we’re in a little trouble. Because this could mean any of:

• When you phoned me, I was eating
• When you phoned me, I ate (i.e. I started eating when you called)
• When you phoned me I had eaten (already)

Does this mean we have to resort to complex tenses?

• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi estis manĝanta (I was in the middle of eating)
• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi estis manĝonta (I was about to eat)
• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi estis manĝinta (I had already eaten)

All those different meanings by changing a single vowel! In speech this is a little mean on your listener, no?

How about these instead:

• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, ĝuste tiam mi manĝis (I was eating exactly when you called)
• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi jam antaŭe manĝis (I had already previously eaten)
• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi ankoraŭ ne manĝis (I hadn’t yet eaten)
• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi ĵus manĝis (I had only just eaten)
• Kiam vi telefonis al mi, mi intencis/planis manĝi [baldaŭ] (I intended/planned to eat [soon])

Simple ways to stick to the simple tenses!

Read more here, and here.

 

The accusative is a worm

It slithers its way into every corner of the language. I found a use of it today that I’ve not seen previously, whilst browsing through PMEG.

It sort of indicates position of a part, though usually a body part. Here’s one of the PMEG examples:

• Li haltis dum momento, la kapon klinita iom flanken. = He stopped for a moment, his head inclined a little to the side.

Notice how the sentence is quite short and sharp in English too. One way of understanding it, is to imagine it a little fuller with e.g. “tenante”:

• Li haltis dum momento, tenante la kapon klinita iom flanken. = He stopped for a moment, holding his head inclined a little to the side.

This also shows why the “N” might be suitable here, it’s because you’re implying a “tenante”, “havante” or “metinte” (holding, having, or having put), of which the “kapo” is the direct object.

A sneaky, slimy worm.

 

Ways of working with one another

Art thou enjoying the new banner and neater sidebar? A little easier on the eyes!

This post explores ways of expressing “one another” / “each other”, as in examples below:

1. They hugged each other
2. They worked with one another
3. They fought against each other
4. They gave a present to each other

The simplest way is to use some configuration of “unu” (“one”) and “alia” (“other/another”).

1. Ili ĉirkaŭbrakis unu la alian
2. Ili laboris unu kun la alia
3. Ili batalis unu kontraŭ la alia
4. Ili donis donacon unu al alia

Notice the main difference with how it’s constructed in english. You don’t say “with one another”, you say “one with the other”. Also note that if there is no relation like “to/against/with” (because instead it’s a direct object relation), then you take up the accusative “N” (1).

But what other tools do we have in our tool-belt?

We could use “reciproke” = “reciprocally”:

• Everyone understood each other = Ĉiuj komprenis sin reciproke

Or we could use “inter” (“among/between”) as a prefix to the action word. Or even “inter si” (roughly “among themselves”):

• They fought each other (amongst themselves) = Ili interbatalis = Ili batalis inter si

I love how simple but complete “ili interbatalis” is!

Wanna read about “si”? I’ve got previous posts on it: 1, 2

Dank’ al the PMEG for this information!

Can anyone think of other ways to express this?

 

Pearls of wisdom

Recently, I bought a newly published book called ”Star in a Night Sky“, which is an anthology of Esperanto literature accompanied by the English translations. The literature includes both original works and translations.

So, some posts may arise from what I find there! Today, for example, is about Esperanto proverbs.

Do you ever think about how peppered with proverbs and sayings general conversation is? Sometimes a simple one-liner proverb succinctly states a possibly complicated idea. Proverbs really enrich a language, and Esperanto should be no different!

Through reading the book I found that L. L. Zamenhof’s* father had created a collection of thousands of proverbs and their equivalents in Russian, Polish, French and German. He had also begun adding Esperanto equivalents, but unfortunately died before he could complete his work. It’s quite sweet that the father would undertake such a thing in the dreamt-up language of his son! Made me chuckle.

