Plural of man and woman

>>Japanese is a very regular language and I find it extremely fascinating. Of course, Japanese is complex for other reasons, and it has the most complex writing system ever conceived or close to it <<

The writing system is separate from the language itself and has no bearing on its complexity. You learn a writing system simply by remembering the symbols for what you want to say, the signs might be intricate in themselves, but they do not reflect a complex system as such.

Old English, being a Germanic language, formed its plurals in a similar way as German does today, by adding -n or -en onto the end of words - man/men, child/children, brother-brethren and ox-oxen.

Other Old English ords were formed by changing some letters inside the word, and some still survive - such as goose/geese, foot/feet, mouse/mice, louse/lice, tooth/teeth.

Overtime, the way to make plurals in English changed to the way it is today, though some words - those of Anglo-Saxon origin - still form their plurals in the same way that Old English did.

So the -n and -en ending of plural nouns is now obsolete in English with a few exceptions.

It's also interesting how ox/oxen, brother/brethren, man/men, woman/women and child/children are still in use while other, in the last few hundred years, have become obsolete.

Here is a short list of some plurals from Old English that aren't used anymore but were used up until just 300 years or so ago:

Cow (singular)/Kine (plural) - The plurals is now "cows", of course, though the archaic plural "kine" is still used in some regional dialects in England

Egg (sing)/Eggys (plu)/Eyren (plu) - The plural of "egg" is now "eggs" though "eggys" and "eyren" are still used in some Northern English and Scottish dialects


Shoe (sing)/Shoon (plu) - "Shoes" has replaced the Germanic "shoon" but again "shoon" is still found in some regional dialects in Britain

House (sing)/Housen (plu) - The plural of "house" is now "houses", though "housen" is still used in some regional British dialect. "Housen" was also used by Rudyard Kipling in his book Puck of Pook's Hill)

That should say: "Other Old English words..."

<<"Shoes" has replaced the Germanic "shoon">>

I don't understand your use of "Germanic" here. "Shoes" is just as germanic as "Shoon".

-n/-en was never the usual plural in germanic. It is usual only in Netherlandic (with -s being in the minority) due to the lack of a distinction after the pronunciation of final -e (< Old Franconian/Old Dutch -a -nom & acc plural ending) became mute. The -n also being aided from the oblique (dative) case and weak plurals.

In German (Hoch Deutsch) -n/-en is frequent, but the usual plural ending, if I am not mistaken, is -e/umlau + -e

additionally, the -n/-en wasn't the plural marker in Old English or other germanic languages until much later. The -n was the sign of the n-stem or weak class of nouns, and was present in all cases of the noun, both singular and plural, excepting the nominative singular.

Same for the umlaut plurals man/men, goose/geese, etc. These forms were also used for the singular dative, and served as plurals only in the nominative and accusative cases:

Singular Plural
Nom. mann menn
Acc. mann menn
Dat. menn mannum
Gen . mannes manna