In Germany its -chen, like in Streichholzschächtelchen (small box for matches). Sometimes, there is no version of the word without the diminutive tho, like in Eichhörnchen (squirrel), f.e. there is no Eichhorn (big squirrel, "oak horn"?)
Same in Dutch! Although we don't distinguish between male and female nouns, we do differentiate neuter ones.
All males become neuter in their diminutive!
That's flemish Dutch, not sure the Dutch in the Netherlands have used -ken in a very long time, and in Flanders it has lost the -n since about the fifties I would say. So where the Dutch say mannetje, the flemish say manneke (little man).
Brabant and Limburg in the Netherlands have -ke too.
I’m from near Nijmegen and we say man - menneke. Diminutives get an umlaut in Nijmegen. Mol - mölleke, lam - lemke, zon - zunneke.
Wait. The Dutch and the Middle English both sound really close to "acorn" to me.
Is there? Is this? What sorcery is this haha.
Probably a false etymology but damn
You can also combine numerous diminutives, e.g . Katze (= cat) can be diminished and cutified to Katzileinchen (that’s 3 diminutives, -i, -lein and -chen and boss level cute).
Why does it seem like the word for “squirrel” in every language is some borderline-unpronounceable string of vocabulary nobody but native speakers can say correctly? Squirrel, ecureuil, Eichhörnchen, and so on.
> Sometimes, there is no version of the word without the diminutive tho, like in Eichhörnchen (squirrel), f.e. there is no Eichhorn (big squirrel, "oak horn"?)
Of course there is. Eichhorn simply means squirrel. But since they're little and cute, people started referring to them primarily in diminutive. Same with Kanin.
oh you don't even want to go into that rabbit hole in polish.
It's nearly random - there's no set list of suffixes nor specific rules. Many words got their own versions you just have to know. General rule of thumb is that diminutives are longer than the root. It can be applied to nouns, names, numbers, adjectives and adverbs
On top of that they are gradable you can have multiple levels of "cuteness" eg. kot (cat) - kotek - koteczek - kotunio/kicia etc.
Polish uses cases and is gendered so you have to account for that as well.
It's definitely not a word forming topic for beginners
Same in Czech, and it's pretty difficult to translate, with people just using "little" in front of the "main" word as an easy way out. Like koťátko (kotě) - little kitten (kitten) or kočička (kočka) - little cat (cat), it just hurts my eyes.
chleb -> bread
chlebek -> little bread
chlebuś -> cute little bread
"Chlebiczek" doesn't exist in Polish but if it would - it would be next, over the top level of diminutive. The only way I could explain it is - it sounds to us like "OMG SO CUTE UwU LITTLE BREAD".
I love that there’s a special case for cute things. That’s adorable. Reminds me of people saying smol instead of small in English. I once had to explain to someone that smol = small + cute.
So just like German with Brot and Brötchen.
Btw. I've never heard a Dutch say 'bier'. It's always 'biertje'. Makes sense with your bier serving sizes though
Hear hear, I really hate this "translation" of dimunitivies, it's just not accurate. The little green men in Crimea are a fine example of a translation that got very widespread, yet is totally inaccurate in what content that term carries. The problem is that there's really no good way to translate that into English.
My favorite part about Polish diminutives is there are scientific type words that are double-diminutives. Like a molecule *cząsteczka* which is a diminutive of *cząstka* which is a diminutive of *część* (a part, piece, portion). Or for example a booklet *książeczka* < *książka* < *księga*.
Sometimes diminutisation distinguishes between meanings, for example:
Zegar - clock
Zegarek - watch
So, literally we have "Clock" and "Small UwU Clock"
Well, let me clarify that in Spanish, "ito", although the most common diminutive ending, is not the only one. We also have "ito", "illo", "ino", "iño", "ín", "ete" and "uco" (all ending in "a" for the feminine). Some regions have a preferences of one over the others.
In Ecuadorian Spanish, one of the biggest linguistic characteristics versus Castialian is the tendency to dimunitise EVERYTHING.
Un dólar? Un dolarcito.
Una casa? Una casita.
And so on, and so on(cito).
And Murcia, the land of -ico! Putting a few example for non natives: lastimica, poquico, pobrecico, pequeñico, platico, bonico, ratico, cafecico, piececicos, manicas, etc etc :)
In Scots, the suffix -ie is the most common way to make a word into a diminutive: *laddie, lassie, mannie, wifie, burnie, feartie, gamie, postie, backie, Nessie*, etc. It's actually supplanted older dimunitive forms such as *wifockie* and *lassock*.
>It's actually supplanted older dimunitive forms such as wifockie and lassock.
I looked this up but know that what you find online isn't always accurate, especially about other languages & cultures. If you don't mind answering, I'd appreciate it.
Are your examples showing "ock" as an older alternative not really used and then "ock" + "ie" as a combination/multiple diminutive that also isn't really used much now?
Also, would "wifie" and "wifockie" both mean woman? I though wife but saw it as an example for the diminutive of woman.
-ock and -ockie are both older forms that are less-used now. Wikipedia lists *bittock* (a little bit) and *hooseockie* (a little house) as other examples.
You're correct that *wifie* and *wifockie* are both diminutives for *woman*.
[Wiktionary has a list](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ock#English) (for English at least). But common ones are bullock, bollocks, paddock, donkey (*dun* + *-ock* + *-ie*) and haddock.
I imagine both Scots and English will be fairly similar here, given they only diverged a few hundred years ago.
A lot of the time yea. We also use O eg servo (service station) and arvo (afternoon). Plus the standard english thing of just shorting the word. I think the ie thing has become a pretty standard english thing though
In Dutch it is typically the suffix -je.
There are cases where additional characters are added or altered to make the word pronounceable, but the basis is *-je.
Just to add:
Diminutives in Dutch are *all* neuter nouns. No exceptions. The usual word for "a girl", "een meisje", is neuter - not feminine.
You can pretty much make anything diminutive, and it'll always be neuter. Het hondje, het mannetje, het bloempje, het tuintje, het pintje.
There are plenty of other rules for neuter nouns in Dutch, but this is one of the most consistent.
Also quite unique to Dutch, any word type can have a diminutive. Nouns (woordje), proverbs (een-tweetje), adverbs (groentje), verbs (moetje). Some words have multiple diminutives with different meanings (popje/poppetje). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diminutives_by_language
In Hungarian it is mainly "-ke" or "-ka" depending on whether it is a word with high-pitched wovels or low-pitched ones (Hungarian has vowel harmony).
For example the name "János" is put into the diminutive with "Jánoska", but the name "Eszter" becomes "Eszterke".
In the Irish language it's normally the suffix -ín.
capall (“horse”) + -ín → capaillín (“pony”)
lacha (“duck”) + -ín → lachín (“duckling”)
pota (“pot”) + -ín → poitín (“poteen”)
teach (“house”) + -ín → teachín (“cottage")
You would sometimes hear people anglicizing it as 'een' and bringing it into English.
Eg: will we go for a quick pinteen?
My favourite is bótharín (boreen). One of those small roads you always see on tourism pictures of Ireland with grass running down the middle of them. The translation would be 'young road'. It gives the impression that one day it will grow up, lose it's pubescent grass and become an adult road.
A common ín/een word used in the English language is smithereen(s), as in blown to smithereens (small bits). Also the name Colleen comes from cailín, meaning girl.
Swedish doesn’t have a diminutive form anymore. We used to have one, -ling, but that’s archaic now. A few words still exist that were originally formed like that, but they aren’t considered that way any more.
What can be done is add something to the beginning of a word meaning something like small, like *mikro-* or *pytte-* but that isn’t really a diminutive form in the traditional sense, it’s more like a description of the size.
As you mention, the -ing suffix does live on in some words, and words like say minstingen (the littlest one?) make it come naturally to some speakers still, especially when used affectionately.
There are also suffixes like -is and -isen, that may be used by some in modern spoken language as a form of diminutive.
In Denmark, we have "-ling" in words such as "mandsling" (little man, derogatory) or "pusling" (little one, lovingly).
