German Suffix Variants

The German suffix -heit is very productive. It is added to adjectives to derive nouns. The word schön (beautiful) combines with -heit to produce Schönheit (beauty). Likewise, neu (new) combines with -heit to produce Neuheit (novelty) and Rein (pure) with -heit to produce Reinheit (purity). However, the suffix also has the variant -keit. This variant occurs after words with the affixes -bar, -ig, -lich and -sam.

The variant -keit occurs in words such as Arbeitslösigkeit (Unemployment) Einsamkeit (loneliness), Möglichkeit (possibility) and Sichtbarkeit (Visibility). The word Einsamkeit consists of the root Ein and the affixes -sam and -keit. Here we call illustrate the meaning of the three units:

ein (one)

einsam (lonely)

Einsamkeit (loneliness)

The suffix variant -heit has wider distribution than -keit. It is the underlying form from which -keit is derived. The suffix variants can also be classified as allomorphs.

In other Germanic languages, the German suffix -heit/-keit is very similar. Here are examples with three words:

freedom

Freiheit (German)

vrijheid (Dutch)

frihet (Swedish)

frihed (Danish)

frihet (Norwegian)

possibility

Möglichkeit (German)

mogelijkheid (Dutch)

möjlighet (Swedish)

mulighed (Danish)

mulighet (Norwegian)

safety

Sicherheit (German)

zekerheid (Dutch)

säkerhet (Swedish)

sikkerhed (Danish)

sikkerhet (Norwegian)

In contrast to German, the other languages only have one form for the underlying suffix -heit. Many Norwegian dialects use the suffix -heit rather than -het. The German suffix -heit is very productive and often corresponds to -ity/-ty in English.