# diminutive



## Natalya2006

I really like the Russian and Ukranian language , one of the reasons is that you can make almost anything into a soft and gente form ...almost any word - -- journalchik 
--- malchik
---- computerok .... 
he he ..the list can go on forever!

I'm just wondering whether anyone else enjoys this fact?
And is this possible in the English and French languages?


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## Whodunit

Do you mean something like *piglet* and *cochonette*? Could you please translate _malchik_ for us?


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## jester.

There are also dimunitives in Spanish which are used quite regularly:

una cosa = a thing/an object/...   -->   una cos*ita* (=a thing, possibly of little importance)
pequeño = small (adj.)  -->  pequeñito (that would be like very small)
un poco = a bit --> un poquito = a little bit


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## Whodunit

You've forgotten about German. 

We have "chen" and "lein" to form diminutives:
Kind_chen_ (little child)
Schwein_chen_ (piglet)

Männ_lein_ (little man)
Fräu_lein_ (miss)


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## jester.

Whodunit said:
			
		

> You've forgotten about German.


I guess that reveals which languages are my preferred ones. But you are right, German has diminutives, too.

@Natalya2006: French has none, as far as I know.


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## Whodunit

j3st3r said:
			
		

> @Natalya2006: French has none, as far as I know.


 
French does have "-ette", as I said in post #2. Plus, there's "frérot" in French, which sarcastically means "little brother" as in "_Oh my little brother, are you lovesick?_"


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## nokeeffe99

Irish Gaelic delights in diminutives, denoted by the suffix "ín" or "án".

Loch (lake) - lochán (little lake)
Buachaill (boy) - buachallán (little boy)
Éan (bird) - éinín (little bird)


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## Brazilian dude

In Portuguese we have many different suffixes, but probably the most widely used is inho: casa (house), casinha (little house), etc.  Diminutives don't only mean smallness, though, they can also refer to something in an affectionate or derogatory way, depending on the word and the context.

Brazilian dude


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## Pivra

In Thai we have the prefix anu- and suffix -anu

anumul= partical (scientific) 
mul= substance
paramanu= nuclear
parama= gigantic  

so paramanu means something gigantic caused my somthing small.


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## elroy

Arabic has diminutives, but forming them is not as easy as adding a suffix. 

كتاب - *kitaab* (book)
كتيب - *kutayyib* (booklet)

بنت - *bint* (girl)
بنوتة - *bannuuta* (little girl) _<- colloquial only, as far as I know_

Furthermore, not all words have diminutives.


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## Flaminius

elroy, this reminds me.  Is _umaimat_ diminutive of _um_ (mother) in Standard Arabic?


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## Tisia

Hello

In Persian we have the suffixes like -*ak*(small/little), -*cha*_h_(small).... We add them to nouns. eg. 

Dokhtar:girl
Dokhtar*ak*:_little_ girl

Daftar:notebook
Daftar*cha*_h_: _small_ (note)book or book_let_

Tisia


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## ayed

elroy said:
			
		

> Arabic has diminutives, but forming them is not as easy as adding a suffix.
> 
> بنت - *bint* (girl)


بنيه
bunayyah


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## Flaminius

If _bint _can derive a diminutive like this,


			
				ayed said:
			
		

> بنيه
> bunayyah


then am I permitted to consider _umaymat _as the diminutive for _ummu_?


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## Flaminius

The Japanese diminutive marker _o-_ is usually used to express endearment (otōsan -- father and okāsan -- mother) or politeness (o-mizu -- water).  This prefix, however, started out as a morpheme meaning small.  Modern Japanese has evidential words such as _ogawa _(from o + kawa; small river = brook) ogurai (from o + kurai; a little dark = grim).


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## Natalya2006

Whodunit said:
			
		

> Do you mean something like *piglet* and *cochonette*? Could you please translate _malchik_ for us?


 
Malchik - boy ..... actually I'm not quite sure whether it's an affectionate form for boy ... because I know you can say 'парень' which means man / boy ... but I'm not sure whether malchik is a neutral way of saying that ...although I would use it as an affectionate form.


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## optimistique

Dutch has a diminutive as well:

-je 
-tje/pje

de bloem - het bloempje (flower)
de man - het mannetje (man)
het schaap - het schaapje (sheep)

I like it very much too Natalya2006

It can be used as an affectionate form, or simply to indicate smallness. It can be great because it makes words cute, but it can be abused too. It makes certain things seem unimportant if you diminuate them. 


