Infinitive
krokodili
Forms
Tenses
| Present | krokodilas |
| Past | krokodilis |
| Future | krokodilos |
| Conditional | krokodilus |
| Imperative | krokodilu! |
Participles
| Active past | krokodilinta |
| Active present | krokodilanta |
| Active future | krokodilonta |
| Passive past | krokodilita |
| Passive present | krokodilta |
| Passive future | krokodilota |
Etymology
1. From krokodilo (“crocodile”) + -i. The origin of the expression is unclear. Several suggestions have been made:
2. * From the fact that crocodiles' extremely large mouths make an apt comparison for carelessly flapping one's jaws without consideration.
3. * Ferrari, an Esperantist in Paris in the 1930s, would comment Kion volas tiuj krokodiloj? (What do those crocodiles want?) when noisy non-Esperantists entered the cafe where he was speaking Esperanto with friends.
4. * Students of Andreo Cseh. When Cseh taught Esperanto, students were only allowed to speak their native language when they were holding a wooden crocodile he always brought with him.
5. The latter two may be allusions to the idiom rather than its source.
Verbs referencing "krokodili"
English
crocodile.
Sample Sentences
-
Miaj geamikoj, krokodilante, decidis mendojn. (My friends, speaking their native language, decided on [food] orders.) [2001 April, Hori Yasuo, “Kron-Put: Vjetnama bambua muzikilo”, in Monato, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 27:]
Translations
crocodile, to speak one's native language rather than Esperanto