Talk:Welpe

German diminutive

Does the German Welpe have a diminutive form? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 17:56, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Welpchen? Welpi? Welplein? See google books:"Welpchen", google books:"Welpi", and google books:"Welplein". — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:13, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

I haven't heard any of them myself, but as your links show, at least Welpchen seems to be (rarely) used (the other ones don't really have enough context to judge, IMO). Longtrend (talk) 10:00, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for checking. May I request that Welpchen be added? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 12:55, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Done ;) Longtrend (talk) 13:34, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Thanks! :-)  — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:22, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Now, I don't suppose Katzenwelpchen (“tiny kitten”) is attestable in durably archived sources, is it? — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:30, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Apparently not... well, Katzenwelpe itself is quite rare as is the diminutive of the second part of this compound, so that's not really surprising ;) Longtrend (talk) 14:43, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

I figured as much. There was nothing on Google Books or Groups when I last checked, and the word only gets 352 Google Web hits right now. Thanks for your work, nevertheless. — I.S.M.E.T.A. 14:49, 4 November 2013 (UTC)

Hi, I just removed the label "rare" from Welpchen, not having read this discussion. I don't know, maybe I'm wrong... But to me personally it sounds perfectly normal. Diminutives are per se not exceedingly frequent, but I wouldn't consider Welpchen to be particularly rare. It also has over 25,000 hits on google.Kolmiel (talk) 18:51, 1 March 2014 (UTC)

Another thing: It's difficult to judge from google books. Diminutives are always rare in writing. Even in Dutch, which uses very many diminutives in spoken language, they are not frequent in writing.Kolmiel (talk) 18:56, 1 March 2014 (UTC)