Did you know that Vodka means already “little water” (Voda-Wasser-Water). So Vodkaechen makes up a very special word indeed. In 20 years, when it will be used widely, I’ll be able to make up Vodkaechencito (spanish diminutive).

I infer from your banner that you are a Kiwi + Gummibears (a New Zilnder in Deutschland). Theory was bestätigt when I was watching your Zungenbrecher clip. I’m a half German Kiwi so identify somewhat. ANYWAY, what I am getting to is the “chen”. Gotta love it!! (”-lein” is not quite as fun but means the same). For me though, my German Oma insists on calling me “Carlachen” which makes me go hnnnnnng… There is a time and a place to apply the chen (not ever to me)!

@ Carla - ein Weg to go about it is my friend Ullas Version to turn the -chen into a -ken or -ken. we are all -ken to her. und sie läd gern zum Teeken ein…
so be a proud Carlaken
(Gotta admit it works better with my name)
Das Britteken

Well -chen is truly odd, as it changes gender of the world into neutrum. Being a native german speaker (from Austria, so some people might disagree ), I oddly enough never realized that until one of my Italian friends pointed out that it is truly strange - and indeed it is - that “Mädchen” [girl] is neutrum and not female. This is also one of the words where the original word is basically not used any more (Maid still exists in some regional dialects though). And it also shows that sometimes -chen turns the vowel into an umlaut (Fuß/Füßchen etc)

Btw. for some reason I can’t explain, -chen after a vowel does not sound right to me. Some words actually lose their final vowel when combined with -chen (Jacke/Jäckchen), but it doesn’t work with Vodka…

In the southern areas of the Deutschspeaking land we also have -erl as a diminuitive. It doesn’t work with all words (for instance Biererl is not ok, but Fusserl [u becomes short here] and Jackerl certainly are), and some get an extra letter, for instance Wein becomes Weinderl, Zahn/Zahnderl (can’t think of anything that doesn’t end on n). A quite strange Viennese(-only?) dialect word that I don’t think exists without its -erl is Butzerl, which means infant/baby.

Italian has a nice diminuitive too, -ino, another one is -etta. A mobile phone in Italy is usually called telefonino, which is really cute. There is also the reverse, -one, which makes something large or even bloated. A cenone (from cena) is a very abundant dinner, for example.

To finish this off, there you go with a genuinely cheesy tune that for some odd reason came to my mind when writing this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN2MNgTh3c4
Mamatschi, schänk mir ein Pfäärdchen — the guy is dutch, by the way. It’s hard to believe, but he was quite famous at the time.

Hold your horses, I just realized that there’s another colloquial diminuitive here: -tschi as in Mamatschi. It’s rarely used, but I actually have heard people say Biertschi, Kaffeetschi and even Kaffeetscherl - note that Kaffee has a long, stressed e in Austria, like Allee or versteh. When I think about it, Kaffeetscherl is actually quite common.

Keep up the great blogging!
Wolfgang

I - coming from the northern end of “the Deutschspeakingland” - state that we use one origin of “Mädchen” which is “Mädel”. But this is neutrum too.

But some words combined with “-chen” have become usual terms by now, so they can get another suffix.
So an Eichhörnchen (a squirrel) can think about it’s Eichhörnchenkeit (the state of being a squirrel, this is of course an artificial word, just to be an example) but Dr. Merkel as Bundeskanzlerin is not in Kanzlerinnenschaft but in Kanzlerschaft. Just because you can not use two suffixes in one word.