Spanish diminutives - -ito, -illo, -ico, -ino
The diminutive form of Spanish nouns can be used to indicate a smallish size ("mi casita" = my little house) or some sort of emotional relationship to the object ("mi casita" = my beloved home). This second point is harder to grasp for people learning Spanish. If you imagine a sixty year old mother calling her 45 year old son "my little boy", or the owner of a fierce Doberman referring to his "doggie", you can begin to get a feeling for how it's used.
The forms vary according to countries and even within countries. There's nothing that really identifies any one of the endings as indicating a person's origins. Where I live in southern Spain the "-illo" form is used along with and seems to be slightly more common than the "-ito" form, but in my wife's part of the country (Extremadura) everything is "-ino".
I'll finish this short entry (it really is a long subject) with a small list of the different variations of the phrase "a very small doggie". One thing to note about these examples that the adjective "chico" also has an Austria form. Not many adjectives do this in Spanish - the only ones I've been able to come up with are caliente (warm) calentito, grande (big) grandecito, ligero (light) ligerito, joven (young) jovencito, mayor (older) mayorcito, nuevo (new) nuevecito, and viejo (old) viejecito. I'm sure there are others, however. Now for the very small doggie:
1. un perrito muy chiquitito
2. un perrillo muy chiquitillo
3. un perrico muy chiquitico
4. un perrino muy chiquinino
Brad
