In PG, there was a class of nouns called long-stem nouns. In Modern English, 'ox' -> 'oxen', 'child' -> 'children', 'brother' -> 'brethren' (though 'brethren' is old fashioned now). Some words were pluralised by adding 'en'/'ren'. Another example is 'tooth' -> 'teeth', 'mouse' -> 'mice'. Over time, the 'oo' sound in the middle changed to become more like the 'i' sound at the end, making 'feeti', and then the 'i' ending was dropped, and we were left with 'foot' -> 'feet'. Foot was originally pluralised by adding 'i' so 'foot' became 'footi'. Over time, the 'i' sound on the end was dropped, and you were left with 'goose' singular, and 'geese' plural. So what was originally 'goosi' became 'geesi'. In preparation from making the 'i' sound, you raise your tongue slightly early, and this affects the 'oo' sound. When you pronounce the 'i' sound, you raise your tongue high in your mouth. Some words in PG were pluralised by adding '-i' to the end, which sounds like 'ee'. ![]() I'll give you some examples of this before I explain sheep and deer: That Germanic language (let's call it PG) used lots of different methods to pluralise nouns, depending on the structure of the word. I'll try and explain.Ī long time ago, English originated from a Proto-Germanic language. This is complicated - but it's because of the history of English.
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