And I just can't not say it, but I totally adore the German '-chen'. It really makes me want to cuddle all those words.

Das Schäfchen
Das Bärchen
Das Bäumchen

Ist's nicht süss?


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## betulina

In Catalan we form diminutives by adding a sufix, too, which is usually "-et / -eta". "casa - caseta", "home" (man) - "homenet"
As Brazilian dude said for Portuguese, it can mean either smallness or affection, depending on the word and the context.

There is another sufix, "-ó / -ona" and derivates, which is only used for showing affection, to my knowledge: "casa - casona" - "nas (nose) - nassarró" (although in the "nas" case, you would think that it's small, too ).

In some cases, the use of the diminutive implies that you are referring to another object: "cotxe" (car) - "cotxet" (pram, buggy, pushchair)


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## robbie_SWE

Romanian has diminutive as well and you can turn ALL the nouns into diminutives. I don't even know all the forms used!  

_Mostly they're formed by adding: _

*-let*
*-uta*
*-ita*
*-tel *
*-ut *
*-ica*
*-cel*

(and this is nothing compared to the diminutives you can create from family names ) ​*Ex: *

*un urs* (a bear) = _ursulet_
*o pisica* (a cat) = _pisicuta _
*o fata* (a girl) = _fetita _​*un baiat* (a boy) = _baiatel_
*un cer* (a sky) = _cerut _
*o floare* (a flower) = _floricica_
*un soarece* (a mouse) = _soricel _

_Goodness!_  These examples are only the tip of the iceberg!

Oopps! Forgot to mention the -et suffix! It's also used in Romanian just like in Catalan!


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## Necsus

In Italian there are four changes of nouns by adding suffixes: augmentative, diminutive, pejorative, and of endearment.
Suffixes for *diminutive* are: 
- *ino* (piede, piedino)
- *etto* (libro, libretto)
- *ello* (vino, vinello)
if the last syllable of noun is -one, a -c is requested before suffix:
- bastone, baston-c-ino


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## elroy

Flaminius said:
			
		

> If _bint _can derive a diminutive like this,
> 
> then am I permitted to consider _umaymat _as the diminutive for _ummu_?


Yes.

More on the diminutive of "bint": "Bunnayya" is standard (I hadn't thought of it; thanks, Ayed) and "bannuuta" is colloquial.


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## ayed

Flaminius said:
			
		

> If _bint _can derive a diminutive like this,
> 
> then am I permitted to consider _umaymat _as the diminutive for _ummu_?


Yes, you can derive "umaymah" from "umm"


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## moirag

I actually find them very irritating and twee - they are ubiquitous in Spanish, and are used with adjectives as well as nouns e.g. "está dormidito" = he's little-asleep!(for a baby) or "una barrita blanquita" = a little, lightly-baked little loaf of bread.


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## Sepia

I couldn't think of any diminutives in Danish. I'd say, they don't exist.
And Swedish - couldn't tell for sure, but I don't know any.

Anybody who speaks Icelandic? That, at least would give us a hint if they ever existed in the North Germanic languages.


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## Honour

in turkish we add the "cik" suffix
kedi= cat
kedicik= a tiny cat -in size- (sometimes it means _poor cat_ too)
köpek= dog
köpekcik= a tiny dog ( we omit the second k and say _köpecik_)


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## moirag

In English, there are certain words we use to speak to small children ( usually pre-verbal, so they can´t tell you how daft you sound!). Some are, for example, "bye-byes" for sleep, "biccies" for biscuits, etc. You can also try putting "ie" or "y" on the end of the word to make a diminutive, though it´s not nearly as common as in Spanish, or German ( I love/hate the German "Tschüsschen", as in "little goodbye"). But you could say, for example, "handies" for hands, "beddy-byes" for bed/sleep, "Cary-wary" for car..... you could invent it if you wanted to. I think most of us just feel too silly to do it. It is, moreover, very much a small child´s language, and adults wouldn´t use it, unlike in Spain or Germany.


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## Sepia

moirag said:
			
		

> .... But you could say, for example, "handies" for hands, ....



