Learn about diminutives in Persian
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| Michael: What are diminutives and how are they formed in Persian? |
| Negar: And are they commonly used? |
| Michael: At PersianPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Paria Parvizi points out a beautiful garden to her daughter, Akhtar Akbari. She says, "Look! What a beautiful little garden!" |
| Paria Parvizi: نگاه! چه باغچه کوچولوی قشنگی! (negaa! che baaghche-ye koochooloo-ye ghashangi!) |
| Dialogue |
| Paria Parvizi: نگاه! چه باغچه کوچولوی قشنگی! (negaa! che baaghche-ye koochooloo-ye ghashangi!) |
| Akhtar Akbari: چقدر قشنگه! (cheqadr qashange!) |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Paria Parvizi: نگاه! چه باغچه کوچولوی قشنگی! (negaa! che baaghche-ye koochooloo-ye ghashangi!) |
| Michael: "Look! What a beautiful little garden!" |
| Akhtar Akbari: چقدر قشنگه! (cheqadr qashange!) |
| Michael: "How beautiful!" |
Lesson focus |
|---|
| Michael: In this lesson, you will be learning about diminutives, or |
| Negar: مصغرها (mosaghar-haa) |
| Michael: and how they are used in Persian. You will also be learning how commonly they are used. I will begin by discussing what a diminutive is exactly, but best to start with an example in English, I think. |
| Let's take the word "book" and then let's modify it so as to form a diminutive. We can do this by adding the suffix "let" to the original, root word. The new word that will then be formed is "booklet." No doubt you are aware that "booklet" means "small book." This is what a diminutive is. It is a root word—like "book"—that has been modified to form a new word, like "booklet." |
| As you can tell, the new word denotes a reduction in the size or quality of that which the root word referred to. That is the broadest definition of a diminutive, but diminutives can also convey contempt or endearment, as well as a sense of intimacy, while, in English and in many other languages, there are many ways to form diminutives. This is not the case with Persian. Most Persian diminutives are formed with either |
| Negar: چه- (che) |
| Michael: or |
| Negar: ک-َ (ak) |
| Michael: For the most part, these diminutives are no longer productive. What this means is that the diminutives that are formed with these suffixes have become part of everyday language and most Iranian people don't even think about how they are constructed. There are, in fact, relatively few diminutives with these endings, and that number has not been added to for quite some time. You could probably learn all the diminutives ending in |
| Negar: چه- (che) |
| Michael: in a single study session and not even get a headache. One of the Persian words that uses this suffix to form a diminutive is the word for "booklet." You will recall that we also talked about the word "booklet" as an example of a diminutive in English. Let's break the Persian word down in the same way. We'll start with the root word, which is the Persian word for "book:" |
| Negar: کتاب (ketaab) |
| Michael: and then, with the suffix added, it becomes |
| Negar: کتابچه (ketaabche) |
| Michael: or "booklet." And while on the subject of words you've already heard in this lesson, do you remember what Paria said about the beautiful garden in this lesson's dialogue? She said |
| Negar: نگاه! چه باغچه کوچولوی قشنگی! (negaa! che baaghche-ye koochooloo-ye ghashangi!) |
| Michael: which means "Look! What a beautiful little garden!" Here, Paria used the word |
| Negar: باغچه (baaghche) |
| Michael: to talk about the garden. It means "little garden" and it consists of the Persian word for "garden," which is |
| Negar: باغ (baagh) |
| Michael: and, of course, the suffix |
| Negar: چه- (che) |
| Michael: Here's another example of this suffix being used to form a diminutive. It means "lake" and it sounds like this: |
| Negar: دریاچه (daryaache) |
| Michael: The root word, in this case, is |
| Negar: دریا (daryaa) |
| Michael: which means "sea." The word for "lake" is then a diminished version of the word for "sea," because it is a far smaller body of water. |
| If you are observant, you may have noticed that, so far, all the diminutives are literal reductions of what the root words denote. We had a word describing a large body of water being modified to denote a smaller body of water. We also had a word describing a garden being modified to denote a small garden. This is, generally, how the suffix |
| Negar: چه- (che) |