Fortunately, the younger Zamenhof took up the work, naming the completed project “Proverbaro Esperanta” (Esperanto proverb collection). A quick google search will give you numerous versions of this text.

Obviously, some national language proverbs can be very idiomatic, but Esperanto’s need to be fairly internationally understood. There’s nothing stopping them being colourful and neat though!

I picked out a few I liked, and gave them literal (more or less) translations. Leave me a comment if you need any explanation as to what wisdom they’re trying to impart:

1. inter lupoj kriu lupe = among wolves, howl like a wolf
2. mankas klapo en lia kapo = a valve’s missing in his head
3. inter la blinduloj reĝas la strabuloj = among the blind, the cross-eyed is king
4. ĉiu tajloro havas sian tranĉmanieron = each tailor has his own way of cutting
5. troa petolo danĝera al kolo = undue frolicking is dangerous for the neck

–

* The creator of Esperanto, which you should probably know by now!

 

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!

 

That particular one is terribly special

Today mainly stems from my confusion about “aparta”. Whilst I tackle it for all our sakes, I’ll also distinguish it from a couple of close synom… synomnom… synonyms (that’s literally how many tries I needed).

So the Lernu Esperanto-English dictionary gives us a good few words that “aparta” can take the role of:

• separate
• particular
• special
• apart

But bear in mind, that among a few others (more easily distinguished) there are these two Esperanto words, which can be very similar:

• speciala = special, particular
• precipa = most important, main, principal

I’ve scoured dictionaries so you don’t have to…

It’ll probably make our lives easier to constrain the meaning of the synonyms first.

Precipa is probably the easiest. Only occasionally does it really feel like “special”, because it’s mostly talking about the level of importance of a thing. The most important thing. Something that is precipa is a particular, special thing (aparta) because it is the most important, distinguished from the rest. But something aparta (distinguished from the rest) is not necessarily the most important (precipa).

Something which is speciala, is special, it’s either destined for a particular purpose/goal or something very specific, or unusual. Again, something which is very unusual or specific (speciala) by definition is particular/separate (aparta). But something aparta, is not always speciala.

Now you can see that aparta most certainly describes the things that the terms above describe, but it’s more general than those. Something being aparta doesn’t necessarily imply it is speciala or precipa. Something aparta is merely distinguished in some way, perhaps indeed by its importance, or by its unusualness, or else by how separate in some measure it is from other things, such measures as distance or even eminence for example.

 

That’s utterly unpocketable

Inspiration for a word hit me today whilst reading some text by William Auld (who wrote so well!). So we’re in the rarely visited territory of the Constructed Words category today!

The word is “poŝebla”, the simplest translation of which is perhaps “pocketable”. The meaning is a description of something which is shaped in such a way that it is possible to put it in one’s pocketses (possessed by the spirit of Gollum for a second there).

• Ĝenerale, la melo ne estas poŝebla = generally, badgers are not pocketable (it is not possible to put badgers in one’s pockets)

And now for the derivation!

• poŝo = (a) pocket
• -ebl = suffix meaning “possible to <root>” or “<root> can be done”; “legebla” = “legible, possible to read”

See this post for more information on “-ebl”.

As you’ll learn from the post about “-ebl”, it expects to a verb at its behind. But “poŝo” is the noun form. So to get the proper interpretation of “poŝebla”, we must first interpret “poŝi”, the verbal form.

Check out this PMEG page, under the section “Verboj el ne-agaj radikoj” (“Verbs out of non-action roots”).

It shows a bunch of guidelines about interpreting the verb forms of naturally object type words (like pocket, stone, city).

I believe the most relevant examples are under this statement “Se la radiko montras ilon, aparaton aŭ simile…” (“if the root indicates a tool, apparatus/device or similar…”). It goes on to explain that the verb form then means “to use the tool in its usual manner”. So “to pocket” is to put something in your pocket, or keep something in your pocket.

Therefore “poŝebla” is “possible to put/keep in your pocket”.