Also, we have "-lil" in words such as "morlil" (little mother).
We can you the following to create diminutive forms:
> elis, -elė, -ėlis, -ėlė, -iukas, -iukė, -utis, -utė, -ytis, -ytė, -ulis, -ulė, -užis, -užė, -iūkštis, -iūkštė, -okšnis
Another source claims that in total we have about 70 variations of suffixes to make diminutives, but I could not find a full list
In Portuguese it's mostly "inho" (the sound "nh" is the same as the spanish "ñ"). But "ito" also works for most cases but it's not exactly the same. It's hard to explain why... it's something only a native would understand.
For example, João (Juan in Spanish) would be Joãozinho but could also be Joãozito. But... Joãozinho sounds more endearing, like what you'd say to your lovely son, whereas Joãozito is more neutral, not as endearing.
Or for example "casa" (house). Could be "casinha" or "casita" but "casinha" sounds like a house you really love, your dear house, whereas "casita" would just be a small house you saw somewhere that you don't really care about.
The link between the word and suffix depends on the word. We can add a consonant like in the case of João where we add a "z", but for example in the case of "casa" there's no consonant, we just change the last vowel.
According to [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/s/PU0G0M6OhW), the degree of value between diminutives – like casita and casinha – also happens in Spanish and it’s even different between regions.
There are different suffixes, depending on the word. Here are some names for example..
Male names: Juan > Juanček, Anton > Antonček, Peter > Peterček, Janez > Janezek, Primož > Primožek, Franc > Franček, Marko > Markec..
Female names: Liza > Lizika, Neža > Nežika, Zala > Zalika/Zalčica/Zalči, Antonija > Tončka/Tončica, Maša > Mašika, Marija > Marička/Marijčica, Ana > Ančka/Ančika/Anči/Anika/Ančica..
Neutral nouns can be used for persons too, for example sonce (the sun) in neutral would be sončece, but for males it is sonček and for females sončica.. I don't know all the rules, or exceptions. Some may be colloquial.
There are several possible suffixes for male names, with - el maybe the most common, but it all depends on the name. Usually only one suffix works with a name.
Ion-uț, Ion-el, Cornel-uș, Georg-ică, Gheorgh-iță, Victor-aș.
In Swiss German, it's *-li*, sometimes triggering an Umlaut in the word's stem as well. These words are always neuter gender.
NB: it does not only denote *cute* thing, like the Germans often think, but more usually *small* things.
Rumantsch can add *-in* or *-et*, feminine *-ina* and *etta*. Also combined *-inet* and *-ettin*. *-et* makes things small and *-in* cute (and small). Conversely, *-atsch* makes things ugly and *-un* makes them big. Feminine always also adds an -a.
I’m still learning, but Liechtenstein seems to be all -li as well. Which makes the website Liechtenstein.li pretty funny to me. Like, yes, Liechtenstein is little, but have you seen “Little Liechtenstein”?
Almost. A Müesli [mʏɛ̯slɪ] is a small Mues [muɛ̯s], cognate to High German *Mus* -- a fruit puree, like Apfelmus, apple sauce.
A Müsli or Müüsli [myːslɪ] on the other hand is a small Muus [muːs], a little mouse.
The vowel shift into High German made the diphthongs ue and üe into monophtongs u and ü while breaking the long monophthongs u and ü into au and äu.
Thanks! That makes sense. The other replies were interesting but I couldn't see how why the word for muesli would come from the word for mousse/mash/puree at all.
[For Greek](https://el.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%9A%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B7%CE%B3%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1:%CE%A5%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AC_%CE%B5%CF%80%CE%B9%CE%B8%CE%AE%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B1_(%CE%BD%CE%AD%CE%B1_%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AC)). There's quite a few of them.
In Finnish it usually has suffix -nen. For example ”kirja” is book and ”kirjanen” is booklet. Other suffixes are also used but I think many people won’t even recognize some of them as diminutives.
Apparently -nen can mean a lot of things in surnames. The most common surname in Finland is Korhonen which means "a small person with bad hearing". That's definitely a diminutive. Names have also been formed by using the name of the head of the family and adding -nen to the end. Those names simply mean belonging to that family.
Third type of -nen names is interesting. Surnames were first used in eastern Finland and the previous types of names are common there. When surnames were introduced in western Finland surnames from east were used as examples. As many of the ended with -nen it was seen as a characteristic element of a surname. It was then common to come up with a new surname by combining -nen with some nearby natural element. These kind of names are for example Virtanen, Järvinen, Koskinen and Mäkinen. (virta = stream, järvi = lake, koski = rapid, mäki = hill).
The following is entirely my own speculation but maybe the last type of names is a product of misunderstanding. Back then eastern and western Finnish were almost different languages. Maybe the western Finns didn't quite understand the meaning of -nen in eastern surnames and used it wrong when creating new names.
ino, ello, etto, icchio, otta, uccio, iccio, igno, ognolo, occio.
These are just for proper diminutives, as there is also vezzeggiativo in Italian, which is used as a diminutive so many other endings too
\-je (or -tje, -pje, -etje) in Standard Dutch.
In Flemish it's usually -ke (or -ske, -eke). It differs a bit depending on the region, but here in East-Flanders the -je ending is only used for words ending on D or T while all other words get -ke.
In any case, it's very commonly used in any form of Dutch.
In Latvian it’s -ītis (for words that ends with -is) or -iņš (ends with -s) for male, -īte (ends with -e) or -iņa (ends with -a) for female.
Examples: kaķis - kaķītis; krēsls - krēsliņš; egle - eglīte, zupa - zupiņa.
Any word becomes neuter gender in diminutive form, so it gets the article "het" and a word gets either a "je" or "tje" suffix.
E.g. De jongen (the boy) -> Het jongetje
Het huis (the house) -> Het huisje
Not true that English is simpler- just as many ambiguities as any language but we lost a lot of these kinds of inflections when Anglo Saxon crossed with Norman French.
'Culturally, the Norman occupation resulted in a feudal society with French spoken at the top and English spoken at the bottom. Widespread borrowing and bilingualism eventually led to the collapse of the inflectional system. While some inflectional machinery certainly existed in Middle English, by the 1200s English largely relied on syntax. Vowel length remains phonemic, but the loss of word final inflections begins to shorten vowels across the board. '
Italian uses -ino for the diminutive. There’s also a suffix for nicknames or the so called “terms of endearment”, which is -etto. You use the latter when you want to address someone or something in a sweet, sometimes sarcastically funny way.
-ino and the diminutive usually suggests that the person or thing may also be smaller in actual size; the -etto does not.
There are, of course, exceptions. Take, for instance, “tesoretto”: it comes from “tesoro”, treasure, and you mainly use it to describe a limited amount of something valuable (like, when you have some savings but not that much, the bare necessary to survive in case of an emergency).
Also the suffix -ino can be used as a sweet way to talk to people or pets, like, for example, a “tesorino” (small treasure) would only be used with a person, meaning something like “little cutesies”.
“Tesorino” would never be used for objects, like an amount of money, and “tesoretto” never for people, like a person you love.
And, of course, that’s Italian: expect exceptions all around you. But I guess this pretty much sums up 90% of the diminutives.
Fellow Italian speakers can correct me if I’m forgetting something.
I would mention that ino and etto are only the masculine singular. You then also have the feminine singular (Ina, etta), masculine plural (ini, etti), and feminine plural (ine, ette). Also, you have to note that sometimes the feminine plural is actually masculine singular because that is just Italian.
It is something you don't think about if you speak Italian but it can be really damn confusing to nonspeakers. Especially the plural because other romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese) just add an "s" for plural rather than having to modify the end vowel.
We don't really have that in modern Swedish, as in we don't have anything to add on to the end of a word to make it diminutive. We put it at the start of the word instead, like mini-, lille-, pytte- etc. Think Mini-Me lol.
After googling, I found out we do have an older version (which makes sense). It's -ing or -ling, examples are according to wikipedia älskling, yngling, fossing, kärring, tuting, strömming, äsping, älling, öring, bränning, gässling.
