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Which languages don't have plural?
A Korean friend trying to learn English complained about plural. We have different rules for when one becomes two.
eg: He is a dentist. => They are dentists.
but no difference if 2 become 1,000,000
They are dentists. => They are dentists.
That's discrimination against individuals !!!
Singular: It is a brown cow.
Plural (Change "It", verb, lose the "a" and add "s" to the noun)
They are brown cows.
In Spanish, the adverb (brown) would have an "s" too.
So which languages have plural and which don't?
5 Answers
- BelieLv 71 decade agoFavourite answer
Japanese does not have plurals.
You can add the suffix ~tachi if you really want to stress a group amount, but inu can mean dog or dogs.
But instead of having plurals Japanese has counters. For instance, in English one pencil and one book both are just one + object. In Japanese it's the object + one + a specialized "counting" word.
- Taneli HLv 41 decade ago
All the languages I know have a plural, but the usage varies. For instance, in Turkish and Hungarian, there are plurals just like in English, but the singular form is used after numerals. Finnish is similar but with a couple of added twists, such as using plural numerals to count pairs or sets. In Russian, you use one form to talk about one thing, with or without the numeral "one;" another form about more than one thing, without a numeral; a third form with a numeral ending in 2, 3 or 4; and yet another form with other numerals and the equivalents of "many," "some" and a few other words. Chinese has a plural ending for words denoting people, but often there's no need to indicate singular or plural at all.
Source(s): I study languages as a hobby. - H. M. CLv 71 decade ago
Chinese language does not care about singular/plural.
It is really strange as to why Western languages do care .. and this is quite irrational. Let me give you an example:
How come the Western languages do not care about color ? If they do, surely a White House would be written as houseW; a red rose would be written as RoseR, and so forth ..
The logic goes that as soon as the quantity changes, you guys change the way the word is written [by adding s]; then why not change the word if the color changes ?
Same can be argued about tense, gender, etc. Does not take much to see how ridiculous and irrational these grammatical rules are .. and how they have no effect on the conveyance of the message .. It is such a big waste of time and energy ..
- JimmyLv 61 decade ago
Some languages have a dual for two items as well as singular and plural. Even in English some collective nouns (cattle) have no plural and others (moose) do not change in the plural.
- 1 decade ago
umm. . . japanese language for example :]
but there a are a exception. . .
ciao !( ^Ï^ )
=Ruka=
