Comment by wongarsu
3 days ago
My guess is "Knöpfchen" (German for "little button"). The "chen" suffix is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, so it's replaced by the word "keys" (as in the buttons of a keyboard)
3 days ago
My guess is "Knöpfchen" (German for "little button"). The "chen" suffix is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, so it's replaced by the word "keys" (as in the buttons of a keyboard)
> The "chen" suffix is difficult to pronounce for English speakers, so it's replaced by the word "keys" (as in the buttons of a keyboard)
Not quite. The -ke ending here is just another regional variant of the diminutive. The s at the end is a colloquial plural form.
So the transformation from German to this weird german-english would be:
Knöpfe - Knöpfchen - Knöppkes - Cnoeppkes
Another detail you didn't mention: knopp or knoppe is a Low German (northern German) variant of Standard German Knopf. That's where the pf--pp alternation arises.
Knopp is actually common in southern German dialects as well, including palatinate and hessian. Using -ke for diminutives is common across Westphalia, especially the Munster region.
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