| Michael: functions when forming a diminutive. The diminutives formed in this way are also often inanimate objects. The other suffix I mentioned earlier— |
| Negar: ک- (ak) |
| Michael: This suffix functions in the same ways but has additional functions too. It can, for instance, facilitate figurative diminution of the root word. As always, an example is the best way to explain. Take, for instance, this word: |
| Negar: عروسک (aroosak) |
| Michael: which means "doll." If this were a literal diminution, then the root word would have to mean something like "large doll" or perhaps "mannequin," but you might be surprised to hear that it actually means "bride." In Persian, "bride" sounds like this: |
| Negar: عروس (aroos) |
| Michael: The connection between the diminutive and the root word is not literal, so how they relate to each other is not very clear. That said, sometimes the connection is clear, but the diminutive is still figurative. This is what happens with diminutives that convey contempt or affection, for instance. Take the Persian word for "girl," which sounds like this: |
| Negar: دختر (dokhtar). |
| Michael: Once we add the suffix to it, it becomes |
| Negar: دخترک (dokhtarak) |
| Michael: which means "little girl," and, while this can literally refer to a young female child, the same word can be used to belittle someone, or to express affection for the person being referred to as |
| Negar: دخترک (dokhtarak). |
| Michael: These are figurative meanings because they mean more than, simply, "little girl." Diminutives formed with this suffix often denote animate or human objects, just as a little girl is both animate and human. In fact, one can use this suffix to denote a little boy as well. The diminutive sounds like this: |
| Negar: پسرک (pesarak) |
| Michael: and it is based on the root word |
| Negar: پسر (pesar) |
| Michael: which means "boy" or "son." As I mentioned previously, the number of diminutives using these suffixes in Persian is rather limited. We will have a look at some more examples of these in a moment. |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned about diminutives in Persian and that there are two suffixes in particular that are most frequently used in the formation of diminutives. The first of these is |
| Negar: چه- (che) |
| Michael: and it is most often used to form diminutives that are a literal diminution of the meaning of the root word. It is also used, primarily, to form diminutives that are inanimate and non-human. The second suffix is |
| Negar: ک- (ak) |
| Michael: and it can be used to form diminutives that are a figurative diminution of that which the root word denotes. It is also used to form diminutives that are animate and human. |
| Most of the diminutives that are formed with these suffixes have become lexicalized, meaning that they are seen as everyday words that are just part of the language. The suffixes are no longer productive in that new diminutives are rarely formed with them. |
| Expansion/Contrast |
| Michael: There are other diminutive suffixes in Persian but these are so seldom used that they don't warrant more than a passing mention. Let's have a quick look at two of them. The first is |
| Negar: یچه (iche) |
| Michael: and it enables one to take a word like "door" or |
| Negar: در (dar) |
| Michael: and modify it to mean "hatch door" or |
| Negar: دریچه (dariche) |
| Michael: The second suffix I'd like to mention briefly is |
| Negar: ژه (zhe) |
| Michael: It can be used to modify a word like "trachea" or |
| Negar: نای (naay) |
| Michael: into a new word meaning "bronchus" or |
| Negar: نایژه (naayzhe) |
| Michael: As I said earlier, these suffixes are not commonly used so they are only being mentioned in passing. |
| Cultural Insight/Expansion |
| Michael: A final note: sometimes, the suffix |
| Negar: ک- (ak) |
| Michael: can be added to a male given name in order to form a diminutive of that name. An example would be with the male name: |
| Negar: حسن (hasan) |
| Michael: which becomes |
| Negar: حسنک (hasanak) |
| Michael: when we add the diminutive suffix. |
| Now, you know about quite a few ways to use these suffixes. As I said, they are lexicalized so you will only have to learn these as part of well-established words and not as productive elements of language. That should make it a bit easier. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Negar: خداحافظ (khodaahaafez) |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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