4 ms·

In Dutch, child/children is kind/kinderen, which is the same double plural. We also have that construction with ei/eieren for egg/eggs. (Regular plural suffixe

• personlurking 8y ago
  In the chicken post, which they link to in the article in question, it says: "The OED notes versions in such Germanic languages as Dutch (kieken, kuiken)..." But chicken is kip in Dutch. Maybe they're talking about older versions of the word. Also interesting, perhaps, is the other '-en' that comes to mind: boy/boys, which is jongen/jongens
  • cbcoutinho 8y ago
    In dutch, you would say kippen for multiple chickens, and jongeren for young people/children (dare I say young'ens?)
  • kmm 8y ago
    "kuiken" is Dutch for a chick, a young chicken (curious that in English, the form with the diminutive became the one used for the adult), whilst "kieken" is dialectical Dutch for "chicken". "kieken" and "kuiken" come from the same root, it's just that one of them got mutated by a sound change that never quite spread over the entire language. "jongen" is another story. It used to be "jonge", which is the substantivized version of the adjective "jong" (young). The -n was later added by analogy from the other cases. This is why the plural is pronounced "jonges" (written "jongens"), and the diminutive is "jongetje" even in the standard language.
  • irishsultan 8y ago
    In flemish kieken is used for kip.
• kmm 8y ago
  And quite in quite a few dialects you'd say "eiers" and "kinders", which is exactly the other kind of "double plural".