Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
While it is common in English to borrow Latin and Greek plural forms (millennia, cacti, etc.), it seems rare to borrow plural forms from other languages.
The cases I've seen/heard:
*cherub -> cherubim and seraph -> seraphim (Hebrew)
*Sometimes borrowed Italian words take the Italian plural, especially things like music terms (tempo->tempi , but I've seen tempos more)
*Sometimes French loanwords in -eau or -au take an -x (chateaux). Dictionaries list both -x and -s.
*Some people don't pluralize Japanese loanwords
What cases of foreign plurals in English that aren't from Latin or Greek have you seen?
The cases I've seen/heard:
*cherub -> cherubim and seraph -> seraphim (Hebrew)
*Sometimes borrowed Italian words take the Italian plural, especially things like music terms (tempo->tempi , but I've seen tempos more)
*Sometimes French loanwords in -eau or -au take an -x (chateaux). Dictionaries list both -x and -s.
*Some people don't pluralize Japanese loanwords
What cases of foreign plurals in English that aren't from Latin or Greek have you seen?
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
I don't think fully nativised English word take any non-Anglo-Saxon plurals, for most speakers. There are one or two seemingly Latin plurals (not sure if there are any Greek?), but these are probably best interpreted as simply irregular, since most speakers don't appear to recognise that these follow a pattern, and in all (?) cases the regular (or zero) plural is also found. In fact, how many words are there with where the Latin plural is more common?
[eg me hearing "he's an alumni" for the nine millionth time recently...]
For educated speakers, however, or in specialised contexts, I think you'd expect people to use Latin, Greek, Italian, German, Hebrew and possibly French and Spanish plurals (occasionally Arabic) - but this can probably be taken as evidence that these words are not yet fully nativised.
[eg me hearing "he's an alumni" for the nine millionth time recently...]
For educated speakers, however, or in specialised contexts, I think you'd expect people to use Latin, Greek, Italian, German, Hebrew and possibly French and Spanish plurals (occasionally Arabic) - but this can probably be taken as evidence that these words are not yet fully nativised.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
The native plurals tend to get pretty confused in English. I do think the Greek nouns in -sis/-ses (e.g. hypothesis, analysis) seem relatively stable, and they've even influenced the plurals of other nouns, biases and processes being the biggies.Salmoneus wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 00:43 I don't think fully nativised English word take any non-Anglo-Saxon plurals, for most speakers. There are one or two seemingly Latin plurals (not sure if there are any Greek?), but these are probably best interpreted as simply irregular, since most speakers don't appear to recognise that these follow a pattern, and in all (?) cases the regular (or zero) plural is also found. In fact, how many words are there with where the Latin plural is more common?
[eg me hearing "he's an alumni" for the nine millionth time recently...]
Italian is an interesting case, since the most common borrowings from it in English come from plurals. So when dealing with Italian loans, the question is not whether someone uses the native plural but whether they use the native singular.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
How about the Yiddish mensch/menschen?
The plural eisteddfodau (for eisteddfod) is found in English too.
And I agree with Salmoneus and Dormouse that many people mix the Classical plural endings up. On the old board for the Howe and Strauss theory, the concept of the saeculum, central to the theory, often got mispluralized as saeculi, even though Howe and Strauss use saecula in their books, and it becomes clear that -a is the correct plural ending once you take time to think about plurals like "data", "millennia", "stadia", "media", and "encomia".
The plural eisteddfodau (for eisteddfod) is found in English too.
And I agree with Salmoneus and Dormouse that many people mix the Classical plural endings up. On the old board for the Howe and Strauss theory, the concept of the saeculum, central to the theory, often got mispluralized as saeculi, even though Howe and Strauss use saecula in their books, and it becomes clear that -a is the correct plural ending once you take time to think about plurals like "data", "millennia", "stadia", "media", and "encomia".
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Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels
My Kankonian-English dictionary: 91,592 words and counting
31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels
My Kankonian-English dictionary: 91,592 words and counting
31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
That's (the hypercorrections) just a US phenomenon, SFAIR (I didn't even know about 'biases'). But yes, you're right, those plurals are relatively well (though not universally) accepted - perhaps because the regular plural in -sises is so incredibly ungainly.Dormouse559 wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 01:32The native plurals tend to get pretty confused in English. I do think the Greek nouns in -sis/-ses (e.g. hypothesis, analysis) seem relatively stable, and they've even influenced the plurals of other nouns, biases and processes being the biggies.Salmoneus wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 00:43 I don't think fully nativised English word take any non-Anglo-Saxon plurals, for most speakers. There are one or two seemingly Latin plurals (not sure if there are any Greek?), but these are probably best interpreted as simply irregular, since most speakers don't appear to recognise that these follow a pattern, and in all (?) cases the regular (or zero) plural is also found. In fact, how many words are there with where the Latin plural is more common?
