Comments by "Liam" (@1495978707) on "A brief history of plural word...s - John McWhorter" video.

  1. Well, English was derived from a tribe of Germans that went to England (the Angles and Saxons, Angleland), after which it changed due to isolation, the Norse, and the Vikings. So it technically did split off, because the germans just stayed in germany.
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  2. I apologize for my mistake. You are right, Computer belongs to the class of nouns with an unchanged plural. But my point stands, German still maintains some of the intricacies of old english as described in this video.
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  3. German modifies the insides of its words (the last vowel) sometimes, as well as adding endings. "die Wort" word, "die Wörter" words. But it also sometimes just adds an 's', especially if it came from english, "der Computer" "die Computers" "das T-Shirt" "die T-Shirts".
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  4. By the way, the plural of Nummer is Nummern. I knew that there was an exception somewhere, but shame on me for my mistake. And you're right, but 4-5 is pretty hard for your average english speaker to deal with. And apparently also too hard for the Vikings.
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