I thought it was quite a cool word, sort of like a whimsical version of “portebla” (portable, possible to carry).

Note that you don’t need this word to talk about things like “pocket dictionaries”, those can just be “poŝvortaroj” not “poŝeblaj vortaroj”.

 

Brain cram

I’ve been buried under a mound of vocabulary! Forcing my brain to accept vocab any way I can. One particular method seems to be working so far: memrise.com

It’s really neat, users submit wordlists and the website helps you learn the lists. Esperanto wordlists include the wordlists for the Lernu.net exams, the most common Esperanto words, vocab lists from various Esperanto books etc.

The website introduces new words to you, and asks you to select them from among words you’ve learnt so far. Every time you get something wrong, it remembers and presents that word more often. If you confuse it with the same words every time, it’ll pick you up on that. The better you are at getting a word, the more difficult the task gets (instead of selecting the word, you must type it), and the less often you get asked about it.

It’s basically managing my forgetfulness for me

Another useful thing I’ve come across is “Traduku!”, a book found at the Esperanto Association of Britain. It’s a compilation of 56 English passages of text which appeared as translation tasks in The British Esperantist. Each passage has notes about the difficult to translate bits, and a model answer by William Auld. It’s really fun and challenging, if you enjoy being picky about language, then it’s awesome

 

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?

 

It’s ready!

Go here immediately! You can sign in with a Lernu account.

It’s finally ready! So many usage examples and explanations of meaning!

I’m currently lost in a spiral of looking up words and following references to other words!

Yes. I’m actually finding looking things up in a dictionary fun, so what?

 

Make more tasty!

I’ve been playing around with making words in Esperanto recently. Been daydreaming in conversations with people. Every word they say that I don’t know in Esperanto, I try to make it, using what I do know in Esperanto.

Out of my playing, I’ve stumbled on a useful set of steps for making a particular kind of word (much like this previous post, check it out, it’s neat!).

So, do you by now know what I mean by a “quality” root? If not see this post.

Today we’ll be using quality roots, and these:

• pli = more (see this post for more details)
• malpli = less (“mal” is a prefix that reverses the meaning of things)
• igi = suffix meaning “to cause/make <root>”, e.g. “boli” = “boil”, but “boligi” = “to cause to boil”
• iĝi = suffix meaning “to become <root>”, e.g. “pala” = “pale”, but “paliĝi” = “to become pale”

Now, say you’ve got a quality root in its adjective form, like this:

• bela = beautiful
• longa = long
• vasta = extensive, vast, wide

You can do a neat thing with them. Using this formula:

(pli/malpli)<root>(igi/iĝi)

Things in brackets show alternatives! So you get a few choices here. The idea is, you’ve got some quality, like “beautiful”, and you want to make a verb which means: to become, or cause someone/something to be, more or less that quality:

• beli = to be beautiful
• plibeligi = to embellish (literally: to make more beautiful)
• plibeliĝi = to grow/become more beautiful
• malplibeligi = to make less beautiful
• malplibeliĝi = to become less beautiful

Cool, huh?

This saves you some work:

• Mi estas bela, sed… = I am beautiful, but…
  • ŝi volas igi min (esti) pli bela
  • ŝi volas plibeligi min

They mean roughly “she wants to make me more beautiful”. But look at the second one! So neat! So neat in fact, that I wasn’t sure on the structure of the above. I think the “esti” is optional. The long way around would be then “estigi min pli bela”. Also note that “beligi” would mean “make beautiful”.

Sometimes, all this adding of “ig” and “malpli” etc. makes the words really long, so sometimes we use shorter forms. Look at these two:

1. plilongigi = (literally) to make more long
2. longigi = (literally) to make long

There is a clear theoretical difference. 1 implies something is already long, and you are making it longer, and 2 says nothing about how long it was, but you’re now making it long (maybe like English, the omission of “pli” might mean that the thing wasn’t long or beautiful until you made it so). But in practice, this distinction matters little, and often the shorter word will be used. Especially when you get to “malplilongigi”, you might just say “mallongigi”. See this PMEG page for this note, and more “ig” examples.