[eg me hearing "he's an alumni" for the nine millionth time recently...]
Pasta, pizza, opera, soprano, volcano, lava, finale, fiasco, solo, scenario, ballerina, terracotta, extravaganza, minestrone, mozzarella, casino, mafia, malaria, ghetto, propaganda, vendetta... I'm missing your point, I think. There's 'paparazzi', but 'paparazzo' isn't that rare. Spaghetti, I guess - do Italians talk about an individual spaghetto? But in English that's not so much the wrong singular as just the fact that like many foodstuffs it's a mass noun in English (the singular is 'piece of spaghetti').Italian is an interesting case, since the most common borrowings from it in English come from plurals. So when dealing with Italian loans, the question is not whether someone uses the native plural but whether they use the native singular.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
There's a couple of examples which are count nouns; zucchini(s), salami(s).Salmoneus wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 02:48Pasta, pizza, opera, soprano, volcano, lava, finale, fiasco, solo, scenario, ballerina, terracotta, extravaganza, minestrone, mozzarella, casino, mafia, malaria, ghetto, propaganda, vendetta... I'm missing your point, I think. There's 'paparazzi', but 'paparazzo' isn't that rare. Spaghetti, I guess - do Italians talk about an individual spaghetto? But in English that's not so much the wrong singular as just the fact that like many foodstuffs it's a mass noun in English (the singular is 'piece of spaghetti').Italian is an interesting case, since the most common borrowings from it in English come from plurals. So when dealing with Italian loans, the question is not whether someone uses the native plural but whether they use the native singular.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
I’ll moderate my statement above, but there is also biscotti and sometimes ravioli. Basically, compared to, say, French or Spanish borrowings, there’s a relatively higher amount of number shenanigans in Italian borrowings, including turning plurals into mass nouns.VaptuantaDoi wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 03:18There's a couple of examples which are count nouns; zucchini(s), salami(s).Salmoneus wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 02:48Pasta, pizza, opera, soprano, volcano, lava, finale, fiasco, solo, scenario, ballerina, terracotta, extravaganza, minestrone, mozzarella, casino, mafia, malaria, ghetto, propaganda, vendetta... I'm missing your point, I think. There's 'paparazzi', but 'paparazzo' isn't that rare. Spaghetti, I guess - do Italians talk about an individual spaghetto? But in English that's not so much the wrong singular as just the fact that like many foodstuffs it's a mass noun in English (the singular is 'piece of spaghetti').Italian is an interesting case, since the most common borrowings from it in English come from plurals. So when dealing with Italian loans, the question is not whether someone uses the native plural but whether they use the native singular.
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
I have sometimes seen graffito as a singular of graffiti. Normally graffiti seems to be some kind of mass noun... just like data. And media. Which you can notice when North Americans say things like "the media says...".
It seems to me that millennia is more clearly a plural among the people who use it. I don't think I've ever seen stadia... And the likes of encomia, symposia are rarely or never used by non-nerds...
People who write about China also regularly don't pluralize the traditional Chinese distance measure "li" (里 lǐ), e.g. "three hundred li". I don't think I've ever seen *lis in fact. Same goes for the small measure "jin" (斤 jīn, more or less half a kilogram), but that sometimes gets translated "catty" (plural catties) instead.
It seems to me that millennia is more clearly a plural among the people who use it. I don't think I've ever seen stadia... And the likes of encomia, symposia are rarely or never used by non-nerds...
Well, there exist rumours some people have, on occasion, tried to use octopodes half-seriously... I've seen clitorides as a plural of clitoris, but just once.
I've seen ahadith (Arabic أحاديث ʔaħaadiiθ) as a plural of hadith (حديث ħadiiθ), grabbing the Arabic plural, but more commonly it's just hadiths. Also ayat (آيات ʔaayaat) as a plural of ayah (آية ʔaaya, a verse of the Qur'an), but as you can see in the relevant Wikipedia article, there's also "ayahs".
People who write about China also regularly don't pluralize the traditional Chinese distance measure "li" (里 lǐ), e.g. "three hundred li". I don't think I've ever seen *lis in fact. Same goes for the small measure "jin" (斤 jīn, more or less half a kilogram), but that sometimes gets translated "catty" (plural catties) instead.
hīc sunt linguificēs. hēr bēoþ tungemakeras.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
In an alternate timeline, "octopodes" is the main plural form, and the power of its etymological correctness has brought world peace.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Even though I’m well aware of its contemptible hypercorrective nature, I use octopi simply because the alternatives are all so awful.Dormouse559 wrote: ↑13 Jul 2021 08:35 In an alternate timeline, "octopodes" is the main plural form, and the power of its etymological correctness has brought world peace.
