# More German grammar:  "Mannen" instead of "Männer(n)"

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [December 24, 2004, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519 "2004-12-24T20:29:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [December 24, 2004, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519/1 "2004-12-24T20:29:13Z")

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Like another recent question of mine, this question was prompted by my reading the German translation of _Lord Of The Rings_. In the context of a company of soldiers, a German word meaning _men_ was used, but instead of _Männern_, which it normally would have been in the context, it was _Mannen_.

Is this another archaism, or is it something which is still used in a military context, as when the men are considered merely as a measure of the size of the unit, rather than as individual people?

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**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2004, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519/2 "2004-12-26T08:38:04Z")

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IANA native German speaker but I seem to remember having seen Mannen used as a dative plural in certain archaic texts. Did you see this in dative case? Can you provide the excerpt?

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**Author:** ![DarrenS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/977dab/32.png) [@DarrenS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DarrenS)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2004, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519/3 "2004-12-26T19:59:15Z")

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With extensive Googling, the only reference I could find to this was on pages talking about _[Plattdeutsch](http://www.plattmaster.de/plattoew.htm#Nouns)_, which is apparently a Northern German dialect. Could it be that the translator was trying to convey a sense of ‘rurality’, so chose a word that most Germans would recognize as peasant-like ?

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2004, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519/4 "2004-12-26T20:33:21Z")

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> [@NattoGuy](#):
>
> IANA native German speaker but I seem to remember having seen Mannen used as a dative plural in certain archaic texts. Did you see this in dative case? Can you provide the excerpt?

It was dative, and the text is intentionally slightly archaic. But it only rarely uses this form.

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**Author:** ![Einmon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Einmon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Einmon)\
**Post date:** [December 26, 2004, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519/5 "2004-12-26T22:58:34Z")

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“Mannen” would be used - as you pointed out in a slightly archaic way - when describing somebody and his underlings, like a leader and his army or for example “Robin Hood und seine Mannen”.

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**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\
**Post date:** [December 27, 2004, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-german-grammar-mannen-instead-of-manner-n/281519/6 "2004-12-27T00:25:12Z")

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Do you happen to know what the full declination of the noun would be? What’s the genitive? _Manne_ or _Mannen_