"Ni babilu!"

Translation: Let us chat!

[kiddo-depido]

ohhhhh I remember the old times in lernu.net

"La tujmesagxilo" and "La babilejo" <3

[everton.flavio]

Why "old times"? "Tujmesaĝilo" still works..

[anu1217]

I remember what "babilu" means by thinking of "babble."

[RaizinM]

Yup, that word is indeed etymologically related to babili. It's an old word that appears in most (or all?) Germanic languages, including English (babble), German (babbeln), Dutch (babbelen), Swedish (babbla), etc, etc.

But as the i in the middle gives away, the Esperanto word specifically comes from the French word babiller, which in turn likely entered the French language through a dialect of Old Dutch, during or before the middle ages.

[Rippler]

If you want to trace it back further, it would be reasonable to say that the word's origin is the Tower of Babel from the Bible.

[lumoso]

Which is a tower in the place בבל (Bavel). The root בלבל (balbel) means to confuse. Which I always thought was related, but it's a different root, so now I'm not sure.

[claire_resurgent]

I believe it's often explained as a very old-school pun.

[nunes89]

Babili. Cute :3

[Rippler]

Unfortunately, we cannot say the same for the cat-lips emoticon in Duolingo text :(

[Notasurgeon]

What about "We should chat?" I learned elsewhere that a 'u' verb after a pronoun like mi, ni, etc. implied "should." So that's how I interpreted this Esperanto sentence. It doesn't seem that far off from their translation, either. Thoughts?

[Kreilyn]

"-u" is used to form the imperative!

"We should chat" would be Ni devus babili!

[StephieRice]

-u is technically used to form the jussive which serves as the imperative and the subjunctive

[CsabaSndor]

In real life I use the world: "Ni babilindus" - ind is standing for "it's worth to" eg. vidinda -something worth to see.

[1e7nx0WG]

"We should chat!" is one of Duolingo's accepted translations of "Ni babilu!".

[fxeyub837]

Is this telling someone to let them chat or are they saying let's chat?

[CsabaSndor]

Yeah, you are right. "Let us chat" means "Lasu nin babili", "Let's chat" means "Ni babilu" - Duolingo allows an incorrect translation here...

[rapn21]

Can you rephrase your question?

[fxeyub837]

Question is moot now

[mehtap0800]

The question was used to clarify the meaning of the English translation, Let us chat, which has two distinct meanings in English:

1. Allow us to chat (Let us chat)

2. first-person plural command (Let's chat/Let us chat)

It comes down to whether the sentence is directed at the person you want to chat with or at a third party who is interrupting.

[salivanto]

The question, according to the person who asked it, has been moot for 5 years. My suggestion is that if you have your own question, you just ask it.

[ActualGoat]

I think it's more like Let's chat in a casual way. This was over three weeks ago now, so you probably know, but I hope that hels :D

[Cavman144]

to me, "babilu" sounds like "babble".

[Ian533972]

The owl is refusing to accept "Let's chat!", "We should chat!" and "Let us chat!" as acceptable translations, insisting that the correct translation is "Let us chat!" (!)