Kilted Etymologies

[TheKiltedWonder]

Uhhh, wouldn't "man" and "men" fall into this declension pattern?

Good guess, but nope! This change is due to umlaut (Any German students ay be confused since the dots over ä, ö, ü are also called umlauts). To very much under-describe it, umlaut is vowel change. In German and English (and maybe other languages) it is used to mark some plurals: Man -> men. Mann -> Männer ( pronounced: Menn-er or Menn-uh); Mouse -> Mice. Maus -> Mäuse (pronounced: Moy-suh).

But brethren is the former plural of brother. It's rather archaic today though.

[Galician]

Good guess, but nope! This change is due to umlaut (Any German students May be confused since the dots over ä, ö, ü are also called umlauts). To very much under-describe it, umlaut is vowel change. In German and English (and maybe other languages) it is used to mark some plurals: Man -> men. Mann -> Männer ( pronounced: Menn-er or Menn-uh); Mouse -> Mice. Maus -> Mäuse (pronounced: Moy-suh).

But brethren is the former plural of brother. It's rather archaic today though.

Good point, though--as any German knows, what WE call umlauts are an orthographic abbreviation for the letter "e." It's the same as the "accent circumflex" in French, which has replaced the letter "s" in a word. Wouldn't brethren be subject to both shifts?

[Woodsman]

How about the European Union Tartan? Looks Swedish to me.

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/CChalmers/