3 ms·
Old English had [a plural ending in S](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Old_English/Nouns#Strong_Nouns https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Old_English/Nouns#Strong_Nouns
by stevula 8y ago
Old English had [a plural ending in S](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Old_English/Nouns#Strong_Nouns https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Old_English/Nouns#Strong_Nouns) that predates Norman invasion.
You might be able to argue the Normans influenced the normalization towards plurals endings in S, but languages are generally pretty resistant to borrowing grammatic features wholesale versus, say, borrowing vocabulary.
- linkmotif 8y agoWould have to guess the Norsemen being referred to here at the people who came in the 800s and 900s, not the Normans who came later
- lmoml 8y agoOP seemed to be referring to Normans. The whole cow (English) -> beef (French) is a classic linguistic example to cite with regard to them.
- oeuviz 8y agoHow come the same situation is present in other languages(e.g. French, Serbocroatian)? Improbable that it were always the Normans.
- BerislavLopac 8y agoWhich situation specifically? Serbo-Croatian doesn't have that differentiation between the name of the animal and of its meat. There are others (regional "astal" being my favourite example), but the similar pattern can happen in any language.
- linkmotif 8y agoYes that makes more sense actually. But now I am still confused.
- afroboy 8y ago> but languages are generally pretty resistant to borrowing grammatic features wholesale versus, say, borrowing vocabulary. Not always check Spanish for example they took a lot from Arabic, like 'EL'.
- nivexous 8y agoEl does not come from Arabic.
- _ak 8y agoLOL, what? Spanish "el" is etymologically derived from Latin ille/illa/illud, which became el/la/lo in Spanish.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- IncRnd 8y agoWhy do you believe Spanish took "el" from Arabic? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/el#Spanish https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/el#Spanish
- bloak 8y agoDo you mean the sound combination "el", or the fact of having a definite article? Latin did not have articles. The use of articles is a grammatical feature that has been borrowed between languages. But yes: that kind of borrowing is a lot less frequent than borrowing of vocabulary.