Re: s-stems in Slavic and Germanic

From: Arnaud Fournet
Message: 62853
Date: 2009-02-05

>
> In the 1600's, in the Gouden Eeuw, Golden Century in Holland, the word
> 'arm' had two plurals, 'arms' and 'armen'; after the decline, 'armen'
> prevailed. The first form would of course be the one you heard from
> non-native Dutch speakers, those who used Dutch as a trade lingua franca.
>
============

In the edition of Noord en Oost Tartarye of 1692
Nicolaas Cornelis WITSEN (1641-1717),
whom I suppose was a native speaker of Amsterdam Dutch,
wrote De mans "the men".
In the edition of 1705, this is modified into : De mannen.

The full sentence is :

De mans gaen bykans op de Russch wys gekleet.
The men are clothed in the Russian way.

A.