I wonder if there's a parallel universe where children are called "childs" and adults are called "adultren"
I wonder if there's a parallel universe where children are called "childs" and adults are called "adultren"
Hmm.
There's a theory that, at one time, "man" was a gender neutral term for persons and we called males "weremen" and obviously women "women"
That probably isn't true, but it's fun to think about a world where that was reversed.
EDIT Also evidently there was wifmann and wapman, which is an even funnier world to imagine.
“Were” is cognate to Latin vir ‘man’—cf. “werewolf” (‘man-wolf’).
“Woman” comes from a compound meaning “woman-person” (wif-mæn, cf. “wife”); a man was a wæpned-mæn (“weapon-person” or “penis-person”). The lexical narrowing of “man” to mean ‘male’ happened later, and it was indeed originally a gender-neutral term.
penis-person
I can't read that without thinking of "Democracy Manifest"
Not what you asked for, but Welsh has irregular plurals for adults and children, too:
Adult: oedolyn
Adults: oedolionChild: plentyn
Children: plant(Still learning, so I'm not too sure why or how)
Always knew Wales was essentially living in a different dimension... 🤔 (lol, thanks for the tidbit!)
The Welsh alphabet is beautiful. Nuts from a perspective of both Continental and British traditions, but I am extremely fond of it.
I’ve met some sweet southerners that already call children “childs.”