The result of that which is done

Photo by Hannah Domsic on Unsplash

I’ve already covered ya basic participle shenanigans at length in the “partying with participles” series, but I did spot a nice little extra recently.

Participles are a big topic, but once the system is in your brain, it’s pretty neat. To briefly recap, we basically have a bunch of suffixes that we can apply to a verbal rootword in order to build a new word to describe something, where that new word encodes:

1. Whether the action is completed, ongoing, or yet to occur, and
2. Whether the thing being described is doing the action or having the action done to it

	Doing the action	Receiver of the action
Action completed	-int	-it
Action ongoing	-ant	-at
Action yet to occur	-ont	-ot

Then once you’ve added the necessary ending, you make it a noun, adjective or adverb according to taste with the -o, -a, or -e endings respectively:

La falantaj folioj estas ruĝaj.

The falling leaves are red.
The action is ongoing, and is an adjective describing the noun ‘leaves’. The leaves are doing the falling.

La manĝota pomo mortigos lin.

The apple about to be eaten will kill him.
The action is yet to occur, and is an adjective describing the noun ‘apple’. The apple is on the receiving end of the eating action.

La kantonto estas mia amiko.

The one/person about to sing is my friend.
The action is yet to occur, and is an noun. The person is doing the singing.

Notice the key quirk here: that the noun forms are always someone, not just any thing or any property – a person. Which brings me to a neat little trick that hadn’t yet occurred to me, and then I saw it whilst perusing the dictionary (I do actually have friends).

Esperanto actually has suffixes for deriving a “thing” from a root word, or deriving a “quality/property” from a root word – and you can of course freely smash them onto the end of participles too.

La rompitaĵo refariĝos.

Literally: The thing that was broken shall be remade.
Less clumsily: That which was broken shall be remade

The “aĵ” suffix makes a concrete thing from a root. So the action described by “rompit-” (the breaking is complete, so -i-, and the thing described was on the receiving end of the breaking so -t not -nt) is made into a concrete broken thing by the suffix.

And how about the “quality of <root>” suffix “-ec“?

Tiun rompitecon ni ĉiuj konas.

We are all familiar with that brokenness.
Literally “that quality of having been broken” (romp-it-ec-o).

Pretty flippin’ neat I thought. Very concise expression. I wonder if you’d agree that the following is sufficient to tersely express the spirit of a famous quote:

Asertitaĵo senpruva, tiel forigita senpruve

That which is asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof (literally: a thing asserted without proof, so dismissed without proof)

And as a little bonus, I noticed a neat word used in the dictionary definition of “-itaĵo”:

ĝisrezulte

until completion

What a nice word-build using “ĝis” (until/up to). A nice simple adverb to tag next to an action that you want to make clear was continued until completion. E.g.

Li ĝisrezulte farbis la murojn

He painted the walls until they were done

Annnnnd the coolest usage of “-aĵo” for a participle I can think of so far……

La okazontaĵo

That which will come to pass (or: “will occur” if you’re dull inside)

Turn around – de temp’ al temp’ mi disrompiĝas!

It’s all about word versatility this evenin’. We turn a simple word into whole bag of tricks. So don’t turn back, nor avert your eyes. The word of interest is:

Turni : To Turn (pronounced TOOR-nee)

This word specifically means that the subject is turning something. As in “I turned the hands of the clock”, or even “I turned the clock into a watch”. But never “I turned around” or “I turned into a badger”. The difference with those last ones, is that they are implying that the turning is happening to the subject of the verb, the thing doing the action. But Esperanto has a different word for that.

Therefore, if I said the broken phrase “Mi turnis en melon” for “I turned into a badger”, an Esperantist would ask you “You turned what into a badger?” Your sentence is incomplete!

