2469: -kin, -tje, and Afrikaans 'oke' Sep 15, 2021

The Dutch diminutive suffix -kin (found in English with the borrowed 'mannequin') is highly productive, and its related form '-tje' morphs into different forms. Depending upon the sound of the word it is affixed onto, it can appear as '-je ' before a fricative, '-etje' before a sonorant, '-tje' before long vowels and diphthongs, '-pje' with stressed vowel or before [m], or '-kje' before '-ng', though then this becomes '-nkje'; some of these can appear as simply '-ie' in slang. Further, in Afrikaans slang, 'ou' (i.e. 'old') took the diminutive form 'outjie' but was reduced as 'oke' in modern slang meaning 'guy; dude; bro'. This is therefore unrelated to 'bloke' of English slang, despite similar sound and meaning.

2247: testis & testifying Feb 8, 2021

There are a lot of etymologies related to genitalia, such as 'avocado', the word 'testis' (of which 'testicle is merely a diminutive) has perhaps a surprising origin. Ultimately it comes from a Latin word meaning 'witness', related to 'testimony; testament' and ultimately the word 'three' from *tréyes (three) as in a third party observer. The witness in this case is as a proof of one's virility. Lest this be considered an isolated example in history, consider also the translation of the Greek synonym derives from a word meaning 'one who is present'.

1715: Diminutive Suffixes in German Dialect Aug 25, 2019

About 80% of Yiddish vocabulary is from German, more or less depending on dialect, but when it comes to grammar the number is harder to discern. For instance, it is common for Yiddish to have the diminutive suffix -l (ל-), even using this in place of the word for small 'kleyn' (קליין) as is the case in German. For instance, 'city' in German is 'Stadt' (pronounced like SH-t [ʃt]), and in Yiddish it's 'shtot' (שטאָט), but a town—when not a village—is sometimes 'Kleinstadt' or just 'kleine Stadt' in German but 'shtetl' (שטעטל‎) in Yiddish. However, this Yiddish feature is Germanic, not Slavic or Hebraic, and does appear infrequently in some dialects. For instance, the Austrian town Neustadtl an der Donau (literally: New Little Town on the Danube) uses this convention, which is not really standard for German.