I can't believe they discussed plurals in English and missed the most interesting piece!
The -s endings came after Norsemen conquered England, and the introduction of it was from their language, connected to old French. This also is why in English, you have words like "ox/cows" and "beef": the Norsemen who were nobles essentially influenced the English to use their words for the animals since they were served as food to them (beef), while the English people who slaved in the fields raising the actual animals (cow) continued to use their ancestors' words for the live animals. This is why we have different words for the meat of the animals (beef, poultry, mutton) vs. the actual animals (cows, chicken, sheep).
I think you are mixing up Norsemen and Normans. Norsemen (Scandinavians, sometimes called Vikings) spoke a Germanic language (called old Norse, the ancestor of current Scandinavian languages), while the Normans spoke French. English have been influenced by both, but the Norman invasion was later. Beef, veal, mutton etc. are from french.
The Normans were partly descended from the Norsemen.
They tried to conquer England for the best part of a millennium, failed, conquered parts of France and Italy instead - by war and diplomacy - and then conquered England.
Sure. Had the Normans been the only outside group coming to the British islands after Rome left it would be fine to call them Norsemen, Germanics or even just continentals, but due to the long sequence of invasions it is very reasonable to use and expect the most specific terms. The word "poultry" certainly did not come on a boat before 1066, and only on a very specific subset of the boats that came that year.
Although, interestingly, they spoke a dialect of French that is different from, for example, Parisian French. And you can tell when a word was borrowed into English from French based on whether it starts with consonant sounds that are from the Norman dialect vs. the Parisian dialect. As an example (IIRC), William is a Norman name, whereas Guillaume is the Parisian version of the same name.
Side note: if that kind of stuff is interesting to you, I can highly recommend The History of English podcast.
You might be able to argue the Normans influenced the normalization towards plurals endings in S, but languages are generally pretty resistant to borrowing grammatic features wholesale versus, say, borrowing vocabulary.
Which situation specifically? Serbo-Croatian doesn't have that differentiation between the name of the animal and of its meat. There are others (regional "astal" being my favourite example), but the similar pattern can happen in any language.
Do you mean the sound combination "el", or the fact of having a definite article?
Latin did not have articles. The use of articles is a grammatical feature that has been borrowed between languages. But yes: that kind of borrowing is a lot less frequent than borrowing of vocabulary.
Must do, actual Old Norse is similar to Old English and have similar plural endings and a generally similar grammar. Many irregular verbs share a common ancestor and are similar even today.
Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian have kept more of the insanely complex rules for pluralisation actually.
... I must say I have never really thought about the complex rules - I had to compare and I'd say Swedish is more complex than the other Nordic languages.
Although they kept the cases - that there are only traces of left in Swedish - even Icelandic seems simpler.
The non-related words for ox, cow and beef.
I can confirm the same at least in Czech, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Russian. But not in, say, Polish (where 'beef' has its root from 'ox')
In russian (and most likely some other slavic langauges) beef ("говядина") is meat of any cattle because it comes from anchient-russian "говядо" which literally means "cattle".
Pretty much same for ox - from the old form of "big" "великий" - big animal.
Cow "корова" most likely comes from protoslavic korva and most likely inherited from ancient-indian "carvati" - "chewing".
i always thought it's too disassociate the actual animal from meat you are eating to make it anonymous, it's much easier to eat beef than dead cow's meat
Wamba, up and help me an thou beest a man; take a turn round the back o' the hill to gain the wind on them; and when thous't got the weather-gage, thou mayst drive them before thee as gently as so many innocent lambs."
"Truly," said Wamba, without stirring from the spot, "I have consulted my legs upon this matter, and they are altogether of opinion, that to carry my gay garments through these sloughs, would be an act of unfriendship to my sovereign person and royal wardrobe; wherefore, Gurth, I advise thee to call off Fangs, and leave the herd to their destiny, which, whether they meet with bands of travelling soldiers, or of outlaws, or of wandering pilgrims, can be little else than to be converted into Normans before morning, to thy no small ease and comfort."
"The swine turned Normans to my comfort!" quoth Gurth; "expound that to me, Wamba, for my brain is too dull, and my mind too vexed, to read riddles."
"Why, how call you those grunting brutes running about on their four legs?" demanded Wamba.
"Swine, fool, swine," said the herd, "every fool knows that."
"And swine is good Saxon," said the Jester; "but how call you the sow when she is flayed, and drawn, and quartered, and hung up by the heels, like a traitor?"
"Pork," answered the swine-herd.
"I am very glad every fool knows that too," said Wamba, "and pork, I think, is good Norman-French; and so when the brute lives, and is in the charge of a Saxon slave, she goes by her Saxon name; but becomes a Norman, and is called pork, when she is carried to the Castle-hall to feast among the nobles; what dost thou think of this, friend Gurth, ha?"
"It is but too true doctrine, friend Wamba, however it got into thy fool's pate."
"Nay, I can tell you more," said Wamba, in the same tone; there is old Alderman Ox continues to hold his Saxon epithet, while he is under the charge of serfs and bondsmen such as thou, but becomes Beef, a fiery French gallant, when he arrives before the worshipful jaws that are destined to consume him. Mynheer Calf, too, becomes Monsieur de Veau in the like manner; he is Saxon when he requires tendance, and takes a Norman name when he becomes matter of enjoyment."
"By St Dunstan," answered Gurth, "thou speakest but sad truths; little is left to us but the air we breathe, and that appears to have been reserved with much hesitation, solely for the purpose of enabling us to endure the tasks they lay upon our shoulders. The finest and the fattest is for their board; the loveliest is for their couch; the best and bravest supply their foreign masters with soldiers, and whiten distant lands with their bones, leaving few here who have either will or the power to protect the unfortunate Saxon. God's blessing on our master Cedric, he hath done the work of a man in standing in the gap; but Reginald Front-de-Boeuf is coming down to this country in person, and we shall soon see how little Cedric's trouble will avail him. ---Here, here," he exclaimed again, raising his voice, "So ho! so ho! well done, Fangs! thou hast them all before thee now, and bring'st them on bravely, lad."
The -s endings came after Norsemen conquered England, and the introduction of it was from their language, connected to old French. This also is why in English, you have words like "ox/cows" and "beef": the Norsemen who were nobles essentially influenced the English to use their words for the animals since they were served as food to them (beef), while the English people who slaved in the fields raising the actual animals (cow) continued to use their ancestors' words for the live animals. This is why we have different words for the meat of the animals (beef, poultry, mutton) vs. the actual animals (cows, chicken, sheep).