Thank you all for sharing your interesting thoughts and comments.
@Liz: "Lizzyka" sounds very sweet :-)
@Amanda: yes indeed, that's probably why people often have several "pilsjes" ;-)
@Linda: I agree, diminutives also have a somewhat denigrating connotation sometimes...
@Reneke: the Yiddish angle would certainly be something for linguists to investigate!
@Kathlyn: yes, sure, please feel free to share my article on the EJC's magazine section (with credits to the Maastricht Region website). Many thanks!

Than you for this really nice blog post! I also find the "verkleinwoorden" - or, as I usually say, the "+tje words" in Dutch to be the nicest. And they're the ones that I remember best, too! After reading your post I can now better explain about my favorite Dutch words :)

I also think this is a nice post on foreign language in general... Do you think it would be OK to re-post it as an EJC Magazine post? I would love to put it up if it's OK with you :)

Leuk blogje.

But Dutch is not the only language fond of diminutives. To my opinion the master of diminutives was and still is Yiddish. I just read ‘a maizele iber a jingele’, that is a little story about a little boy or in Dutch: ‘een verhaaltje over een jongetje’. And who doesn’t know the evergreen ‘Mommele’: moedertje?
Just like modern German and Dutch, Yiddish has its origins in the tongue of the Rhineland of about the tenth century. Until the end of the 18 century it was the lingua franca among the Jewish traders in Europe, from Grenada to Stockholm. Yiddish was also spoken in Mokum and in the Mediene (Jewish communities in Amsterdam and in the rest of the Netherlands). Modern Dutch has still a lot of words and expressions borrowed from the Yiddish (marked as 'bargoens’ in most dictionaries). So, although I cannot prove it, I wouldn't be surprised if the Dutch fondness of diminutives has its origin in the Yiddish language. An extra argument in favor of a ‘Yiddish heritage’ is the fact that the use and meaning of Yiddish diminutives is exactly as Sueli explained it for the Dutch ‘verkleinwoordjes’: not only an expression of smallness but also a mark of love and affection. Marion Aptroot, professor of Yiddish at the university of Düsseldorf resumed it as follows:

In Jiddisj zainen faran tswei midroges fon farklener-formes. Ot die farklener formes drik’n ois nit nor kleinkeit. Nor zie zainen oich tsertel-formes.

Finally, a minor correction from my father the schoolteacher: ‘netjes’ is not a diminutive, but an adverb of modality: ‘netjes gedaan’ means ‘gedaan op een nette manier (done in a nice way). The ending ‘jes’ is a simplification of ‘jens’, and it is not related to the plural of the diminutive ending “je’.

Groetjes en kusjes

Maar wat te denken van het tenenkrommende: (buur)vrouwtje of collegaatje?

Sueli - that's a nice explanation of 'diminutives'...because I never actually studied Nederlands in the time that I lived there, I thought that way most of the words were said. When I grew up my Hungarian father called me Lizzyka, my family call me Lizzie and in the Netherlands, Dutch friends called me Lizje!
Keep writing!

I like the diminutive in Dutch as well. We were told in our language class that just about anything can be made small or cute with an added 'je' and that people use it a lot. Certainly a 'pilsje' is a good description of a Dutch-sized glass of beer in a cafe.

Just read in today's edition of The Telegraaf ;-):
"Proosten op het voorjaar: Terwijl in het westen van het land het weer de komende dagen grijs is, en buien en natte sneeuw worden verwacht, zitten in Maastricht mensen al lekker in het zonnetje op een terras op het Vrijthof, te genieten van een hapje en drankje. Dat kon gemakkelijk, want in het zuiden van Limburg kwam de temperatuur hier en daar al boven de tien graden uit. Alsof het voorjaar met een knipoogje wilde zeggen 'Wanhoop niet, ik kom er echt weer aan'."