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
I can't speak about 'zucchini(s)', as this doesn't exist in my dialect (it's 'courgette'). But I've never heard 'salamis' - to me, salami is the meat, and is a mass noun. You have to say 'two slices of salami' and so forth.VaptuantaDoi wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 03:18There's a couple of examples which are count nouns; zucchini(s), salami(s).Salmoneus wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 02:48Pasta, pizza, opera, soprano, volcano, lava, finale, fiasco, solo, scenario, ballerina, terracotta, extravaganza, minestrone, mozzarella, casino, mafia, malaria, ghetto, propaganda, vendetta... I'm missing your point, I think. There's 'paparazzi', but 'paparazzo' isn't that rare. Spaghetti, I guess - do Italians talk about an individual spaghetto? But in English that's not so much the wrong singular as just the fact that like many foodstuffs it's a mass noun in English (the singular is 'piece of spaghetti').Italian is an interesting case, since the most common borrowings from it in English come from plurals. So when dealing with Italian loans, the question is not whether someone uses the native plural but whether they use the native singular.
I suppose someone could say "no, we didn't order one salami pizza and one margherita pizza, we ordered two salamis!" - but they could also say 'two salami!', and the occasions for this to be said are so few that I can't judge which would be the 'standard' plural and which would be the heat-of-the-moment analogous coinage.
But I'm not sure this is really about Italian, because biscotti and ravioli SHOULD be mass nouns, or at least it shouldn't be a surprise: they're food, and they're small things generally found with many other identical versions of themselves.Dormouse559 wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 08:34
I’ll moderate my statement above, but there is also biscotti and sometimes ravioli. Basically, compared to, say, French or Spanish borrowings, there’s a relatively higher amount of number shenanigans in Italian borrowings, including turning plurals into mass nouns.
[Biscotti is on the edge. I've heard both 'biscotto' and 'piece of biscotti' for a single biscotto. I also know someone who says 'biscotti', but in their case I think it's because they treat 'biscotti' as an adjective, and hence not declining for number - that is, they mostly say 'biscotti biscuits' or 'biscotti biscuit', and just sometimes shorten it to 'biscotti'. Similarly amaretti biscuits, though there of course there's the confounding factor that 'amaretto' has already been claimed for something else].
It's hard to compare with Spanish loanwords in particular, because they're so much rarer and more exotic. There just happen to be a bunch of common Italian food words, many of which refer to things that would naturally be mass nouns anyway.
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Yes. In both cases, these are primarily mass nouns, which have singulative counterparts that are only found in technical, subject-matter writing. Although these originate as singular/plural pairs in another language, I don't think that's what they are in English.
For me (UK), 'media' usually takes the plural verb... but then, British English regularly has semantically plural nouns take plural verbs even when they're morphologically singular (England have just lost the Euros, etc), so that does't say anything. I think that, again, this is a mass noun in English, and the etymological singular, 'medium', is generally regarded as an unrelated word. The exception is in art classes, where 'media' as a plual of 'medium' is found ('mixed media'), but this is a technical usage not current among the public.And media. Which you can notice when North Americans say things like "the media says...".
Well done! I think this may be one of the few genuine vernacular latin plurals! Even that's not univocal, though, since you also hear 'millenniums'. And I wonder whether 'millennia' will rapidly decline as we move further from the Millennium and the word becomes less salient.It seems to me that millennia is more clearly a plural among the people who use it.
An annoying -a plural for me: phenomena. Annoying because people have now decided it's a singular!
It's always used when talking about the Roman measurement. It's occasionally used when talking about stadiums.I don't think I've ever seen stadia...
No need to get derogatory! But in any case, 'encomia' isn't really used by anyone - Google ngrams has it still rarer than 'encomiums' (when the word was used, back in the 19th century, 'encomiums' was vastly more common). Symposia is more common than symposiums, but the word is technical. Google ngrams reminds me that 'symposia' use to be much more popular than now, though: in the 70s and 80s it broke through into the worlds of politics and business (some business conferences called themselves business symposia). But this use has been declining since the 90s.And the likes of encomia, symposia are rarely or never used by non-nerds...
But not vernacularly.Well, there exist rumours some people have, on occasion, tried to use octopodes half-seriously...
This is the regular plural, but only in technical, medical uses (and probably not even universally there anymore). Otherwise it would only be used for humour.I've seen clitorides as a plural of clitoris, but just once.
There are a bunch of words with regular Greek plurals - but they're technical (most often found in biology). Stoma/stomata, and the like. Those that cross over into the vernacular tend to regularise the plural, or else divorce plural from singular - 'stigmata' is a semi-vernacular word (at least for those of us with Irish Catholic backgrounds...), but most people wouldn't immediately consider it the plural of 'stigma'.