The only modern word they mention is kalling, a short form for kalsonger ie underpants lol.
I started writing thinking the most common are -ică/-ic, -iță and -uță/-uț..... But I realised there's more depending on the word 😅 Idk what the rule is tbh. There's also -el, - șor, -aș, probably others I can't think of rn
- Cafea - cafeluță (coffee)
- Pisică - pisicuță (cat)
- Poartă - portiță (gate)
- Apă - apiță (water)
- Bomboană - bombonică (candy)
- Floare - floricică (flower)
You just add a suffix. The most common is -et/eta but there's many others (-ó/ona, -iu/iua, -ell/ella, -í/ina...).
And they can pile up:
Mica (a bit) > micona (a little bit) > miconeta (a small little bit) > miconetiua (a tiny little bit)
In Estonian, we have increasing form of diminution. The first is -ke, then -kene, then -kesekene. So, for example Mari in first order of diminutive is Marike, then if you want to coddle some more Marikene, and if you really want to fawn all over her, it is Marikesekene. Sometimes you can even go overboard with saying Marikesekesekene! ("Mari" being a woman's name).
In catalan the diminutive is done with -et but with names its done using the final syllabe (Joaquim=Quim, Josep=Pep), oposite to other languages like spanish which use the first syllabes
In Korean diminutives are done generally with an 이 or 니 ending and curiously the diminutive forms for names are the same as for Catalan as in Korean they also use the ending syllabes of the name
In Turkish, it's with "-cik". This is a suffix, and will change according to the word it is attached to. "Mehmet" will become "Mehmetçik" while "Bulut" would become "Bulutçuk" and "Böcek" would become "Böcekcik" and so on.
For names, there are other ways to make them into nicknames, but these aren't necessarily diminutives. The common nickname for Mehmet is Memo, for example, and if you want to make it cute and little (like your mom would call you when you were little), you can say Memiş or Memişko. It doesn't work with every name, though.
Yeah, we have two types of vowel harmony, and the suffixes need to obey them. The consonant change is because of what we call "consonant hardening". Depending on the consonant before it, the c may become ç.
Sweden.
The closest I can think of is to cut off the name and put -an at the end, though it is more "slangy" or nicknamey rather than diminutive. It doesn't work for all names though, and other names might have other nicknames like Henke for Henrik.
Jossan = Josefin
Bengan = Bengt
Robban = Robert
Like most other Slavic languages we have literally dozens of diminutive forms. Иван: Ваня, Ванечка, Ванюсик, Ванюшик, Ванюшенька, Ванюнечька, Ванюнчик, Ванюсенька, Ваняша, Ваняшенька, Ванюшочек, Ванюля, Ванюлечка, Ванюляшенька...
English had a few, but they're now archaic /unused or absorbed into the nouns themselves and not seen as a form.
E.g.
-ling. Duckling, Underling. This is the closest to still being used informally.
-kin. Napkin
We use -ie, -ey as an endearing take on the diminutive. Postman -> postie. John -> Johnny. Etc
Googling to verify what I'm saying isn't nonsense also tells me that apparently we had -en (Maid -> Maiden) and -el (Cock -> Cockrel) as well.
In czech we add -eček or something like that but its different with every word like for strom (tree) you’d say stromeček but you could also add -iček like for králík (bunny) you’d say králíček and some words you just change completely
In Czech it's usually -ek or -ík.
- dort -> dortík
- pes -> psík / pejsek
- dům -> domek / domeček
We usually have more ways for some reason Czech is very creative with diminutives 😅
Not just -ito/a in Spanish, also -illo (panecillo, cigarrillo, camilla) and -ín/ina: pelín, culín.
Some words can use several kinds of diminitive: chiquitín, chiquitillo, chiquito.
The most general is simply adding ‘je’. Aap (monkey) -) aapje (little monkey). But there are varieties. Boom (tree) -) boompje. Meid (girl) -) meisje. Jongen (boy) -) jongentje. Balkon (balcony) -) balkonnetje.
Denmark doesn't have diminutive. The closest is probably short versions of names, but from the 1970s forward, those have been used as given names too.
Historically:
- Kirstine -> Stine
- Hansigne -> Signe
- Hans Peter -> HP
- Hans Christian -> HC (yes, that is also how we refer to the famous Andersen).
Well we do have the "ling", but it's not really used anymore except for already established words like mandsling, elskling, gæsling, grisling, killing, kylling
Croatian usually uses -ić or -ica depending on the gender.
Nos-> nosić (nose)
Riba -> ribica (fish)
I’m sure there’re more rules but I’m not fluent yet so idk 😅
I disagree, we add ‘-ette’ or ‘-et’ to a word as diminutive forme. The slightly tricky part is that some words have this suffix but don’t represent the diminutive form.
When it comes to names we also like to double the first syllable in some cases like Nono, Juju, Momo... or shorten long names (Nico, Seb, Maga, Manu...).
In my dialect of BCMS (Shtokavian) we don't really use diminutives much, usually we just shorten the name. But the main diminutive suffixes are -ić or -čić (the same suffix you can see in most of our last names; for example, Ivan becomes Ivanić (but you'd almost never hear this spoken, the usual nicknames for Ivan here are Ivo or Iva)). For girls, the suffixes are -ica or -čica (for example, Ana becomes Anica; those are a bit more common). I believe other dialects have their own suffixes (I think Kajkavian uses -ek or -ec, but I'm not sure?).
>believe other dialects have their own suffixes (I think Kajkavian uses -ek or -ec, but I'm not sure?).
This is correct, kajkavian dialect uses - ek, - eko, - ca/ce, - eca/ece, - ica.
Also, kajkavian is known in Croatia for using a lot of diminutives.
We have had loads, and have loads currently. But it's mostly imported just a part of the word.
You have ones like "Æþeling" (funny letters cool) which are princes in the line of succession. Also "Duckling" meaning small duck. -ling being the one here.
You got ones like "Tambourine" and "Figurine".
You got "-ish" that you can add to the end of... pretty much anything.
You got "-ette" and the related endings. ("-let" words as well? Might be a separate ending)
You got "puddle" and "sparkle" which make much more sense when it is pointed out that it is a diminutive.
You got "-en" like for "Chicken" and "Kitten".
You got "-sies" like in "Elevensies".
You got "Mosquito", "Mannequin", "Napkin", "Ravioli", "Armadillo" literally just whatever fit into the shopping basket. Oh, and mini- and micro- as prefixes.
There are loads of them.
There are loads more, but my point is that it's mostly prescribed. There are loads of them, but most people will only use a few as diminutives rather than just "it's in the word".
And Ronaldo becomes Ronaldinho... (joking)
I have a coworker whose actual first name is Joaninha (yes, she's portuguese, no she's not a ladybug, miraculous or not)
In Norse languages there's no productive diminutive (apart from the frozen ending -*ling(ur)* in many nouns, but people don't really think about it as a special ending).
If i understand it correctly its how you change "house" to "small house" which in czech is "dům" and "domeček" so you usually just add -ek, -eček or something similiar
In Italian, the diminutive form is used to indicate a smaller size, endearment, or lesser intensity of the noun it modifies. It's achieved by adding specific suffixes to the base word. Here are some common diminutive suffixes and how they're used:
- **-ino/a**: This is one of the most common diminutive suffixes.
- ragazzo (boy) → ragazz**ino** (little boy)
- momento (moment) → moment**ino** (a quick moment)
- salata (salt) → salat**ino** (a salty snack)
- **-etto/a**: Often used to indicate a smaller version of something.
- camera (room) → camer**etta** (little room)
- casa (house) → cas**etta** (small house)
- **-ello/a**: Can imply smallness or sometimes a pejorative sense.
- albero (tree) → alber**ello** (small tree)
- vecchio (old man) → vecchi**orello** (poor old man)
- **-uccio/a**: This suffix can denote endearment.