First, lets take the dictionary dive:

Turnilo: winch / crank / tool for turning

Using the suffix “-il” for specifying a tool for performing an action, we can arrive at “a tool for turning”, which is quite versatile in itself; we can tack any noun at the front to get “a tool for turning [noun]”:

• ŝraŭbturnilo: screwdriver
• diskturnilo: disk unit / drive / turn table

Deturni: to turn away / to avert

Deturnu viajn okulojn! = Avert your eyes! Here we use the word for “from”. So instead of just turning a thing, we’re turning it from something else. Whenever you get a nice strong action word like this, you can make fun use of “sen” = “without” to describe things that proceed without that action. Here the “a” ending makes an adjective, for describing nouns:

• sendeturna: without turning away / unflinchingly.  “la sendeturna okulo” = “The unaverting / unflinching eye”.

Returni: to turn back

The “re” prefix means repetition, or going back. So putting the “re” infront of “turni” will usually mean turning something back the other way, or in the opposite direction.

Turniĝi: to turn (around) / rotate / gyrate / revolve (toor-NEE-jee)

Here’s that sneaky “iĝ” suffix again. It means literally “to become [turned]”. Our root here is “turn”. So this is like putting the turning action back on the subject. Remember how we couldn’t use “turni” to have the subject talk about itself turning, it must always be turning something else? Well we can with the suffix: I turned into a badger = Mi turniĝis en melon. While it might be hard at first to deal with Esperanto’s strict nature about who is the subject of a verb, it actually means the sense of words very easy to interpret and reason over for word building when you get the hang of it.

Elturniĝi: to manoeuvre / wangle / contrive

Woah. How did we get that? Looks like a flippin’ Elvish name! So we start with the basic “turniĝi” and add to it the ever useful “el” meaning “out of”. So it’s literally like turning yourself out of a difficult situation! And whenever you’ve got yourself a cool verb like that, you can always make a word to describe someone with that quality:

Elturniĝema: elusive, resourceful, slippery, wily

The “em” suffix (and the adjective “a” ending here) describes something that has the tendency, inclination, or disposition for a given action. So something/someone that is “elturniĝema” is one who tends to be able to wangle and manoeuvre!

A lot of the above can be mix ‘n’ matched, many things that work for “turni” (turning something) work for “turniĝi” (being turned)!

Kapturno: dizziness, giddiness, swimming (in head), vertigo

Using the noun ending “o”, a “turno” is just “a turn(ing)”. When we combine with “kapo” = “head”, we have a head-turning. Which is used to refer to when it feels like your head keeps turning you strangely when you’re a bit dizzy!

And now for some extra fun outside of the safety of a dictionary:

Diskturnisto: DJ

Using the “ist” suffix, which is like English “er” in “Shoemaker”, “Writer”, “Runner”, or “ist” in “Novelist”, “Florist”, “Tourist”, we can define someone who is professionally occupied with turning disks 😀

Neturnita: Unturned / Yet to turn

One might used this to describe someone bitten by a zombie but not yet dead… 😛

Frothing at the Mouth

In the past weeks, a number of perfectly pleasant interactions with completely competent individuals out in the world made me feel very… animated, shall we say. And after regaling friends with my tales of these… Interactions… A lovely little Esperanto word formed in my brain:

• ŝaŭmbuŝa

Besides being gorgeous and bouncy with them lil’ accents and an almost balanced feeling (ŝaŭ … uŝa), it’s just plain fun to say aloud:

• sh + ow (as in “cow”) + m + BOO + sha
• showm-BOO-sha

And I think it’s a neat way of expressing the sentiment of this post’s title idiom:

• ŝaŭmo = froth/foam
• buŝo = mouth
• ŝaŭmbuŝo = a frothing/foaming mouth
• li estis ŝaŭmbuŝa = He was frothing at the mouth (literally: he was froth-mouthed, via the adjectival -a ending)
• ili trasuferis lian ŝaŭmbuŝan rakonton = They suffered through his frothing-mouthed story.

