Do Not Invent Words That Do Not Exist

Life is far from having a straight course. There are curves, shortcuts, reversals. Looking from outside, they are irregularities and exceptions to what one may consider rules.

Language is part of life. Therefore, it also has irregularities and exception to the rule (the rules of language, indeed) all the way.

One of those irregularities is the verb to fall, as any English speaker knows. The present is fall, the past tense is fell, and the participle is fallen.

“To fall” is also irregular in Armenian. The verb is eehnal (իյնալ) in Armenian, but the past tense loses the յ and acquires a g (կ). Thus, we have Yes eenga (Ես ինկայ, “I fell”) or Anonk eengan (Անոնք ինկան, “They fell”). Unlike English, the past participle remains in the same form: eengadz (ինկած, “fallen”).

A fake irregularity has been created in the colloquial language. For instance, in the case of the verb nusdeel (նստիլ, “to sit”), if we want to have someone sit down before the performance starts, we have to nusdetsenel that particular person (նստեցնել, “to make someone sit down”). It is a perfectly legitimate word, as it is in the case of the pairs vazel/vazetsunel (վազել/վազեցնել, “to run/to make run”), antsneel/antsunel (անցնիլ/անցընել, “to pass/to make pass”), and several others.

However, there is a false parity, which we find here and there in spoken language, particularly among Middle Eastern speakers of Armenian. It is the case of the ghost word eengatsunel (ինկացնել). For instance, you may hear someone who says:

Ան զիս ինկացուց/An zees eengatsoots/ “He(she) made me fall”

The verb eengatsunel, unlike vazetsunel or antsunel, does not exist in Armenian.

How do you properly say the abovementioned sentence?

If you want the short answer, you have Ան զիս տապալեց/An zees dabalets.

Too fancy? Then you have the long answer: Գետին ինկայ իր պատճառով/ Kedeen eenga eer badjarov / “I fell to the floor by his(her) cause.”

However, the questions may remain: Why eengatsunel does not exist?

There is no “why.” Sometimes, language, like life, has its own reasons