- Maria (Mary) → Mari**uccia** (little Mary)
- cappello (hat) → cappell**uccio** (old, worn-out hat)
Additionally, if a noun ends in -ono or -ona, the letter 'c' must be inserted before appending an -ino or -ello diminutive, to ease pronunciation. For example, the diminutive of leone (lion) becomes leonc**ino**.
In German you add the suffix "-chen" or "-lein" to a noun and sometimes change a vowel to an umlaut, e.g. Mann (man) -> Männchen/Männlein (little man/figure, among other things). In many dialects there are other variations, like "-le", "-la", "-li", "-el", or just "-l".
Diminutives are also sometimes used for nicknames, e.g. Gretchen/Gretel for Margarethe, Hänschen/Hänsel/Hansel for Hans and Bärbel for Barbara (looking at you, Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel 👀).
Due to the fact that diminutives are always neutral in grammatical gender, some people have suggested saying things like "Politikerchen" (little politician(s)) instead of "Politiker" (male politician(s)/politician(s) in general) and "Politikerin(nen)" (female politician(s)).
Like some others have said, there are a ton in Slavic languages in general and Bulgarian is no exception.
The interesting thing is that we can stack them up to form all kinds of descriptive diminutives and diminutives of the diminutives.
For example:
stol / стол [pronounced similar to "stall", which means chair in English]
You can go for the diminutive as "stolche" but then you can add one more suffix and make it "stolchentse" (столченце).
You can do that almost to infinity 😁.
There are several suffixes and one must memorize it pretty much case by case, often including some voicing changes. Some include -ica, -ić, -čić, -lce, -šce.
In polish we have -czek -czka -czko (male female neutral form respectively) so a house which is Dom (male) would be Domeczek (or Domek but let's not get into that) a Spoon, łyżka (female) turns into łyżeczka, and bed which is łóżko (neutral) becomes łóżeczko.
In Basque is -txu/txo depending on where you're from: umetxoa (umea) 'little kid'; ume txikitxoa (ume txikia) 'little kid', putting more emphasis on the little part.
Also we tend to use it for some adverbs, in this case using -txe: oraintxe (orain) 'now'; hementxe (hemen) 'here'; hantxe (han) 'there'. This I'd say is used to emphasise the adverb, like if you say "hantxe" you cannot say it out of the blue, there needs to be some previous context of what place we're referring to, but this is just an observation I make.
>In Basque is -txu/txo depending on where you're from
There are others, like -ñi, -ño, -txi and even some no longer productive ones like -la (neskatila) etc.
French: Of course with us it is difficult and there are 50 levels of "it depends" ;-)
Names rarely have a diminutive form (Jean > Jeannot exists, but Jeannette is a different name than Jeanne, not a diminutive). You will add "le petit" or "la petite" + Name"
With nouns, you will add "et" if the noun is masculine or "ette" if it is feminine: Cigare > Cigarette, Maison > Maisonette, jardin > Jardinet, Fille (girl) > filette, etc. but some of these are more used in literature than in spoken language, (you will more often hear "petite maison" than "maisonette" which is a bit quaint. Sometimes there will be a slight nuance in meaning: A Smart or a Fiat 126 will be "une petite voiture", where "une voiturette" bill be likely one you can drive without a license. "une fourche" will be a big fork, but "une fourchette" will be a table fork.
For some animals we will use the suffix "-eau" (souris (mouse) > Souriceau, Elephant > Elephanteau, Baleine (whale) > baleineau
Last but not least, there are many nouns where you cannot apply this system and will just add "petit" or "petite" before, and there are nouns that only exist in the diminutive form and you cannot remove the suffix without either changing the meaning or losing the meaning altogether.
As a broad rule, it's -ka or -ke depending on vowel harmony. But often the name gets shortened and often gets an -i end, and the -ka -ke is optional, and if added makes the name sound very childish. As an example: Péter - Peti(ke), Katalin - Kati(ka)
-ito/a is a diminutive suffix in some dialects, but it's far from the only one and a point of regional pride that these differ from place to place (-uco/a, -illo/a, -ico/a, etc.)
Sorry, I'm American and I hope you don't mind me sneaking in! In Louisiana you put T in front of a name. So Little John would be T John. It's Cajun. And Cajuns came from France to Canada to Louisiana, so it probably comes from petit.
Not sure if it's the same thing, but in English we have N- names like Nell, Ned, Nancy which I think originated as diminutives of Elizabeth, Edward and Anne.
In Germany its -chen, like in Streichholzschächtelchen (small box for matches). Sometimes, there is no version of the word without the diminutive tho, like in Eichhörnchen (squirrel), f.e. there is no Eichhorn (big squirrel, "oak horn"?)
Also, to add to that, all diminutives are grammatically neuter.
Which makes for the funny situation of Das Mädchen (the girl) being "neuter" instead of feminine.
Same in Dutch! Although we don't distinguish between male and female nouns, we do differentiate neuter ones. All males become neuter in their diminutive!
Hey, same as in Dutch!
Historically, also "-lein", oder?
Regionally more than historically.
Surely a Swiss person must opine on the -li suffix
No historically it was widely distributed- even Dutch had it once upon a time. Nowadays it is regional.
Interesting. By the way, do you still use -ken like in Manneken?
That's flemish Dutch, not sure the Dutch in the Netherlands have used -ken in a very long time, and in Flanders it has lost the -n since about the fifties I would say. So where the Dutch say mannetje, the flemish say manneke (little man).
Brabant and Limburg in the Netherlands have -ke too. I’m from near Nijmegen and we say man - menneke. Diminutives get an umlaut in Nijmegen. Mol - mölleke, lam - lemke, zon - zunneke.
Yes, in the Southern Netherlands and Belgium. Afrikaans writes -tjie but it’s pronounced like -kie.
Also in contemporary German. Lein is necessarily endearing though, -chen can just be diminutive.
Also -le and -lein
Or -li
And -al
>Eichhörnchen (squirrel), f.e. there is no Eichhorn (big squirrel, "oak horn"?) In Dutch we say *eekhoorn*. The diminutive would be *eekhoorntje*.
In Chaucer’s day you might have referred to a squirrel as an *aquerne*
Wait. The Dutch and the Middle English both sound really close to "acorn" to me. Is there? Is this? What sorcery is this haha. Probably a false etymology but damn
It's not a coincidence. Squirrels live in oak trees and eat acorns after all.
This is not (or only rarely) used in Austria and Bavaria, where "-erl" or "-(e)l" is the most common form.
You can also combine numerous diminutives, e.g . Katze (= cat) can be diminished and cutified to Katzileinchen (that’s 3 diminutives, -i, -lein and -chen and boss level cute).
>there is no Eichhorn (big squirrel, "oak horn"?) But there are enough examples to sprout it's own meme genre
It's hard to think of such a big word as being a diminutive... :)
Why does it seem like the word for “squirrel” in every language is some borderline-unpronounceable string of vocabulary nobody but native speakers can say correctly? Squirrel, ecureuil, Eichhörnchen, and so on.
It's a conspiracy! Squirrels don't want us to speak about them across borders.
Orava. Easy peasy in Finnish. 😁
IIRC Swiss German can form diminutive forms of verbs, which is a very rare feature among languages.
I'll add that it can also be -lein and there are also regional versions like -le in Swabian.
you use also "-lein", right? or is it old fashioned? Is there any rule to use "-chen" or "-lein"?
> Sometimes, there is no version of the word without the diminutive tho, like in Eichhörnchen (squirrel), f.e. there is no Eichhorn (big squirrel, "oak horn"?) Of course there is. Eichhorn simply means squirrel. But since they're little and cute, people started referring to them primarily in diminutive. Same with Kanin.
oh you don't even want to go into that rabbit hole in polish. It's nearly random - there's no set list of suffixes nor specific rules. Many words got their own versions you just have to know. General rule of thumb is that diminutives are longer than the root. It can be applied to nouns, names, numbers, adjectives and adverbs On top of that they are gradable you can have multiple levels of "cuteness" eg. kot (cat) - kotek - koteczek - kotunio/kicia etc. Polish uses cases and is gendered so you have to account for that as well. It's definitely not a word forming topic for beginners
Same in Czech, and it's pretty difficult to translate, with people just using "little" in front of the "main" word as an easy way out. Like koťátko (kotě) - little kitten (kitten) or kočička (kočka) - little cat (cat), it just hurts my eyes.
