Translating Latvian diminutive nouns into Estonian

The study focuses on the translation of Latvian diminutives into Estonian. In both Latvian and Estonian, the main goal of diminutives is to express smallness, tenderness or affection, but in some cases also pejorative meaning (Erelt et al. 1995; Vulāne 2015; Kasik 2015; Kalnača 2015). Estonian translators of contemporary Latvian literature have stated that diminutive formations are widespread in the Latvian language, and that they do not translate all Latvian diminutives into corresponding Estonian equivalents. The purpose of this study is to analyse diminutives in three Latvian works of fiction: how many diminu-tives occur, how many of them are translated into Estonian, and how they have been translated. In Latvian, only diminutive nouns with suffixes -(t)iņ-, and -īt- were selected from the material. The research results show that Latvian diminutives are not very often translated into Estonian, and the main equivalent of the diminutive is frequently a base word. However, in the cases when the diminutive is translated, a variety of approaches can be observed.


Introduction
The interest in studying the translation of Latvian diminutives into Estonian was motivated by two reasons.The first is based on the author's experience of teaching Latvian as a foreign language to native speakers of Estonian.On various occasions, during the translation of Latvian vocabulary and texts, Estonian students encountered Latvian diminutives.In several instances, diminutives have a shared applicability in both Latvian and Estonian, as in example (1) -In Latvian, the diminutive is formed by adding the suffix -iņ-and in Estonian by adding the suffix -ke.

Suffix
Diminutive (1) a. Latvian: māja -iņ-mājiņa house.nom.sghouse-dim-nom.sg'house' 'little house' b.Estonian: maja -ke majake house.nom.sghouse-dim.nom.sg'house' 'little house' However, disparities can arise when the use of diminutives in Estonian differs from their use in Latvian.An example in Latvian heard by the author of this article (i.e., personal knowledge): (2) a. Latvian: PIN-kod-iņ-u, lūdzu!PIN-code-dim-acc.sgplease 'Please, enter PIN code!' b.Estonian: PIN-kood, palun!PIN-code-part.sg please 'Please, enter PIN code!' The second motivation behind conducting this study is based on the conversations with Estonian translators specializing in contemporary Latvian fiction.In November 2022, a seminar for Latvian and Estonian translators was held at the University of Tartu.During the seminar, the author engaged in discussions with translators concerning the nuances of diminutives.In translators' opinion, diminutive formations are more widespread in the Latvian language, and that they do not uniformly translate all Latvian diminutives into corresponding Estonian diminutive equivalents.Translators rely upon their native language proficiency and use diminutives according to their intuition and the corresponding context.
Derived from the aforementioned motivations, the principal objective of this research is to analyse diminutive nouns from three works of Latvian fiction and their translations into Estonian.The findings of this study are anticipated to offer practical value to Latvian language learners and individuals engaged in the task of translating Latvian fictional literature into Estonian.
There is a wide range of words that have formal diminutive features, and they are called term-like diminutives.This implies that although these words possess formal characteristics of diminutives, they lack the semantic attributes associated with true diminutive formations, for example, in Latvian vakariņas 'dinner', āboliņš 'clover', saitiņa 'copula' (Ahero et al. 1959, 117;Vulāne 2015, 227;Kalnača, Lokmane 2021, 127).In Estonian, these are so-called semantically empty diminutives, where the base word of the derivative is no longer in use and the basic meaning is not clear, e.g., väike 'small', natuke 'a little bit', päike 'sun' (Arukask, Saar 2020, 12).
Although Estonian can form a large number of diminutives, the diminutive is not very productive in either spoken or written language compared to the Baltic and East Slavic languages (Erelt et al. 1995, 502).However, according to Arukask and Saar (2020, 10), diminutives are used more frequently in southern Estonian (Võro, Seto, Mulgi) than in northern Estonian.This is noteworthy, since southern Estonia historically has had a closer contact with the Latvian language than the rest of the Estonian territory.
Kupp-Sazonov (2019) studied the functionality of diminutive nouns in Russian and Estonian.The research discovered that the translation of Russian diminutives in Estonian can be divided into three groups: 1) when the diminutive has a diminutive counterpart in Estonian; 2) when there is no equivalent; 3) when the diminutive meaning has been compensated in Estonian.
4) The findings of the present research show a notable degree of congruence in this regard.No comparative research has been done so far regarding Latvian and Estonian diminutives.Thus, the study at hand holds the potential to remarkably advance this research domain.

