"Ich nehme ein Bierchen."

Prior to the meeting I had last week with the company regarding the new course, there had been ongoing email and phone correspondence between myself and the woman who was coordinating everything. Naturally, the correspondence was first auf Sie, then after we met face to face we were auf Du. Trying to agree on a time is always a bit of an ordeal, coordinating the schedules of various people each with their own engagements can be a challenge, and sometimes it requires that one or more people make a bit of a sacrifice in order to finalize arrangements. In the phone conversation the week before we met, we suggested various days and times where we could all meet. I first proposed Tuesday, but that was ruled out, as some of the participants were to be out of the office on that day. The woman then suggested Wednesday, I was a bit hesitant about that day as I have a course in the morning until 10 and am back home at 11, but have a class in the afternoon and like a little room between engagements, so I suggested Thursday morning, which for me was free. This was also not possible for the group. I asked how long the meeting was expected to run, to which she responded, “ein Stündchen,” (about an hour, or a little hour). I decided in the interest of being agreeable, I should just eat my lunch on the go and agree to Wednesday at noon, which is what we ended up doing.

I got to thinking about this concept of diminutive or smaller forms of things, a grammatical structure, which assigns a change in meaning from the original root form, in this case from “eine Stunde,” to, “ein Stündchen.” Many languages have examples of diminutive forms. Spanish has (to name one example) the –ito/-ita suffixes (masculine and feminine), used to modify nouns in this case to indicate smallness (perrito for perro [dog], burrito for burro [donkey] or señorita for señora [woman]) or endearment such as in nicknames [Juanito for Juan, Lupita for Lupe]. Italian has (among many others) –ino/-ina, as in telefonino [cell phone] from telefono, or singorina from signora to indicate smallness. Diminutives are not as common in English. We’ve borrowed some from the French (-ette [cigarette from cigar]), although by now cigarette is its own word and entity so in this case it’s not as clearly a diminutive form. However if there is something that’s trending (I’ll get to that one in a moment) I feel it would be the –ish suffix, which is now liberally peppered in daily interaction, “It’s a smallish car,” “I’ve got reddish brown hair.” Today when I asked a student what he did over the long weekend he replied, “Couching,” to which I assumed he meant hanging out on the couch. I tried to think of other cases where nouns become verbs and thought of these recent trends you hear of, “planking,” “owling,” etc. There’s also shopping or looting to be considered, as well as dating and schooling. 

The diminutive form in German is very functional and pervades many aspects of day-to-day interaction. It is used primarily to express size of something, namely smallness. There is Brötchen (roll) from Brot (bread) or Häuschen (hut?) from Haus (house). One thing I learned while researching is that diminutive forms are always (German with its rules! English on the other hand, is a language of exceptions, not rules) neutral (das). This answers a frequently asked question of why der Jung (a young boy) is masculine, but das Mädchen (a young girl) is neutral, as it is a diminutive form of die Maid (a maid[-en?]). 

The diminutive does more than indicate size, it can also be used to make something sound a bit nicer. For example, “ein Stündchen,” sounds much more manageable than, “eine Stunde.” And what harm will “ein Bierchen,” instead of “ein Bier,” do on your lunch break? Or when taking a second (or third) piece of cake and requesting “ein Eckchen,” instead of “eine Ecke,” (corner) even though it is not necessarily any smaller than the other corner piece. Or perhaps when you’re spontaneously invited for, “ein Käffechen,” instead of “eine Kaffee,” you visualize the whole affair as not taking that much of your time. Indeed I myself find a “Hallöchen,” a bit sweeter than a “Hallo!” 

Diminutives are also no stranger to the animal kingdom. There’s das Kaninchen (bunny rabbit [domesticated]), which is its own entity now, and not necessarily related to das Kanin. A Bärchen suddenly sounds less ferocious than a Bär (bear), seen in the beloved German snack Gummibärchen (gummy bears). Or as I heard a group of children singing in the park, “Alle meine Entchen (from die Ente [duck]) Schwimmen auf dem See, Köpfchen (from der Kopf [head]) in das Wasser, Schwänzchen (from der Schwanz [tail] in die Höh.” It sounds so much cuter when you picture ducklings with their little headsies in the water and tiny tailsies in the air.

Well, that’s all for today!
Tschüsschen! (from the German goodbye or “Tschüss”)