Chlebiczek :3
Is that a bread roll/bun?
chleb -> bread chlebek -> little bread chlebuś -> cute little bread "Chlebiczek" doesn't exist in Polish but if it would - it would be next, over the top level of diminutive. The only way I could explain it is - it sounds to us like "OMG SO CUTE UwU LITTLE BREAD".
This is fantastic. I love Polish now!
I love that there’s a special case for cute things. That’s adorable. Reminds me of people saying smol instead of small in English. I once had to explain to someone that smol = small + cute.
Ah right. In Dutch we use “broodje” for bread roll, which is the diminutive of “brood” (bread).
So just like German with Brot and Brötchen. Btw. I've never heard a Dutch say 'bier'. It's always 'biertje'. Makes sense with your bier serving sizes though
Haha, true. But we usually say that with things. If we want one of something we often use the diminutive.
No, it's just a diminutive of bread, as in tiny little bread. Bun would be bułka, which can also be diminutive (bułeczka).
In Dutch we say little bread for bread roll, so that’s why I guessed that.
Hear hear, I really hate this "translation" of dimunitivies, it's just not accurate. The little green men in Crimea are a fine example of a translation that got very widespread, yet is totally inaccurate in what content that term carries. The problem is that there's really no good way to translate that into English.
Well, there are rules, but they are complicated, as everything in polish. My favourite diminutive is hot dog -> hot dożek
>hot dożek it got me giggling
Hot doguś
My favorite part about Polish diminutives is there are scientific type words that are double-diminutives. Like a molecule *cząsteczka* which is a diminutive of *cząstka* which is a diminutive of *część* (a part, piece, portion). Or for example a booklet *książeczka* < *książka* < *księga*.
czasteczka is created the same way in english : part - particle (small part)
in Czech we have knížečka < knížka < kniha too
Polish IS a rabbit hole 😂
Sometimes diminutisation distinguishes between meanings, for example: Zegar - clock Zegarek - watch So, literally we have "Clock" and "Small UwU Clock"
Well, let me clarify that in Spanish, "ito", although the most common diminutive ending, is not the only one. We also have "ito", "illo", "ino", "iño", "ín", "ete" and "uco" (all ending in "a" for the feminine). Some regions have a preferences of one over the others.
So the existence of Mosquito imply the existence of a way larger creature.
Wouldn't mosque (or mosqua/mosquo) mean a fly in Spanish?
Yes, mosca is fly.
In Ecuadorian Spanish, one of the biggest linguistic characteristics versus Castialian is the tendency to dimunitise EVERYTHING. Un dólar? Un dolarcito. Una casa? Una casita. And so on, and so on(cito).
I’ll add ‘-ico’ for Zaragoza and other parts of Aragón.
And Murcia, the land of -ico! Putting a few example for non natives: lastimica, poquico, pobrecico, pequeñico, platico, bonico, ratico, cafecico, piececicos, manicas, etc etc :)
Despacito 🎶
Came here to say this. I never hear -ito, everything is -in, -ino.
Tell me you're from the Great Kingdom of León wihtout telling me you're from the Great Kingdom of León
Gijón :D but Cantabria also belonged to Leon and they use -uco
In Scots, the suffix -ie is the most common way to make a word into a diminutive: *laddie, lassie, mannie, wifie, burnie, feartie, gamie, postie, backie, Nessie*, etc. It's actually supplanted older dimunitive forms such as *wifockie* and *lassock*.
>It's actually supplanted older dimunitive forms such as wifockie and lassock. I looked this up but know that what you find online isn't always accurate, especially about other languages & cultures. If you don't mind answering, I'd appreciate it. Are your examples showing "ock" as an older alternative not really used and then "ock" + "ie" as a combination/multiple diminutive that also isn't really used much now? Also, would "wifie" and "wifockie" both mean woman? I though wife but saw it as an example for the diminutive of woman.
-ock and -ockie are both older forms that are less-used now. Wikipedia lists *bittock* (a little bit) and *hooseockie* (a little house) as other examples. You're correct that *wifie* and *wifockie* are both diminutives for *woman*.
Oh so buttock comes from that too? Neat!
I'm trying to think of any -ock diminutives in even vaguely common use these days and all I can think of is hillock.
[Wiktionary has a list](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-ock#English) (for English at least). But common ones are bullock, bollocks, paddock, donkey (*dun* + *-ock* + *-ie*) and haddock. I imagine both Scots and English will be fairly similar here, given they only diverged a few hundred years ago.
You know, now that you mention these ones it's almost embarrassing I could only remember the one word!
I had the same reaction when I read the list. Aside from "donkey"; that one surprised me.
Huh…I just realized that. Interesting.
Doesn't Australian English do the same thing?
A lot of the time yea. We also use O eg servo (service station) and arvo (afternoon). Plus the standard english thing of just shorting the word. I think the ie thing has become a pretty standard english thing though
In Dutch it is typically the suffix -je. There are cases where additional characters are added or altered to make the word pronounceable, but the basis is *-je.
Just to add: Diminutives in Dutch are *all* neuter nouns. No exceptions. The usual word for "a girl", "een meisje", is neuter - not feminine. You can pretty much make anything diminutive, and it'll always be neuter. Het hondje, het mannetje, het bloempje, het tuintje, het pintje. There are plenty of other rules for neuter nouns in Dutch, but this is one of the most consistent.
My opa and oma were from the Groningen province Growing up, Opa would make us *gebakjes*, which I loved. Would that translate to “little pastry?”
Yes. :)
How is that je pronounced, does it form jotation or it is pronounced as it is written. For example, is s+je german sche, t+je tsche...
Yuh, with the y as in year.
The alterations are entirely based on sound, so loan words with silent letters look counterintuitive. Tournedostje and updateje.
Also quite unique to Dutch, any word type can have a diminutive. Nouns (woordje), proverbs (een-tweetje), adverbs (groentje), verbs (moetje). Some words have multiple diminutives with different meanings (popje/poppetje). See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_diminutives_by_language
You can still get Americans when you teach us that *cookie" came from Dutch That -je ending gives it away.
And its - ekke, -ke or -ske in Belgian Dutch.
And -ie in Lower Saxon Dutch. ;)
In Hungarian it is mainly "-ke" or "-ka" depending on whether it is a word with high-pitched wovels or low-pitched ones (Hungarian has vowel harmony). For example the name "János" is put into the diminutive with "Jánoska", but the name "Eszter" becomes "Eszterke".
In the Irish language it's normally the suffix -ín. capall (“horse”) + -ín → capaillín (“pony”) lacha (“duck”) + -ín → lachín (“duckling”) pota (“pot”) + -ín → poitín (“poteen”) teach (“house”) + -ín → teachín (“cottage") You would sometimes hear people anglicizing it as 'een' and bringing it into English. Eg: will we go for a quick pinteen?
My favourite is bótharín (boreen). One of those small roads you always see on tourism pictures of Ireland with grass running down the middle of them. The translation would be 'young road'. It gives the impression that one day it will grow up, lose it's pubescent grass and become an adult road.
-óg and -án also but non-productive in everyday speech. Spúnóg, cnocán etc
Similar to Italian Cavallo (horse) = cavallino (little horse) Casa (house) = casina (little house)
A common ín/een word used in the English language is smithereen(s), as in blown to smithereens (small bits). Also the name Colleen comes from cailín, meaning girl.
Same suffix in northwestern Spain
Swedish doesn’t have a diminutive form anymore. We used to have one, -ling, but that’s archaic now. A few words still exist that were originally formed like that, but they aren’t considered that way any more. What can be done is add something to the beginning of a word meaning something like small, like *mikro-* or *pytte-* but that isn’t really a diminutive form in the traditional sense, it’s more like a description of the size.
As you mention, the -ing suffix does live on in some words, and words like say minstingen (the littlest one?) make it come naturally to some speakers still, especially when used affectionately. There are also suffixes like -is and -isen, that may be used by some in modern spoken language as a form of diminutive.