Material and method
The research material consists of three Latvian books of fiction and their respective Estonian translations.To provide objectivity, the selection of books is based on the following conditions: the books were written by three different authors, in different decades, and translated into Estonian by different translators.
The study has employed a contrastive method of analysis, which means that two languages are compared, and the corresponding linguistic phenomenon is studied.In this research, a directional analysis is adopted, wherein one language is regarded as the source language and the other is considered the target language (Jørgensen 1982, 57-58).
The works of fiction and their translations were converted into a parallel text corpus by the author, which is not publicly accessible.The sentences where the diminutives appear were selected from Latvian and compared to their Estonian translations side by side.In the examples discussed in the results section, the respective translations in English have been added by the author of this article.
Diminutives may possess several meanings simultaneously, and it can be difficult to distinguish which meaning the diminutive carries in a specific situation.Hence, it is challenging to provide an English translation for diminutives without context, because a diminutive may, for example, not always mean smallness, where the equivalent in English would be 'little', but it may also contain other meanings.Therefore, in this article, a base word is mainly used in the diminutive translations, when the sentence and context are not provided.
This is quantitative research, because the focus is on how many, and which diminutive equivalents can be found in the Estonian translations.To understand why the translator has made a choice not to translate the diminutive form, a separate qualitative study should be conducted.

Empirical analysis
The first research task was to determine the number of diminutives within the corpus of the three literary works.Since the diminutives were searched electronically, it was inevitable to come across term-like diminutives, which contained the suffix -iņ-and -īt-, however, from a semantic standpoint, these derivatives do not qualify as diminutives.Therefore, the term-like diminutive nouns (e.g., āboliņš 'clover', cūciņas 'mumps', mārīte 'ladybird') were excluded from the analysis.The same approach was applied to diminutive-like surnames (e.g., Zariņš, Lapiņš, Apinītis), personal names (e.g., Ričiņš, Zaigiņa) and place names (e.g., Tomariņi), which were all excluded from the present study.An additional prerequisite for the selection was that the diminutives possess a base word.Based on the aforementioned criteria, a total of 308 diminutives containing the suffix -(t)iņ-and -īt-were obtained from the research material.

Estonian diminutive with suffix -ke(ne)
As anticipated, when translating Latvian diminutives into Estonian, the prevailing equivalent frequently takes the form of a derivative with the suffix -ke(ne).Upon examining the diminutives (with consideration for word repetition due to their appearance in multiple books), a total of 42 words (constituting 13 % of all the Latvian diminutives under study) were translated at least once using a diminutive with the suffix -ke(ne).However, if we look at each book separately, the results are, as follows.From 133 Latvian diminutives that appeared in Ezera (1972) only 17 diminutives were translated into Estonian by using a derivative with the suffix -ke(ne).Accordingly, in Ikstena (1998) -18 diminutives of 131, and in Bugavičūte-Pēce (2019) 15 diminutives of 121.
The outcomes reveal two salient points: firstly, a parallelism in the frequency of diminutive usage across the three original books, ranging between 121 and 133 instances; secondly, the number of translated diminutives using the suffix -ke(ne) across all three books, constituting approximately 11-13 % of the total (see Table 1).This suggests that the tendency to translate Latvian diminutive into Estonian by using the suffix -ke(ne) is not very high.There were 16 diminutives (5 % of all the diminutives studied) that were translated only by the Estonian diminutive with the suffix -ke(ne) (see Table 2), which means that in all the remaining cases, the suffix -ke(ne) was only one of the possible translations.The words presented in the table below occurred only 1-2 times in the study material.
The diminutives collected in Nevertheless, it was notably prevalent for Latvian diminutives to be associated with multiple possible translations.In the research material, 22 diminutives were found (7 % of all the diminutives studied) that were rendered in Estonian both by the suffix -ke(ne) and by a base word (regular noun) (see Table 3).Table 3 shows that the same Latvian diminutive may be translated into Estonian by either a diminutive or a regular noun, and the same translator may use both options.This underscores the notion that the counterpart of a diminutive might not invariably be another diminutive in Estonian.Depending on the context, the translator has discerned the feasibility of using either a diminutive or a regular noun as the Estonian equivalent for a given Latvian diminutive.Despite instances where the translator used derivatives with the suffix -ke(ne) to translate the diminutive, there were also occurrences in which the diminutive was translated by the same person using the base word.For example, the Latvian diminutive akmentiņš 'stone' was translated into Estonian by the same translator once using the diminutive kivike 'stone' (5b) and immediately thereafter -into the base word kivi 'stone' (6b).Essentially, if the object expressed with a diminutive has already been mentioned once, it does not need to be repeated in Estonian.For this reason, in the first sentence (example 5b) it is indicated that small stones (kivikesed 'small stones') were thrown into the window, but subsequently (example 6b) it is specified that the throwing of stones continued, yet this time the base word (kivid 'stones') is used.Had the Estonian diminutive not been used in the first sentence, the reader would have the impression that normal-sized stones were thrown into the window, potentially suggesting the fracture of the window.

