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From: aeb@mcvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: Use of "Vaxen" as plural (actually about "chicken")
Message-ID: <707@mcvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Jun-85 20:52:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: mcvax.707
Posted: Wed Jun 12 20:52:16 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Jun-85 06:43:47 EDT
References: <27400001@gypsy.UUCP> <546@hou2b.UUCP> <561@umd5.UUCP> <666@bbnccv.UUCP> <6454@boring.UUCP>
Reply-To: aeb@mcvax.UUCP (Andries Brouwer)
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 14

In article <6454@boring.UUCP> steven@mcvax.UUCP (Steven Pemberton) writes:
>
> Actually, chicken is also an example. Chicken was originally the plural of
> chick, but for some reason it became used as a singular, perhaps in analogy
> to other animal words which have the same singular and plural - e.g. fish,
> sheep, deer.

A nice theory, but I don't believe it. "Chicken" has developed quite regularly
from Old English "cycen". "Chick" is much more recent and is plainly a
shortened form of "chicken". Concerning "cycen" (or "cicen"), this has
parallels in Dutch "kuiken", Flemish "kieken", Old Norse "kiuklingr",
and both -en and -ling- should be interpreted here as diminutiva, not
plural endings. In Dutch another example of a diminutivum in -en is
"veulen" (foal). It may be that an English example is found in sow/swine.