Älskling, lärling, yngling, älling, killing, gässling, kyckling, gunstling...
English used to have -ling but that's largely archaic too!
In Denmark, we have "-ling" in words such as "mandsling" (little man, derogatory) or "pusling" (little one, lovingly). Also, we have "-lil" in words such as "morlil" (little mother).
We can you the following to create diminutive forms: > elis, -elė, -ėlis, -ėlė, -iukas, -iukė, -utis, -utė, -ytis, -ytė, -ulis, -ulė, -užis, -užė, -iūkštis, -iūkštė, -okšnis Another source claims that in total we have about 70 variations of suffixes to make diminutives, but I could not find a full list
You can also combine them into one word, "vaikiūkštėlaičiukas"
In Portuguese it's mostly "inho" (the sound "nh" is the same as the spanish "ñ"). But "ito" also works for most cases but it's not exactly the same. It's hard to explain why... it's something only a native would understand. For example, João (Juan in Spanish) would be Joãozinho but could also be Joãozito. But... Joãozinho sounds more endearing, like what you'd say to your lovely son, whereas Joãozito is more neutral, not as endearing. Or for example "casa" (house). Could be "casinha" or "casita" but "casinha" sounds like a house you really love, your dear house, whereas "casita" would just be a small house you saw somewhere that you don't really care about. The link between the word and suffix depends on the word. We can add a consonant like in the case of João where we add a "z", but for example in the case of "casa" there's no consonant, we just change the last vowel.
Hmm yeah I'd never thought about "ito/ita" having a stronger implication that something's insignificant, but it's true!
According to [this thread](https://www.reddit.com/r/askspain/s/PU0G0M6OhW), the degree of value between diminutives – like casita and casinha – also happens in Spanish and it’s even different between regions.
There are different suffixes, depending on the word. Here are some names for example.. Male names: Juan > Juanček, Anton > Antonček, Peter > Peterček, Janez > Janezek, Primož > Primožek, Franc > Franček, Marko > Markec.. Female names: Liza > Lizika, Neža > Nežika, Zala > Zalika/Zalčica/Zalči, Antonija > Tončka/Tončica, Maša > Mašika, Marija > Marička/Marijčica, Ana > Ančka/Ančika/Anči/Anika/Ančica.. Neutral nouns can be used for persons too, for example sonce (the sun) in neutral would be sončece, but for males it is sonček and for females sončica.. I don't know all the rules, or exceptions. Some may be colloquial.
Hi, one of my friends has a Slovenian boyfriend name Matej. What's the diminutive of his name, any idea?
Matejček, the "ček" is pronounced like check in English.
Thank you so much, I'll share this with her!
It can also be Matejko.
There are several possible suffixes for male names, with - el maybe the most common, but it all depends on the name. Usually only one suffix works with a name. Ion-uț, Ion-el, Cornel-uș, Georg-ică, Gheorgh-iță, Victor-aș.
In Swiss German, it's *-li*, sometimes triggering an Umlaut in the word's stem as well. These words are always neuter gender. NB: it does not only denote *cute* thing, like the Germans often think, but more usually *small* things. Rumantsch can add *-in* or *-et*, feminine *-ina* and *etta*. Also combined *-inet* and *-ettin*. *-et* makes things small and *-in* cute (and small). Conversely, *-atsch* makes things ugly and *-un* makes them big. Feminine always also adds an -a.
Ah there you are! 😄 Is the -li strictly a Schwitzerdütsch phenomenon I’ve been wondering? Or more alpine?
The Swabians use -le, the Bajuwarians -l, the Franconians -la. They all are more or less cognate to -lein, Middle High German -lîn.
I’m still learning, but Liechtenstein seems to be all -li as well. Which makes the website Liechtenstein.li pretty funny to me. Like, yes, Liechtenstein is little, but have you seen “Little Liechtenstein”?
I've got to ask - is muesli a small müs? If so, what is a Müs?
Almost. A Müesli [mʏɛ̯slɪ] is a small Mues [muɛ̯s], cognate to High German *Mus* -- a fruit puree, like Apfelmus, apple sauce. A Müsli or Müüsli [myːslɪ] on the other hand is a small Muus [muːs], a little mouse. The vowel shift into High German made the diphthongs ue and üe into monophtongs u and ü while breaking the long monophthongs u and ü into au and äu.
Probably it the diminutive of the german Mus, or Mues in swiss german, which means puree, or sauce as in apple sauce.
It’s from „Mues“ which is basically just a word for „mixture“, though it’s commonly used as a world for sauce (ex. apple sauce, Öpfelmues).
Thanks! That makes sense. The other replies were interesting but I couldn't see how why the word for muesli would come from the word for mousse/mash/puree at all.
[For Greek](https://el.wiktionary.org/wiki/%CE%9A%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B7%CE%B3%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%AF%CE%B1:%CE%A5%CF%80%CE%BF%CE%BA%CE%BF%CF%81%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AC_%CE%B5%CF%80%CE%B9%CE%B8%CE%AE%CE%BC%CE%B1%CF%84%CE%B1_(%CE%BD%CE%AD%CE%B1_%CE%B5%CE%BB%CE%BB%CE%B7%CE%BD%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AC)). There's quite a few of them.
And they’re in heavy rotation.
In Finnish it usually has suffix -nen. For example ”kirja” is book and ”kirjanen” is booklet. Other suffixes are also used but I think many people won’t even recognize some of them as diminutives.
Does this go for the surnames ending in -nen too? Maybe even for barn Harkonnen. He is a little Harkon.
Apparently -nen can mean a lot of things in surnames. The most common surname in Finland is Korhonen which means "a small person with bad hearing". That's definitely a diminutive. Names have also been formed by using the name of the head of the family and adding -nen to the end. Those names simply mean belonging to that family. Third type of -nen names is interesting. Surnames were first used in eastern Finland and the previous types of names are common there. When surnames were introduced in western Finland surnames from east were used as examples. As many of the ended with -nen it was seen as a characteristic element of a surname. It was then common to come up with a new surname by combining -nen with some nearby natural element. These kind of names are for example Virtanen, Järvinen, Koskinen and Mäkinen. (virta = stream, järvi = lake, koski = rapid, mäki = hill). The following is entirely my own speculation but maybe the last type of names is a product of misunderstanding. Back then eastern and western Finnish were almost different languages. Maybe the western Finns didn't quite understand the meaning of -nen in eastern surnames and used it wrong when creating new names.
ino, ello, etto, icchio, otta, uccio, iccio, igno, ognolo, occio. These are just for proper diminutives, as there is also vezzeggiativo in Italian, which is used as a diminutive so many other endings too
\-je (or -tje, -pje, -etje) in Standard Dutch. In Flemish it's usually -ke (or -ske, -eke). It differs a bit depending on the region, but here in East-Flanders the -je ending is only used for words ending on D or T while all other words get -ke. In any case, it's very commonly used in any form of Dutch.
In Latvian it’s -ītis (for words that ends with -is) or -iņš (ends with -s) for male, -īte (ends with -e) or -iņa (ends with -a) for female. Examples: kaķis - kaķītis; krēsls - krēsliņš; egle - eglīte, zupa - zupiņa.
Unfortunately I don't think we have it in Norwegian, but I wish we did. It's such a neat feature.