No. Latvian diminutive
( More frequently observed (as seen in the case of 15 words outlined in Table 3) was the divergence wherein distinct translators adopted varying solutions.For example, the Latvian diminutive zvaigznīte 'star' was translated in Ezera (1990)  It is common to use diminutives when talking to or about children.In Ezera (1972), when the adult characters are speaking to the child or the dog, they use the endearing diminutive draudziņš 'friend'.However, the diminutive is alternately translated in two ways, either with the basic meaning of the word as (10b) sõbrake 'friend' or with an endearing meaning as (11b) kullake 'darling'.( 10 (E, 1990) According to the language portal of the Institute of the Estonian Language (EKI), "Sõnaveeb" (available at: www.sonaveeb.ee),the word meheke refers to a man 'affectionately, sympathetically, pitifully, derisively', but mehike is 'a ridiculously small and gaunt, wretched, wretched-looking man'.The word mehike was used as a translation to two Latvian diminutives: vīriņš 'man' (derived from vīrs 'man') and cilvēciņš 'human' (derived from cilvēks 'human').In Latvian, the diminutive vīriņš 'man' (example 12a) does not appear to have a pejorative meaning but expresses smallness and endearment.However, the second half of the sentence, where explanatory information is given about the nature of this man, can add just this pejorative meaning, which explains why the word mehike is used in the Estonian translation (example 12b).( 12 part.sg'"Bita-Bita", a man with a face reminiscent of an ugly child was the first to get up from his chair without being asked.' (I, 2003) Another word that was also translated in Estonian as mehike 'man' was cilvēciņš 'human'.In the material, it was used in two meanings -as a reference to a small Lego figurine lego cilvēciņš 'lego human' -legomehike 'lego man'.The second case was mazi, pelēki cilvēciņi 'small grey people' (example 13a), which was translated as väikesed hallid mehikesed 'small grey people' (example 13b) referring to imaginary beings to whom a mother sends her son to if he does not behave nicely.Once cilvēciņš 'human' was translated as inimkuju 'human figurine' (in Ezera 1990), when referring to little people that were drawn on paper.
(13) a. Es negribu pie mazajiem pelēkajiem 1.nom.sgnot_want.prs.1sgprep small.def.dat.plgrey.def.dat.plcilvēc-iņ-iem.people-dim-dat.pl'I don't want to be with the little grey people.' (B-P, 2019) b.Ma ei taha väikeste hallide 1.nom.sgnot want small.gen.plgrey.gen.plmeh-i-kest-e juurde.people-dim-dim-gen.plpostp 'I don't want to go to the little grey people.' (B-P, 2021) In conclusion, the Estonian diminutive with the suffix -ke(ne) is the most commonly used equivalent to the Latvian diminutive.The primary challenge of the analysis arises from the fact that most of these diminutives possess a corresponding base noun alongside the diminutive suffix.This shows that using a derivative with the suffix -ke(ne) is not a singular option; moreover, it signifies that a translator might, contingent upon the context, opt for both a diminutive and a standard base word to translate a Latvian diminutive.

