German affixes in Estonian
Summary
Description
Examples are from (Mägiste 1968:8, 9). Many affixes were borrowed from German, but only some are productive and have grammatical meanings, many others are marginal and restricted to obscene vocabulary and irony.
1 adjectivizer
- -lik ‘adjectivizer’, e.g. ilmalik ‘worldly’, onnelik ‘happy’.
2 nominal derivations
- -man(n) ‘agent’, e.g. naak-man or naga-man (bun-agent) ‘urchin, lout’. According to Sõnaveeb (2024a), the stem naga in modern Estonian has other meanings, including ‘urchin’ (Sõnaveeb 2024b). The suffix is used colloquially in pejoratives, and is said to originate from German surnames ending in -mann (Mägiste 1968:9).
- -ment ‘item’, e.g. sakus-ment (snack-suffix) ‘snack’, tagu-ment (behind-suffix) ‘buttocks’. This suffix is ultimately from French, but was borrowed into Estonian from German (Mägiste 1968).