Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016)

Re:Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016) by amaccuish on Sunday May 27, 2018 @04:45PM (#17169011)

I was referring to where the -n came from. After research it seems it came from the old case system, which originally came from german, not sure if it's the dative plural, was just a theory. Here's more about that:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-en#Etymology_2

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Re:Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016) by azernik on Sunday May 27, 2018 @05:38PM (#17169239)

Read the article; the -en in this particular case arose after the loss of the case system, in a hypercorrection during a period when -en and -s were the two main plural endings.

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Re:Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016) by amaccuish on Sunday May 27, 2018 @06:12PM (#17169377)

I did, I was speaking about -en vs -n. Why -en for children and not just -n. Have I missed something?

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Re:Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016) by azernik on Monday May 28, 2018 @01:25AM (#17170722)

Plain -n isn't used anywhere in English that I know of for a plural; the consonant cluster childrn would be improbable.

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Re:Why “children,” not “childs”? (2016) by _emacsomancer_ on Sunday May 27, 2018 @09:36PM (#17170140)

It doesn't come from German; both English and German inherit it from Proto-Germanic.

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