izacja

Izacja is a productive suffix in Polish, written as -izacja, used to form nouns that denote a process, action, or result. The suffix is typically attached to verb stems (often those formed with the verb suffix -izować, meaning to -ize) or to adjectives and other bases, yielding nouns that describe the process of becoming or making something.

In practice, -izacja is widespread in modern Polish, especially in technical, scientific, economic, and social terminology. The resulting nouns are usually feminine and form their plurals with the ending -acje. The terms commonly express ongoing processes or trends, such as changes driven by policy, technology, or social development.

Examples include industrializacja (industrialization), globalizacja (globalization), urbanizacja (urbanization), digitalizacja (digitalization), liberalizacja (liberalization), and prywatyzacja (privatization). These words illustrate how -izacja builds a lexical category of process-oriented nouns, often used in formal and scholarly discourse as well as public policy language.

Etymology and relation to other languages: the Polish suffix -izacja reflects a broader Latin-derived pattern of -ization/-isation found in many European languages. It parallels the English -ization by serving a similar function—turning a verb or adjective into a noun that names a process or state. In Polish, the suffix is highly productive for coinage in contemporary vocabulary, especially in domains undergoing modernization or reform.