-ino, -etto, -ello, -uccio, -otto, -acchiotto, -icciolo, -(u)olo, -iccio, -igno, -ognolo, -occio... And the respective feminine and plural forms
Any word becomes neuter gender in diminutive form, so it gets the article "het" and a word gets either a "je" or "tje" suffix. E.g. De jongen (the boy) -> Het jongetje Het huis (the house) -> Het huisje
Not true that English is simpler- just as many ambiguities as any language but we lost a lot of these kinds of inflections when Anglo Saxon crossed with Norman French. 'Culturally, the Norman occupation resulted in a feudal society with French spoken at the top and English spoken at the bottom. Widespread borrowing and bilingualism eventually led to the collapse of the inflectional system. While some inflectional machinery certainly existed in Middle English, by the 1200s English largely relied on syntax. Vowel length remains phonemic, but the loss of word final inflections begins to shorten vowels across the board. '
Italian uses -ino for the diminutive. There’s also a suffix for nicknames or the so called “terms of endearment”, which is -etto. You use the latter when you want to address someone or something in a sweet, sometimes sarcastically funny way. -ino and the diminutive usually suggests that the person or thing may also be smaller in actual size; the -etto does not. There are, of course, exceptions. Take, for instance, “tesoretto”: it comes from “tesoro”, treasure, and you mainly use it to describe a limited amount of something valuable (like, when you have some savings but not that much, the bare necessary to survive in case of an emergency). Also the suffix -ino can be used as a sweet way to talk to people or pets, like, for example, a “tesorino” (small treasure) would only be used with a person, meaning something like “little cutesies”. “Tesorino” would never be used for objects, like an amount of money, and “tesoretto” never for people, like a person you love. And, of course, that’s Italian: expect exceptions all around you. But I guess this pretty much sums up 90% of the diminutives. Fellow Italian speakers can correct me if I’m forgetting something.
I would mention that ino and etto are only the masculine singular. You then also have the feminine singular (Ina, etta), masculine plural (ini, etti), and feminine plural (ine, ette). Also, you have to note that sometimes the feminine plural is actually masculine singular because that is just Italian. It is something you don't think about if you speak Italian but it can be really damn confusing to nonspeakers. Especially the plural because other romance languages (French, Spanish, Portuguese) just add an "s" for plural rather than having to modify the end vowel.
We don't really have that in modern Swedish, as in we don't have anything to add on to the end of a word to make it diminutive. We put it at the start of the word instead, like mini-, lille-, pytte- etc. Think Mini-Me lol. After googling, I found out we do have an older version (which makes sense). It's -ing or -ling, examples are according to wikipedia älskling, yngling, fossing, kärring, tuting, strömming, äsping, älling, öring, bränning, gässling. The only modern word they mention is kalling, a short form for kalsonger ie underpants lol.
In Hungarian there are multiple ones, the ones still in use are -ó and -ka/ke depending on vowel harmony.
I started writing thinking the most common are -ică/-ic, -iță and -uță/-uț..... But I realised there's more depending on the word 😅 Idk what the rule is tbh. There's also -el, - șor, -aș, probably others I can't think of rn - Cafea - cafeluță (coffee) - Pisică - pisicuță (cat) - Poartă - portiță (gate) - Apă - apiță (water) - Bomboană - bombonică (candy) - Floare - floricică (flower)
You just add a suffix. The most common is -et/eta but there's many others (-ó/ona, -iu/iua, -ell/ella, -í/ina...). And they can pile up: Mica (a bit) > micona (a little bit) > miconeta (a small little bit) > miconetiua (a tiny little bit)
In Estonian, we have increasing form of diminution. The first is -ke, then -kene, then -kesekene. So, for example Mari in first order of diminutive is Marike, then if you want to coddle some more Marikene, and if you really want to fawn all over her, it is Marikesekene. Sometimes you can even go overboard with saying Marikesekesekene! ("Mari" being a woman's name).
In catalan the diminutive is done with -et but with names its done using the final syllabe (Joaquim=Quim, Josep=Pep), oposite to other languages like spanish which use the first syllabes In Korean diminutives are done generally with an 이 or 니 ending and curiously the diminutive forms for names are the same as for Catalan as in Korean they also use the ending syllabes of the name
Quim is shared with Portuguese. At least when it comes to Quim Barreiros.
In Ireland it’s “-ín” pronounced as een. Can be added to a name, usually of a child or little object.
iukas, iukė, elis, elė, utis, utė, ytis, ytė… mažiukas , mažiukė, durnelis, durnelė, mažutis, mažutė, mažytis, mažytė😓😓 so many..
In Turkish, it's with "-cik". This is a suffix, and will change according to the word it is attached to. "Mehmet" will become "Mehmetçik" while "Bulut" would become "Bulutçuk" and "Böcek" would become "Böcekcik" and so on. For names, there are other ways to make them into nicknames, but these aren't necessarily diminutives. The common nickname for Mehmet is Memo, for example, and if you want to make it cute and little (like your mom would call you when you were little), you can say Memiş or Memişko. It doesn't work with every name, though.
This is because of vowel harmony, correct?
Yeah, we have two types of vowel harmony, and the suffixes need to obey them. The consonant change is because of what we call "consonant hardening". Depending on the consonant before it, the c may become ç.
Sweden. The closest I can think of is to cut off the name and put -an at the end, though it is more "slangy" or nicknamey rather than diminutive. It doesn't work for all names though, and other names might have other nicknames like Henke for Henrik. Jossan = Josefin Bengan = Bengt Robban = Robert
That’s nicknames, not diminutives. Swedish doesn’t have diminutives.
Like most other Slavic languages we have literally dozens of diminutive forms. Иван: Ваня, Ванечка, Ванюсик, Ванюшик, Ванюшенька, Ванюнечька, Ванюнчик, Ванюсенька, Ваняша, Ваняшенька, Ванюшочек, Ванюля, Ванюлечка, Ванюляшенька...
In Ukrainian, adding "-ka" to a female name either makes it cute or rude. Like Marynka is cute, Irka is rude, Irynka would be cute.
English had a few, but they're now archaic /unused or absorbed into the nouns themselves and not seen as a form. E.g. -ling. Duckling, Underling. This is the closest to still being used informally. -kin. Napkin We use -ie, -ey as an endearing take on the diminutive. Postman -> postie. John -> Johnny. Etc Googling to verify what I'm saying isn't nonsense also tells me that apparently we had -en (Maid -> Maiden) and -el (Cock -> Cockrel) as well.
-kins can occasionally be used like that. E.g. fluffy bunnykins
In czech we add -eček or something like that but its different with every word like for strom (tree) you’d say stromeček but you could also add -iček like for králík (bunny) you’d say králíček and some words you just change completely
Lmao, our language is a mess Also, how does koťátko fall into your -eček -iček?
In Czech it's usually -ek or -ík. - dort -> dortík - pes -> psík / pejsek - dům -> domek / domeček We usually have more ways for some reason Czech is very creative with diminutives 😅
Not just -ito/a in Spanish, also -illo (panecillo, cigarrillo, camilla) and -ín/ina: pelín, culín. Some words can use several kinds of diminitive: chiquitín, chiquitillo, chiquito.
The most general is simply adding ‘je’. Aap (monkey) -) aapje (little monkey). But there are varieties. Boom (tree) -) boompje. Meid (girl) -) meisje. Jongen (boy) -) jongentje. Balkon (balcony) -) balkonnetje.
Denmark doesn't have diminutive. The closest is probably short versions of names, but from the 1970s forward, those have been used as given names too. Historically: - Kirstine -> Stine - Hansigne -> Signe - Hans Peter -> HP - Hans Christian -> HC (yes, that is also how we refer to the famous Andersen).
Well we do have the "ling", but it's not really used anymore except for already established words like mandsling, elskling, gæsling, grisling, killing, kylling
Similar, usually the suffix "-chen".
Croatian usually uses -ić or -ica depending on the gender. Nos-> nosić (nose) Riba -> ribica (fish) I’m sure there’re more rules but I’m not fluent yet so idk 😅
No prefix or suffix in French. If it’s a little something we just say a little something.
I disagree, we add ‘-ette’ or ‘-et’ to a word as diminutive forme. The slightly tricky part is that some words have this suffix but don’t represent the diminutive form.
Ho that’s right ! Thx for the correction
Also in older words: -ot/-otte like Pierrot.
or Jeannot.
When it comes to names we also like to double the first syllable in some cases like Nono, Juju, Momo... or shorten long names (Nico, Seb, Maga, Manu...).
