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The article explains that "children" is a fancified form of "childer" which matches the German "Kinder". The dative has nothing to do with this.



I was referring to where the -n came from. After research it seems it came from the old case system, which originally came from german, not sure if it's the dative plural, was just a theory. Here's more about that:

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/-en#Etymology_2


Read the article; the -en in this particular case arose after the loss of the case system, in a hypercorrection during a period when -en and -s were the two main plural endings.


I did, I was speaking about -en vs -n. Why -en for children and not just -n. Have I missed something?


Plain -n isn't used anywhere in English that I know of for a plural; the consonant cluster childrn would be improbable.


It doesn't come from German; both English and German inherit it from Proto-Germanic.




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