nü-tzŭ or
nü-‘rh is the form used.
and
both mean child, and must originally have been diminutives. A fairly close parallel is afforded by the German suffix chen, as in Mädchen. The suffix
, it may be remarked, belongs especially to the Peking vernacular. Then, the use of so-called numeratives will often give some sort of clue as to the class of objects in which a substantive may be found. When in pidgin English we speak of “one piecee man” or “three piecee dollar,” the word piecee is simply a Chinese numerative in English dress. Even in ordinary English, people do not say “four cattle” but “four head of cattle.” But in Chinese the use of numeratives is quite a distinctive feature of the language. The commonest of them,