... which brings me back to the question: Why did Germans out of all possibilities chose to call a cell phone a "handy". I mean, it is obviously an English word, but nobody understands what is meant.

To justify this remark in this particular thread I shall mention, I love the Italian term for a mobile:

Telefonino

(dim. of Telefono)


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## badgrammar

moirag said:
			
		

> In English, there are certain words we use to speak to small children ( usually pre-verbal, so they can´t tell you how daft you sound!). Some are, for example, "bye-byes" for sleep, "biccies" for biscuits, etc. You can also try putting "ie" or "y" on the end of the word to make a diminutive, though it´s not nearly as common as in Spanish, or German ( I love/hate the German "Tschüsschen", as in "little goodbye"). But you could say, for example, "handies" for hands, "beddy-byes" for bed/sleep, "Cary-wary" for car..... you could invent it if you wanted to. I think most of us just feel too silly to do it. It is, moreover, very much a small child´s language, and adults wouldn´t use it, unlike in Spain or Germany.


Yes, and "milkies" "jammies" "snackie", etc...  All very common when speaking to children...


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## Whodunit

Sepia said:
			
		

> ... which brings me back to the question: Why did Germans out of all possibilities chose to call a cell phone a "handy". I mean, it is obviously an English word, but nobody understands what is meant.


 
That's not relevant here, but you can read a discussion about it here. In German there's no diminutive for mobile, because it already as small as possible.


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## panjabigator

Tisia said:
			
		

> Daftar:notebook
> Daftar*cha*_h_: _small_ (note)book or book_let_


Tisia, can you spell Daftar for me in Farsi?  Is it دفتر ?  Because that word has been absorbed to the indic side, and it means office for us.


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## Encolpius

Yes, I love this phenomenon very much, especially in Slavic languages, mainly in Czech what I am fluent in. Czechs like using diminutives so much they usually use it in spoken language almost always. Since I am kind of working with kids I may use it too much. 
And, I am not sure if in other languages, but sometimes the diminutive form of the original word is completely different! So one must be very very careful. 
Too bad Hungarians don't use diminutives so often.


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## Juri

Italian has also a lot of suffixes to get  the diminutives :-ino, -ello, -etto, -icciolo, 
-icino, -uzzo
gioco-giochino;vino-vinello;viso-visetto;porto-porticciolo;pollice-pollicino;
verde-verduzzo.
Valgono ovviamente anche per i nomi, ad es.: Pippo-Pippuzzo, Giorgio-Giorgetto ecc.


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## Encolpius

How about Japanese????


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## 810senior

As already mentioned before, *Japanese *has suffix o-(go-) meaning affection, courtesy, cuteness.


Some examples:
kane(money) = o-kane(money) both words are same meaning and commonly used, I can't explain the nuance between these words. ..
mise(shop) = o-mise(shop) same as above.
henji(reply) = o-henji(reply) o-henji is more courteous than the other.
etc...

Aside from it, I know an almost same suffix _ko- _sometimes _o-_(meaning small, petite, little).
e.g. kirei(beautiful) ko-girei(lit. little-beutiful *NOT meaning the case such as _she is little beautiful_!)
      kawa(river) o-gawa(lit. little river) ogawa indicates a small river as the literal meaning.
      ame(rain) ko-s-ame(lit.little rain) meaning drizzle. ("s" is inserted consonant for keeping from vowel collision)


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## Encolpius

810senior said:


> kane(money) = o-kane(money) both words are same meaning and commonly used, *I can't explain the nuance* between these words. ..
> mise(shop) = o-mise(shop) same as above.
> henji(reply) = o-henji(reply) o-henji is more courteous than the other.
> etc...



I think it is very difficult to explain those things in other language because English does not use diminutives like that...

810senoir, do you use any common diminutives for alcoholic drinks? Well, I would ask beer and wine, but I think sake might be more common in Japan,  is there o-sake?


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## 810senior

Yes, it is very difficult to explain it...

Both words(sake and o-sake) can be used and common.
When you drink, you may say "o-sake[drink] o[acc.] nomu[to drink] lit. drink drink(it may sound some funny)" or "sake o nomu".
O-sake sounds more respectful and polite but there is little difference between them.

Since generally we consider o-word like o-yu[hot water], o-henji[reply], o-youhuku[clothes], ohiya[cold water], etc.) polite and cute.


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