We could even go full adverb here (with the magic adverb-making -e ending) should we need to describe a verb instead of a noun/pronoun:

• ŝaŭmbuŝe = froth-mouthedly / with a frothing mouth / while foaming at the mouth / etc.
• ŝi laŭte kriis ŝaŭmbuŝe = She shouted loudly, foaming at the mouth

This word is an example usage of a word-building formula I discussed on the blog in the distant past, but instead here we’re using an “object root” (ŝaŭmo) as the property “P”. Why not take a trip into my past and see: https://adventuresinesperanto.wordpress.com/2012/02/24/word-building-formula/

Troubled badgers are best left to their own thoughts

Ĝenatajn melojn oni lasu kun iliaj propraj pensoj

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 ” or “to be 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”!

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? 😀

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!

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”.

Off to Edinburgh!

I’m afraid that I shall be away for a week! Going to Edinburgh. I shall endeavour to make some posts if I get time between events! However, there is indeed the chance that I will not have the time!

Today, I’ll leave you with an amusing colloquial word I came across reading some Esperanto material:

• maltrinki = to pee

It is made up of: the prefix “mal” and the root word “trink-” and the verb ending. “Trinki” means “to drink”. “Mal” when attached to a word, renders the opposite meaning. Similar to “un-” in English. So if “bona” = “good” (which it does), then “malbona” = “bad”. So here “maltrinki” means “to un-drink”, therefore, “pee”!

Certainly made me giggle. And of course there are far more clinical terms for the action… but who needs those with gems like these? 🙂

Disaster Has Struck

I ran out of my favourite tea a little while ago. THE HORROR. Then suddenly inspiration for a new Esperanto word accosted me:

“La senteosentaĉo.”

Which means:

“The terrible feeling of being without tea”

“Sento” is a feeling or sentiment.

One can make a word have a feeling of awfulness or contempt by inserting the suffix “-aĉ”.

“Sentaĉo” = “Awful/terrible feeling”

The word “teo” means “tea”, and the word “sen” means “without”. Often when you combine it with a word, it adds something like the English “-less” suffix.

E.g.

“helpa” = helpful

“senhelpa” = helpless, without help

Therefore “senteo” = “tea-less, without tea”

So “senteo” + “sentaĉo” = an awful feeling characterised by being without tea!

Simple but Expressive

For the most part, it seems that Esperanto tries to ensure that there is only one word for one particular sense, instead of having endless synonyms for words.

A friend, having discovered this trend declared that Esperanto must be the most dull language, with only one way to express things. They said it’s too simple.

But this is not the case! Yes, while there may only be one listed canonical form, there are many ways the same or similar idea can be expressed, through word building. It can also often introduce subtleties of meanings or emphasis to further enhance the text.

I’ll give you a simple example. The word for “pen” is “plumo”, plain and simple. However, I also know that the verb “skribi” means “to write”. And that the suffix “-il” added to a root word means “tool for <root>ing”. So “skribilo” as tool for writing, also means “pen”!

Word Building

Esperanto is a wonderful language for building words. So many neat little ways of making words, words that can represent concepts that often require a much longer explanation in another language.

I’ve decided to start recording interesting words that sprout from my thoughts. They are all obviously going to be of utmost importance when communicating with other Esperantists!

I thought I’d share with you the first one I’ve come up with. Hmm… Perhaps I will keep record of them on here from time to time! Yes… They shall have their own category “Constructed Esperanto Words” so that they can be filtered out.

Without further delay… Mortigodoro! It means “A smell that causes one to die” or simply: a killing odour.

Here’s your explanation:

The verb “morti” means “to die”. There is a special suffix “-ig” that one can apply, which loosely translates to “cause <root>”. “Mortigi” means “to cause to die” (i.e. “to kill”). The adjective (mortiga) of which would loosely mean “killer” as in “killer ants”

The word “odoro” means “odour/smell”, slap them together and you get mortigodoro! I would appreciate any feedback if I have got the construction process of any words incorrect.

Teehee.