However, in this case, aside from the tendency to have zero plurals for Chinese and Japanese words, there's also the confounding tendency to have non-declining words as measure words. "Three hundred foot", "six stone", etc.People who write about China also regularly don't pluralize the traditional Chinese distance measure "li" (里 lǐ), e.g. "three hundred li". I don't think I've ever seen *lis in fact. Same goes for the small measure "jin" (斤 jīn, more or less half a kilogram), but that sometimes gets translated "catty" (plural catties) instead.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
I was thinking of "salamis" as in multiple whole salami sausages. Salami can for me be both a mass noun (referring to the substance) and a count noun (referring to the sausages).Salmoneus wrote: ↑13 Jul 2021 13:12 I can't speak about 'zucchini(s)', as this doesn't exist in my dialect (it's 'courgette'). But I've never heard 'salamis' - to me, salami is the meat, and is a mass noun. You have to say 'two slices of salami' and so forth.
I suppose someone could say "no, we didn't order one salami pizza and one margherita pizza, we ordered two salamis!" - but they could also say 'two salami!', and the occasions for this to be said are so few that I can't judge which would be the 'standard' plural and which would be the heat-of-the-moment analogous coinage.
I'd use "biscotti" as a count noun with plural "biscotti" (although I wouldn't use it as an adjective), but I wouldn't be surprised to hear "biscottis" instead. On the other hand I would treat "amaretti" as an adjective[Biscotti is on the edge. I've heard both 'biscotto' and 'piece of biscotti' for a single biscotto. I also know someone who says 'biscotti', but in their case I think it's because they treat 'biscotti' as an adjective, and hence not declining for number - that is, they mostly say 'biscotti biscuits' or 'biscotti biscuit', and just sometimes shorten it to 'biscotti'. Similarly amaretti biscuits, though there of course there's the confounding factor that 'amaretto' has already been claimed for something else].
I think the main reason Italian nouns are often borrowed in their plural form is cause Italian plurals don't end in s, whereas Spanish and (written) French plurals are mostly recognisable as plurals to English speakers. Although having said that, apparently "bolas" (which I've never heard of before) is a singular noun derived from a Spanish plural. "Tapas" is another possible example but it's invariable and I'm not sure whether I'd count it as singular or plural (?"the tapas was/were delicious").It's hard to compare with Spanish loanwords in particular, because they're so much rarer and more exotic. There just happen to be a bunch of common Italian food words, many of which refer to things that would naturally be mass nouns anyway.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Well, now I'm the one pointing out regional differences I don't know about the UK, but it's nothing special to deal with Spanish food words in California.
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Not here!Dormouse559 wrote: ↑11 Jul 2021 01:32 Italian is an interesting case, since the most common borrowings from it in English come from plurals. So when dealing with Italian loans, the question is not whether someone uses the native plural but whether they use the native singular.
I'm not even sure what one would do with a whole whopping spaggheto or a single macarono, and only the most pretentious of percussionistas would play a single timpano. A single balono, I guess one could make one of those daintyummy little cocktail sadwiches!
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Or anywhere else in the US! Paellas, tapas, carcinerias, taquerias, empanadas, adobos --- happily Spanish plurals also end in -s, so we have no trouble with them.Dormouse559 wrote: ↑13 Jul 2021 17:01 It's nothing special to deal with Spanish food words in California.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Thanks to Taco Bell, Americans talk about tacos, burritos, enchilafas, quesadillas, fajitas, and tamales all the time!
♂♥♂♀
Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels
My Kankonian-English dictionary: 91,592 words and counting
31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
Squirrels chase koi . . . chase squirrels
My Kankonian-English dictionary: 91,592 words and counting
31,416: The number of the conlanging beast!
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
osar is the plural of os, a Swedish loanword for a geographical feature common in Scandinavia. But both wiktionary and wikipedia list osar as merely a variant of os, with no restriction to plural.
Makapappi nauppakiba.
The wolf-sheep ate itself. (Play)
The wolf-sheep ate itself. (Play)
Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
I’ve seen German plurals used before in history and philosophy for specific terms but these were often italicized and wouldn’t be words commonly used outside of these fields.
Apparently Poltergeister is an acceptable plural in English even if my phone’s decided to give it a red underline.
Apparently Poltergeister is an acceptable plural in English even if my phone’s decided to give it a red underline.
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Re: Foreign Plurals used in English besides Latin and Greek
Right, so it would normally be the same pronunciation if it were singular or plural, like sushi... sushis.Khemehekis wrote: ↑14 Jul 2021 05:24 Thanks to Taco Bell, Americans talk about tacos, burritos, enchilafas, quesadillas, fajitas, and tamales all the time!