Here’s a few more I like:

• plilongigi = to lengthen (to make longer)
• plivastigi = to extend (to make more extensive)
• verdigi = to colour green (to make green)
• plilarĝigi = larĝigi = to widen
• malplivarmigi = to cool down/ to cool (something)

 

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”!

 

A tendency towards momentary inclinations

The handy little suffix “-em”!

In short, it can give the meaning of a tendency or inclination toward the root, either a lasting disposition or a momentary inclination, depending on the context.

It’s normally used on, and is most naturally interpreted with, action roots (see previous post on root types). Sometime soon, I may treat you to some examples with which the root class theory has to be re-interpreted, but for now, don’t worry, on with the suffix!

It can show a lasting disposition, be it unwanted or favourable:

• plori = to cry/weep; plorema = tending to cry; plorema viro = a man that tends to cry, has a nature which leads to him crying often
• erari = to error; erarema = error-prone
• venki = to win/conquer; venkema = tending to win

When added to a non-action root, it often tends to take up the action interpretation of the root:

• pura = clean (quality root)
• puri = to be clean (action interpretation)
• purema = cleanly/tending to be (or wanting to be) clean

Sometimes, the non-action interpretation is the more obvious than usual, like the below PMEG example:

• muziko = music (object root)
• muzikema = musically-inclined, liking music (notice we’re liking an object, not tending to an action related to music)

The alternative interpretation consistent with considering the action root form, would be something like “ema muziki” = “tending to make music”.

The PMEG encourages the consistent usage. So use “muzikema” to mean “tending to make music”, and using something like “muzik-ama” (music + love = music-loving) to mean “liking/loving music”.

If used in context with words like “subite” (suddenly), or “senti” (to feel), the “em” word is more likely to be interpreted as a momentary inclination, like in this PMEG example:

• Subite li fariĝis terure dormema = Suddenly he became terribly sleepy (momentarily inclined to sleep)

A natural use of tendency is to show capability; if someone has a tendency to do something, then they are obviously capable of said thing.

• inventi = to invent
• inventema = able to invent (tendency toward inventing)

Here’s the PMEG page on this topic, with even more examples.

 

Which one’s suitable?

Reta Vortaro to the rescue again! I worked out today that I’d read two words at different times, looked up their definitions and carried on, but thinking back, realised I have no idea what the difference between them is!

Here’s the pair, with the corresponding short lernu translations to English:

• taŭga: suitable, of use
• konvena: suitable, appropriate, fitting

So here’s what we get from the Reta Vortaro:

Taŭga

• to be adequate, useable for something
• to be capable of something

Konvena

• well adapted to a determined situation or precise circumstance
• well adapted to someone’s feelings, character of social status
• decent (e.g. it’s not konvena to occupy a seat when an old lady cannot find one)

Taŭga is a more extensive concept than konvena. Konvena refers only to the specially adapted use of something, whereas taŭga speaks of all of it’s uses.

The example the Reta Vortaro gives is a tea cup. It’s konvena only for drinking tea, but taŭga for that and also for measuring quantities of ingredients too!

Interestingly, if you look up these in the Eo-Eo dictionary of Lernu, you get the equivalent of:

• taŭga: entirely good for some aim
• konvena: that which is generally pleasing to other people in a certain situation

The definition of “konvena” seeming to be most different from what RV says.

Even more interestingly, both of these words are actually action roots (i-words naturally, see previous post on root types).

• taŭgi : to be taŭga
• konveni : to be konvena

And when you look up these words in the Eo-Eo lernu dictionary, you get the matching RV definitions.

So I’m inclined to go with the RV. Do you agree that the lernu definitions of the a-words don’t seem to match up to their i-word meanings? Or at least don’t nail the concepts? If so, maybe you or I should make a thread about it on lernu!