Diminutive with the suffix -u and words of child speech
In the research material, there were 7 diminutives that were translated into Estonian either by the diminutive with the suffix -u or by words that are treated as part of caretaker or child speech (see Table 4).From these 7 translations, according to "Sõnaveeb" five words are marked as child speech: karumõmm 'teddybear', emme 'mommy', issi 'daddy', piilu / piilupart 'duck', jänku 'bunny'.However, words that are simply endearing but also used by children are kiisu 'kitty', kiisuke 'kitty', kutsa 'dog, puppy'.
Although the diminutive sunītis 'doggy' was translated as the diminutive koerakene 'dog' (in Bugavičūte-Pēce 2021), there were also two other options: kutsa 'doggy' (in Ezera 1990) and kutsikas 'puppy ' (in Ikstena 2003).In Latvian, the diminutive word sunītis 'doggy' (example 14a) can refer to a small dog, not necessarily a puppy (there is a separate word for this, kucēns 'puppy'); however, the Latvian word sunītis 'doggy' was translated once into Estonian as kutsikas 'puppy', which semantically is not equivalent to the Latvian word.

Estonian translation
Author Diminutive with suffix -u- Some of the words belonging to this group can be considered separate lexical words that are not derived from a base word, e.g., kiisu 'kitty' and piilu 'duck'.Other words do have a base form: emme 'mommy'-ema 'mother', issi 'daddy' -isa 'father', jänku 'bunny' -jänes 'rabbit'.One word in this group, karumõmm 'teddy-bear', is a combination of two words with the same meaning: karu 'bear' and mõmm 'bear' (in child speech).

Adjective väike 'little'
Besides suffixes, extensional parts such as the adjective small may also convey the diminutive meaning of smallness (Kasik 2015, 241).Seven Latvian diminutives were translated into Estonian using the adjective väike 'small'.the previous examples, also in these cases there were words that had either mainly one counterpart (väike 'small') or a regular noun in parallel.In two cases, the diminutive with the suffix -ke was also used in translation.
Considering the number of diminutives in the study, the words translated with the adjective väike 'small' account for a mere 1.9 % of the total.This is quite a small amount, since there are considerably more variants with the suffix -ke(ne).Example (15b) could have incorporated a diminutive majake 'little house', but the translator decided to use the adjective väike 'small'.( 15 However, whenever the Latvian sentence contains the adjective mazs 'small' as demonstrated in example (16a), the adjective is translated into Estonian also by the adjective väike 'small' as in example (16b).While this adjective appeared to serve as the counterpart to the diminutive, it is, in a translation of the Latvian adjective.Therefore, the diminutive is translated into the base word.
(  , 2003) While the adjective väike 'small' serves as a highly appropriate choice for articulating diminutive quality, this particular word remained relatively infrequently used as a translation of the Latvian diminutive.

Adjective pisi-'tiny' and noun compound
In the research material, a singular example emerged where the meaning of the diminutive was transferred by means of the adjective pisi-'tiny' and a noun compound.Namely, the diminutive zilonītis 'elephant' (example 17a) was translated into Estonian as pisielevant 'tiny elephant' (example 17b).( 17 (E, 1990) According to Kasik (2015, 241), the adjective pisi-'tiny' with a noun compound is a less established lexeme than the adjective väike 'small'.This can also be seen in the studied material, where only one example with the adjective pisi-'tiny' and noun compound was found.