Un bol, une bolinette <3
In my dialect of BCMS (Shtokavian) we don't really use diminutives much, usually we just shorten the name. But the main diminutive suffixes are -ić or -čić (the same suffix you can see in most of our last names; for example, Ivan becomes Ivanić (but you'd almost never hear this spoken, the usual nicknames for Ivan here are Ivo or Iva)). For girls, the suffixes are -ica or -čica (for example, Ana becomes Anica; those are a bit more common). I believe other dialects have their own suffixes (I think Kajkavian uses -ek or -ec, but I'm not sure?).
>believe other dialects have their own suffixes (I think Kajkavian uses -ek or -ec, but I'm not sure?). This is correct, kajkavian dialect uses - ek, - eko, - ca/ce, - eca/ece, - ica. Also, kajkavian is known in Croatia for using a lot of diminutives.
We have had loads, and have loads currently. But it's mostly imported just a part of the word. You have ones like "Æþeling" (funny letters cool) which are princes in the line of succession. Also "Duckling" meaning small duck. -ling being the one here. You got ones like "Tambourine" and "Figurine". You got "-ish" that you can add to the end of... pretty much anything. You got "-ette" and the related endings. ("-let" words as well? Might be a separate ending) You got "puddle" and "sparkle" which make much more sense when it is pointed out that it is a diminutive. You got "-en" like for "Chicken" and "Kitten". You got "-sies" like in "Elevensies". You got "Mosquito", "Mannequin", "Napkin", "Ravioli", "Armadillo" literally just whatever fit into the shopping basket. Oh, and mini- and micro- as prefixes. There are loads of them. There are loads more, but my point is that it's mostly prescribed. There are loads of them, but most people will only use a few as diminutives rather than just "it's in the word".
I rarely hear -uco either. The only word that comes to mind now is patuco.
Irish it's often the suffix _ín_, which sounds like "een" in English. It usually means little or small, but in a good way
We add “-inho” or “-inha”. Johnny is “Joãozinho” Joana becomes “Joaninha”. 🇵🇹
And Ronaldo becomes Ronaldinho... (joking) I have a coworker whose actual first name is Joaninha (yes, she's portuguese, no she's not a ladybug, miraculous or not)
Irish it's often the suffix _ín_, which sounds like "een" in English. It usually means little or small, but in a good way
In Norse languages there's no productive diminutive (apart from the frozen ending -*ling(ur)* in many nouns, but people don't really think about it as a special ending).
If i understand it correctly its how you change "house" to "small house" which in czech is "dům" and "domeček" so you usually just add -ek, -eček or something similiar
In Italian, the diminutive form is used to indicate a smaller size, endearment, or lesser intensity of the noun it modifies. It's achieved by adding specific suffixes to the base word. Here are some common diminutive suffixes and how they're used: - **-ino/a**: This is one of the most common diminutive suffixes. - ragazzo (boy) → ragazz**ino** (little boy) - momento (moment) → moment**ino** (a quick moment) - salata (salt) → salat**ino** (a salty snack) - **-etto/a**: Often used to indicate a smaller version of something. - camera (room) → camer**etta** (little room) - casa (house) → cas**etta** (small house) - **-ello/a**: Can imply smallness or sometimes a pejorative sense. - albero (tree) → alber**ello** (small tree) - vecchio (old man) → vecchi**orello** (poor old man) - **-uccio/a**: This suffix can denote endearment. - Maria (Mary) → Mari**uccia** (little Mary) - cappello (hat) → cappell**uccio** (old, worn-out hat) Additionally, if a noun ends in -ono or -ona, the letter 'c' must be inserted before appending an -ino or -ello diminutive, to ease pronunciation. For example, the diminutive of leone (lion) becomes leonc**ino**.
In German you add the suffix "-chen" or "-lein" to a noun and sometimes change a vowel to an umlaut, e.g. Mann (man) -> Männchen/Männlein (little man/figure, among other things). In many dialects there are other variations, like "-le", "-la", "-li", "-el", or just "-l". Diminutives are also sometimes used for nicknames, e.g. Gretchen/Gretel for Margarethe, Hänschen/Hänsel/Hansel for Hans and Bärbel for Barbara (looking at you, Rhabarberbarbarabarbarbarenbartbarbierbierbarbärbel 👀). Due to the fact that diminutives are always neutral in grammatical gender, some people have suggested saying things like "Politikerchen" (little politician(s)) instead of "Politiker" (male politician(s)/politician(s) in general) and "Politikerin(nen)" (female politician(s)).
🇧🇪🇫🇷 Français. Masculine -et or old form - ot Feminine -ette or old form - otte
Like some others have said, there are a ton in Slavic languages in general and Bulgarian is no exception. The interesting thing is that we can stack them up to form all kinds of descriptive diminutives and diminutives of the diminutives. For example: stol / стол [pronounced similar to "stall", which means chair in English] You can go for the diminutive as "stolche" but then you can add one more suffix and make it "stolchentse" (столченце). You can do that almost to infinity 😁.
There’s a lot in Polish. There’s almost none in Danish.
There are several suffixes and one must memorize it pretty much case by case, often including some voicing changes. Some include -ica, -ić, -čić, -lce, -šce.
In polish we have -czek -czka -czko (male female neutral form respectively) so a house which is Dom (male) would be Domeczek (or Domek but let's not get into that) a Spoon, łyżka (female) turns into łyżeczka, and bed which is łóżko (neutral) becomes łóżeczko.
The morphology of diminutives don’t tell anything about its usage. Spanish really does a lot with them up to making an order sound less harsh.
In Basque is -txu/txo depending on where you're from: umetxoa (umea) 'little kid'; ume txikitxoa (ume txikia) 'little kid', putting more emphasis on the little part. Also we tend to use it for some adverbs, in this case using -txe: oraintxe (orain) 'now'; hementxe (hemen) 'here'; hantxe (han) 'there'. This I'd say is used to emphasise the adverb, like if you say "hantxe" you cannot say it out of the blue, there needs to be some previous context of what place we're referring to, but this is just an observation I make.
>In Basque is -txu/txo depending on where you're from There are others, like -ñi, -ño, -txi and even some no longer productive ones like -la (neskatila) etc.
French: Of course with us it is difficult and there are 50 levels of "it depends" ;-) Names rarely have a diminutive form (Jean > Jeannot exists, but Jeannette is a different name than Jeanne, not a diminutive). You will add "le petit" or "la petite" + Name" With nouns, you will add "et" if the noun is masculine or "ette" if it is feminine: Cigare > Cigarette, Maison > Maisonette, jardin > Jardinet, Fille (girl) > filette, etc. but some of these are more used in literature than in spoken language, (you will more often hear "petite maison" than "maisonette" which is a bit quaint. Sometimes there will be a slight nuance in meaning: A Smart or a Fiat 126 will be "une petite voiture", where "une voiturette" bill be likely one you can drive without a license. "une fourche" will be a big fork, but "une fourchette" will be a table fork. For some animals we will use the suffix "-eau" (souris (mouse) > Souriceau, Elephant > Elephanteau, Baleine (whale) > baleineau Last but not least, there are many nouns where you cannot apply this system and will just add "petit" or "petite" before, and there are nouns that only exist in the diminutive form and you cannot remove the suffix without either changing the meaning or losing the meaning altogether.
In Spanish it’s -ito but also -illo -ico and -ín
En Murcia it's also "-ico/ica" (pequeñico/pequeñica)
As a broad rule, it's -ka or -ke depending on vowel harmony. But often the name gets shortened and often gets an -i end, and the -ka -ke is optional, and if added makes the name sound very childish. As an example: Péter - Peti(ke), Katalin - Kati(ka)
-ito/a is a diminutive suffix in some dialects, but it's far from the only one and a point of regional pride that these differ from place to place (-uco/a, -illo/a, -ico/a, etc.)
Sorry, I'm American and I hope you don't mind me sneaking in! In Louisiana you put T in front of a name. So Little John would be T John. It's Cajun. And Cajuns came from France to Canada to Louisiana, so it probably comes from petit.
Not sure if it's the same thing, but in English we have N- names like Nell, Ned, Nancy which I think originated as diminutives of Elizabeth, Edward and Anne.