 

 

A box for cigar holders

I was casually reading some Esperanto, when suddenly the word “klingon” popped up in the most serious of texts!

I then realised it was simply the word “klingo” (“blade”) with the accusative “n” on the end to mark it as the object of the sentence!

Anyway, it also reminded me of the suffix “ing”, which led me to the topic for this post: the distinction between the suffix “ing” and the suffix “uj”.

Some definitions lead them to be confusingly similar, but in actuality their differences are quite clear. And they’re pretty handy!

Let’s work with the example root “cigar-”. “Cigaro” simply means “(a) cigar”. What happens when we add our suffixes?

• cigaringo = cigar holder
• cigarujo = cigar box/container

“Ing” makes a word which is a holder/sheath for the object described by the root it’s attached to. This’ll often be some structure that the object is partially put in, for holding purposes. E.g. a scabbard for a sword (glavo : glavingo)

Whereas “uj” constructs a word which is a container (usually for storage purposes) for objects described by the root it’s attached to.

And because I enjoy silliness: a “cigaringujo” is a container for cigar holders!

“Uj” happens to have a couple other uses too, if you’re interested!

• When used on a fruit, berry or flower, it often shows the thing upon which that object grows. E.g. a “pomujo” is an “apple tree” from “pomo” = “apple”. Apparently, due to the confusion with “a container for apples”, people are now starting to use “pomarbo” for such things!
• If you’ve got a word like “Anglo” = “Englishman”, you can construct the country name from the people. “Anglujo” is the container for Englishmen “England”!

Check out the PMEG pages on uj and ing. Also, a great guide to using Esperanto’s affixes.

Qapla’!

 

Am I right, or am I right?

The two words “prava” and “ĝusta” can both be translated as “right”. But what’s the difference?

“Dektra” means “right” as in not “left”, so don’t be thinking about that!

Now from what I can tell, this is the difference:

Prava:

This means “right” or “true”. Someone who is “prava” has an opinion or acts in a way that is true or just. Something which is “prava” is true or just.

Ĝusta:

This means “correct”, “exact” and “proper” as well as “right”. It describes something which is correct, the proper way according to rules. It may describe the exact or proper thing to do/get/receive etc. in order to complete some aim.

I mostly get this from the Reta Vortaro! I’m so looking forward to this getting up and running!

 

Knowing how to want

What’s the difference between “voli” and “deziri”? This has bothered me for a while, and so just before I descend into using them interchangeably, I’ve decided to look to see if there is any real difference.

Both of them often translate to “to want” or “to wish”.

If you look in the Lernu.net dictionary, you’ll get:

• voli = to wish, to want
• deziri = to desire, to wish

Now, in English, when I look up “want versus desire”, I get things saying that “desire” is simply a stronger “want”.

In Esperanto, as with any nuance, there are many people who simply use the two words interchangeably. However, beyond this, I’ve found a couple of accounts of what the difference could be.

Firstly, by looking around many past posts on the Lernu.net forums, I often find this distinction:

• “Deziri” describes a wanting, but only for o-words (nouns).
• “Voli” describes a wanting, but only for verbs.

Thus, “mi deziras pomon” = “I want an apple”, and “mi volas iri” = “I want to go”. But you wouldn’t say “mi deziras iri” and vice versa.

An explanation for this went along the lines of “voli” is wanting to do something, and “deziri” is wanting a concrete thing.

Which makes the distinction more tangible in my opinion, because the noun/verb distinction seems a little arbitrary:

So you might say “mi volas iri por ferio” = “I want to go for a holiday”. But do you really have to change to “deziri” just to say “mi volas ferion” = “I want a holiday”? Seems a bit arbitrary!

Anyways, the Reta-Vortaro provided a slightly different distinction, which some people on Lernu referenced too:

• Deziri = Consciously have a tendency toward (be inclined to/feel like) something; aspire to possess or enjoy something.
• Voli = To have a desire, intention, decision, or feel a need about something or someone.