Noun complement
A separate group is made of examples where nouns contribute to signifying smallness -these are referred to as complementary nouns.While these words are not categorized as diminutives, they possess an inherent suggestion of diminutive significance.For instance, the Latvian diminutive somiņa 'small bag' is translated into Estonian by adding the word käsi 'hand', thus forming a compound käekott 'handbag'.This compound seems justified, as handbags are inherently smaller than regular bags.Similarly, the diminutive karotīte 'small spoon' is rendered in Estonian as teelusikas 'teaspoon', where the noun tee-'tea' conveys that the teaspoon is smaller in size than a standard spoon.Furthermore, the diminutive skapītis 'small cabinet' (example 18a) is translated as öökapp 'nightstand' (example 18b), where the noun öö-'night' also pertains to the kind of cabinet -specifically, a nightstand.
To avoid the repetition of the word öö 'night' (example 18b) in a sentence involving both diminutive skapītis 'small cabinet' and naktslampiņa 'night lamp' (example 18a), the translation is structured in a manner wherein only one word encapsulates the notion of diminutiveness.Even though the adjective maza 'small' is already present in Latvian, it is additionally translated into Estonian, effectively conveying that there is a small lamp on top of the nightstand., 1990) Although it is possible to form diminutives in Estonian such as kotike 'small bag' and kapike 'small cabinet', these words were not used as a translation of the Latvian diminutives.Latvian diminutives somiņa 'little bag' and skapītis 'small cabinet' do not inherently refer to teaspoon and nightstand.They can also be the same objects, just smaller in size, for instance, when discussing children's toys or furniture.Therefore, the decision to translate them as teaspoon and nightstand is context-dependent and warranted by the surrounding narrative.The word lusikake 'small spoon' is not extensively prevalent, the adjective combination väike lusikas 'small spoon' may be used, as well.

No translation of diminutive
While most Latvian diminutives were not translated into Estonian and were not discussed in this study, two instances stood out prominently.In the first case, the Latvian diminutive krūzīte 'little cup' (example 19a) was not translated into Estonian at all (example 19b).This can be explained by the contextual dynamics -it is customary to pour tea into cups or mugs and not into other vessels., 1990) In another example, the base word peļķe 'puddle' and its diminutive form peļķīte 'small puddle' were used side by side in a Latvian sentence (example 20a).In the Estonian translation (example 20b) a choice was made to exclude one of the words while retaining the other.The distinction between whether the regular noun or the diminutive was used in translation remains somewhat ambiguous.( 20 , 1990) The Latvian example conveys the impression that varying sizes of puddles existed at this location, yet the translator opted for not addressing this potential distinction, despite the availability of alternative linguistic choices.

Conclusion
The primary objective of this study has been to find out how many diminutives are found within three works of Latvian fiction and to determine the extent of translation and the equivalents used in rendering these diminutive constructs into Estonian.Only nouns and those Latvian diminutives with -(t)iņ-and -īt-suffixes were examined.
The research results revealed that a total of 308 Latvian diminutives appeared in three works of fiction.Most of the diminutives were translated into Estonian by a regular noun.In the remaining cases, diminutives were translated using different methods: either by translating into a diminutive with the suffix -ke(ne), a diminutive with the suffix -u-or words that indicate child speech, using the adjective väike 'small' or the compound of adjective pisi-'tiny' and a noun, or with the addition of a complement noun indicating smallness.
The analysis reveals the complexity associated with establishing a singular form for translating diminutives.Frequently, the Latvian diminutive was translated by using the derivative with the suffix -ke(ne), and in parallel -as a regular noun.
Indeed, the translator's choice undoubtedly comes into play when translating the text.The determination is largely influenced by contextual variables, sentence structure, and the linguistic intuition of translators as proficient native speakers.Despite the availability of appropriate structures for conveying diminutive forms within the Estonian language, this study reveals a prevailing tendency wherein Latvian diminutive nouns are largely substituted with regular nouns in Estonian.
Within the scope of the study, the source text is based on Latvian, however, an alternative avenue of exploration could involve investigating the outcomes when the source text would be Estonian.

Table 2 .
Latvian Table1.The number of diminutives in each work, their translation in Estonian using the derivative suffix -ke(ne) and its percentage throughout the material diminutives and their translations into Estonian by derivatives with the suffix -ke(ne)

Table 3 .
Latvian diminutives and their translations into Estonian by derivatives with the suffix -ke(ne) and/or common nouns In example (9a) there are two diminutives -zvaigznīte 'little star' and marcipāna figūriņas 'marzipan figurines'.Only the second diminutive is translated into diminutive in Estonian as martsipanikujukesed 'marzipan figurines' (example 9b), but the first one tähed 'stars' is left as the base word.
prep floor.gen.sg'So, I took advantage of the situation and spent most of the moving time laying like a little star on the floor in the middle of the room [..].' (B-P, 2019)

Table 4 .
Latvian diminutives and their translations into Estonian child speech, common noun and/or suffix -ke(ne) Table 5 shows that, as in