# senkin



## Maabdreo

Does anyone know the etymology of _senkin_, as in "senkin valehtelija!"?


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## Gavril

I haven't found any information on _senkin_ so far in the reference sources I have. On the surface, it looks like a combination of the genitive form _*sen*_ "of that, of it" (and colloquially "of him/her, his/her"), plus the enclitic -_*kin*_ "also, even".

If that is the correct etymology, though, then I'm not sure how _senkin_ developed into a preface for 2nd-person insults ("You ...!"), since _se_ is not a 2nd-person pronoun. Maybe it is actually from _sunkin_ (i.e. a contracted form of _sinun_ "your" + -_kin_), or even _sinäkin_, but this is just speculation.

In Portuguese, the word _*seu*_ "his/her, its, your" is used in the same function (_seu miserável_ = "You miserable ...!"). This is similar to _senkin_ in that _seu_ is also a genitive/possessive form; the difference is that _seu_ is used as both a 3rd-person and 2nd-person pronoun (especially in Brazil), so there isn't the same problem of pronoun mismatch as with _senkin_.

Others may be able to say more.


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## ocelot

Can't say more, but that's fascinating info about Portuguese. In fact, insults follow a similar pattern in Swedish, using the 2nd-person-singular possessive _din/ditt_ (depending on grammatical gender) followed by an optional adjective and the unflattering noun. The use of 2nd and 3rd-person possessives in insults might be some sort of universal tendency in human languages.


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## Gavril

Is _senkin_ also used to preface 3rd-person insults (e.g. _That cheapskate Mikkonen!_, where Mikkonen is not present to hear this)? 

As far as I can recall, the nominative pronoun _se_ is used in such contexts (_Se kitupiikki Mikkonen! / Mikkonen se kitupiikki!_), but there could be other possibilities.


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## ocelot

Nah, _senkin _is used in 2nd-person insults only.

EDIT: both singular and plural


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## Maabdreo

Interesting. Thanks for the thoughts, Gavril and ocelot.


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