It notes a difference between them being that “voli” often implies an intention to do something in order to make come true the desired thing. Which kinda makes sense, given that it comes from the same kinda root as English “volition”. And “volo” (the noun form) means “will” (e.g. in “free will”).

People also note that the meaning of “voli” in practice has drifted to encompass a lot of what “deziri” means, due to people using them interchangeably (*sad face*).

This is what I’m thinking of going with:

• Assume the noun/verb thing is just a rule of thumb.
• Drive a distinction between the two words, for a bit of variation (given that people will know what I mean, but may not get the small perhaps unimportant nuance), but be aware that when I use “deziri” many would prefer “voli”.

The distinction I will use is the following:

• I will use “voli” when I wish to emphasise intention, will, or decision being involved (e.g. want to understand, or want to lose weight)
• I will use “deziri” to describe tendencies/inclinations. Or to describe something I wish to enjoy, or use it if I do not wish to emphasise a willingness to acquire the thing I desire.

EDIT:

In light of the comments on this post, I’ve modified the point below (which was my original last point). This is what I originally thought:

• I also consider “voli”, given its addition of will/intention, to be a stronger desire than “deziri”. So in everyday speech, I will probably use “deziri” for concrete objects that I just happen to want (momentary inclination), like an apple, even if I’m extending a hand to get the thing as I talk!

I now think this:

• Given the implication of will/intention in “voli”, I consider it a slightly different kind of wanting to “deziri”. Just because one word includes the will to attain what is desired, doesn’t necessarily mean the desire is stronger. For this purpose one would use the intensifying suffix “-eg”. “Deziregi” is like “to greatly desire” . However, the inclusion of “aspire” in the definition of “deziri” and its comparison to words like “bezoni”, suggest that “deziri” has at least some deeper wanting behind it than “voli”.

Anyone disagree? Got a better idea?

EVEN MORE EDIT: 

I may update this post soon, in light of the PIV coming online!

 

Tricksy, shifty words

I have created a new category!

My usually long list of things to write about has been dwindling of late. But I’ve slowly been developing an interest in how the semantic scope of words differ between English and Esperanto.

By this I mean, given a word in Esperanto, and its translation in English, what meanings do those words encompass? Can the Esperanto word be used in all of the contexts in which the English word can be? Do the words have slightly different connotations? Are there in fact several Esperanto words that commonly translate to that English one, but that have different shades of meaning?

I see this as quite a difficult thing to grasp properly, but so very interesting! And I’m starting to think I need to invest in a massive Esperanto dictionary which has usage examples and the like.

For now, I’m going to have to rely on the Lernu forums, places like the Reta Vortaro, and your helpful comments!

I’ll use this category of post for the following types of scenario:

• Given several Esperanto words that have similar English translations, what’s the difference between them? What shades of meaning do they convey? What situations are appropriate for each word?
• Given an interesting Esperanto word (one that is perhaps worthy of being in the “Alluring Words” category), what meanings does it cover? How does its semantic scope differ from its common English translations?

I’ve got a couple of these in the works, hopefully you’ll enjoy and find them useful!

 

Word-building Formula

Fancy a neat little formula for building certain types of word in Esperanto?

If you aren’t familiar with viewing Esperanto root words as having an inherent class (“object”,”quality”,”action”), then quickly read my previous post.

Onwards!

Imagine you are talking about a word: W. Let’s say that W is “virino” = “woman”.

And that you don’t want to just say “a woman”. You want to call attention to a particular aspect of W (the woman). We’ll call the aspect: A.

Let’s say A (our aspect) is “haro” = “hair”; we want to call attention to the woman’s hair.

Now, there’s some property of A (her hair), which distinguishes her from some other people. We’ll call this property: P, and let’s say that P is “bruna” = “brown”.

So, we want to call attention to the fact that a woman has brown hair.

In other words: we want to refer to W, making a reference to A, which is distinguishable by being P (and we want to do it in a neat little phrase).

