Inedibilification

^{Photo generated by DALL·E 3}

An Esperanto article gave me an idea for an English word: “inedibilify” = to make (something) inedible. And its corresponding noun form “inedibilification”. I suspect you might have even been able to parse out that meaning before I suggested it, because that “-ify” suffix in English is pretty neat for word-building and often acts pretty much like the Esperanto “-ig” (see posts about “ig”):

Manĝi, manĝebla, nemanĝebla, nemanĝebligi

To eat, edible, inedible, to make inedible (inedibilify!)

Vi nemanĝebligis mian kukon

You inedibilified my cake! (made my cake inedible)

But I’ve been sitting on telling you about this, because vexingly, I couldn’t think of an English term for the actual original Esperanto inspiration: nemanĝebliĝi = to become inedible

Post tago en la suno, la sciuro nemanĝebliĝis.

After a day in the sun, the squirrel became inedible.

Is there some kind of English suffix for “to become <something>” like our useful Esperanto “-iĝ”? Or is Esperanto just far too cool for English? (see posts about “-iĝ”)

And just because I always have to take things too far, using the tool suffix “-il” (which when attached to X makes something which makes/does X) – see posts about -il):

Ĉiu scias ke brokolo estas nur nemanĝebligilo.

Everyone knows that broccoli is just an inedibilifier.

Why not… Combine the power of -ig & -iĝ?!

… It’s sheer madness,  that’s why. But it’s fun, and that’s what we’re here for.

I was trawling through the latest updates to the PMEG (because I know how to party), and found that it’s not entirely unheard of to combine the suffixes -ig & -iĝ in a word. But -ig & -iĝ are sorta like opposites, why don’t they just cancel out?

These suffixes are really useful word-building tools, so if you’re not familiar with how they work, then you can see some examples in my previous post here. Otherwise, here’s quick recap (skip if you’re familiar with -ig & -iĝ):

“g” is pronounced like “g” in “goat”, and “ĝ” is pronounced like “g” in “gem”.

[word]+ig = cause / make happen [word]

For example :

• “morti” = “to die”
• “mortigi” = “to kill” (literally: cause to die)

[word]+iĝ = become [word]

For example:

• “rompi” = “to break (something)”
• “rompiĝi” = “to become broken”  (In English we tend to just keep using “break”, basically something breaking).

So the reason one might expect the suffixes to cancel out is: you’ve got “rompiĝi” = “to become broken”, so when adding -ig (rompiĝigi) you might expect to have made: “to cause something to become broken” which seems just the same as “rompi” (to break something)!

Note that the “i” ending after the suffixes is what makes the final constructed words into verbs.

An example of both -ig & -iĝ being used in the PMEG is: formoviĝigi

What a beautiful beast of a word, eh? Break it down:

1. movi: to move (something)
2. formovi: to move (something) away
3. formoviĝi: to be moved away / to become moved away
4. formoviĝigi: to cause to be moved away / to make (something) moved away

There’s a nuanced difference of meaning between your standard formovi and formoviĝigi.

“Formovi” alone implies a direct causation: we actually moved something away. Whereas there’s room for indirect methods in “formoviĝigi”, because we’re just causing something to end up being moved, to become moved. So the addition of “ig” doesn’t quite return us to the original meaning of “formovi”.

In the PMEG’s example, the moving is accomplished through intimidation, not actual physical movement:

• Rajdmilicanoj formoviĝigis la publikon = Yeomen made the public move away.

Well, we’ve had our fun. But, of course, we must be sensible when talking to new people. It’s usually more clear to just separate off the -ig:

• Rajdmilicanoj igis la publikon formoviĝi

But where’s the excitement there!? I say just talk more slowly and more loudly 😀 ĥeĥe

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”!

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!

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)

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 :D. 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!

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).

A different expression

I was amused by the variety of different ways of expressing “marry” today… Turns out that there isn’t a dedicated verb for it:

• Edzo = husband
• Edzino = wife (“in” is the feminine suffix)
• Edziĝi = to marry, to get married, to become a husband (“iĝ” means “to become <root>”)
• Edziniĝi = to marry, to get married, to become a wife
• Geedziĝi = to marry, to get married (the “ge” prefix means both sexes, so you’d use it when talking about both of them “they got married”).

All of the ones with “iĝ” are like “become a wife/husband”, so they can’t take a direct object, like “I married her”, because it would actually mean “I became married her”, which doesn’t make sense, for that you need “ig” = “to cause to be <root>”

• Edzigi = to make/cause to be a husband, to marry (a man)
• Edzinigi = to make/cause to be a wife, to marry (a woman)
• Geedzigi = to make/cause to be man and wife, to marry (the couple, like a priest would)

Funny, no?