In English, we’d say:

• A brown-haired woman

In Esperanto, we’d say:

• Brunhara virino

In general, this is:

• P-A-a W-o

This is simply saying that we make the aspect A into one word with its property P, and give it the adjective ending “a” (so it can describe a noun), and we put W after it with the noun ending “o”.

This will always be talking about some word W, which has an aspect A, the distinguishing feature of which is P.

• P should be a “quality” root (it describes a property of something)
• A should be an “object” root (it is a particular thing with a property P)
• W should be an “object” root (it is a particular thing, with a distinguishing aspect A)

Here’s some examples of “P-A-a”:

• Saĝokula = wise-eyed
• Ruĝlipa = red-lipped
• Rapidlanga = quick-tongued

Isn’t that nice?

Sometime soon I show you what happens if P is an object root!

 

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?

 

Did you see him running too?

Here’s a little treat that is floating around the internet in all sorts of nooks and crannies:

1. Mi vidis la knabon kuri
2. Mi vidis la knabon kuranta
3. Mi vidis la knabon kurantan

What’s the difference between them?

The explanation is usually in Esperanto, or buried in discussions in the Lernu forums. So good ole me has done the digging, and here’s my impression!

Basics:

• Knabo = boy
• Vidi = to see
• Kuri = to run / running
• -anta = Present participle ending (see series on participles), it shows that an action is ongoing.

So in all of the examples, I saw a boy, and my seeing of him involved him running.

The difference between -i and -anta(n)

The verb with just “i” (kuri), simply states the action in general. It is the base form of the verb. The action was seen, and you could have seen the action finish. Because it gives no information about tense or completed-ness about the action.

Whereas “-anta(n)” specifically treats the action as an ongoing or repeated process. Using “-anta(n)” says nothing about the action being completed, or what happened subsequently; I simply saw the ongoing action.

The difference between -anta and -antan

The “knabo” is the direct object here. The boy is being seen (the object of “vidis”). When we’re describing an object we have a choice to add the “n” or not. This well known example shows the difference this “n” can make:

• Li farbis la domon ruĝa = He painted the house red
• Li farbis la domon ruĝan = Li farbis la ruĝan domon = He painted the red house

If the “n” is present, then the a-word is matching the o-word’s “n”, and is therefore just an attribute of the o-word. In other words, the house was already red when he began painting it. The house that he painted, just happened to be red.

If the “n” is not present, then the a-word is not an attribute, it is the result of the action or something that happens during the action. So the a-word is now emphasised; he painted something red, and the house happened to be what he painted. See my previous post for more explanation on this.

So here’s the three translations. Notice how in practice 1 and 2 will probably translate the same. I’ve included the nuance in brackets:

1. I saw the boy running (I may have seen him finish running)
2. I saw the boy running (I am only saying I saw the ongoing running)
3. I saw the running boy (He was running when I saw him)

See how 1 and 2 emphasise the running because it’s not just an attribute of the boy. What we saw was the running, and the boy happened to be doing it.

In 3, the emphasis is with the boy, the running is just what he happened to be doing when I saw him (it was just an attribute of the boy).

Even more fun:

What happens if we up and do this?

• Mi vidis la knabon kurante

An adverbial participle! If you know the difference between adverbs and adjectives (e-words and a-words in Esperanto) the answer may well be obvious!

Here’s the key bit of info:

• Adjectives (a-words) describe nouns (o-words), but
• Adverbs (e-words) describe anything BUT nouns. In this sentence, a verb.

So, before, “kurant-a(n)” was describing the o-word (knabo), the boy. “kurant-e” now describes the main verb, the “seeing”.

In other words, the seeing was done while running.

Does this making it clearer?

• Kurante mi vidis la knabon = While running, I saw the boy

The person doing the seeing is doing the running now!

Thanks to the commenter guleblanc (below) for reminding me of this extra fun!

 

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!