Post by donnie on Nov 25, 2007 17:17:15 GMT -5
I was reading a little about Albanian grammar, trying to compare its complexity with other languages and so forth. One interesting thing which I came to think of is the plural form in our language. It lacks definite rules, no real pattern (or atleast, it has several patterns), which makes it quite difficult to learn.
This complexity of exceptions in the plural form exists in all languages at some level. But in our case, it is quite extensive. In English, for instance, the plural form of 'foot' is 'feet' -- we also have 'man' and 'men'. But, usually, English just adds the letter 's'; house=houses, book=books, tree=trees, head=heads, animal=animals et cetera. This puts a beginner who wants to learn English at some ease, because there's a degree of pattern with exceptions here and there.
In Albanian, individual words have unique plural forms, or better put, there are many patterns. The letter 'a' often fills the function of the letter 's' in English, such as burrë=burra (men), libër=libra (books), vajzë=vajza (girl) and so forth. But, far more often than in English and other languages, individual exceptions crop up.
The word for human in Albanian is njeri (def.article njeriu). The plural form becomes njerëz (def.article njerëzit). The addition of the suffix -ëz to denote something plural occurs to my knowledge only in this word. Perhaps someone will correct me here. Below follow examples of words which one must learn individually, since they do not follow a pattern, or atleast, they follow subpatterns -- learning one word's plural form doesn't necessarely help with the other word;
Sing.....Plural
Lum -- lumenj..............(river/rivers)
Mal -- Male..................(mountain/mountains)
Dorë -- duar................(hand/hands)
Pyll -- pyje...................(forest/forests)
Peshk -- peshq.............(fish/fish)
Ka -- kije......................(bullock/bullocks)
Dash -- desh................(ram/rams)
Luan -- luaj..................(lion/lions)
Derë -- dyer.................(door/doors)
Dele -- dhen................(sheep/sheep)
Zog -- zogj..................(bird/birds)
Kalë -- kuaj.................(horse/horses)
Thes -- thasë.............(bag/bags)
I madh--të mëdhenj...(big/big)
I vogël -- të vegjël......(little/little)
gjarpër -- gjarpinj......(snake/snakes)
peng -- pengj.............(hostage/hostages)
etc ...
Really weird in my opinion.
This complexity of exceptions in the plural form exists in all languages at some level. But in our case, it is quite extensive. In English, for instance, the plural form of 'foot' is 'feet' -- we also have 'man' and 'men'. But, usually, English just adds the letter 's'; house=houses, book=books, tree=trees, head=heads, animal=animals et cetera. This puts a beginner who wants to learn English at some ease, because there's a degree of pattern with exceptions here and there.
In Albanian, individual words have unique plural forms, or better put, there are many patterns. The letter 'a' often fills the function of the letter 's' in English, such as burrë=burra (men), libër=libra (books), vajzë=vajza (girl) and so forth. But, far more often than in English and other languages, individual exceptions crop up.
The word for human in Albanian is njeri (def.article njeriu). The plural form becomes njerëz (def.article njerëzit). The addition of the suffix -ëz to denote something plural occurs to my knowledge only in this word. Perhaps someone will correct me here. Below follow examples of words which one must learn individually, since they do not follow a pattern, or atleast, they follow subpatterns -- learning one word's plural form doesn't necessarely help with the other word;
Sing.....Plural
Lum -- lumenj..............(river/rivers)
Mal -- Male..................(mountain/mountains)
Dorë -- duar................(hand/hands)
Pyll -- pyje...................(forest/forests)
Peshk -- peshq.............(fish/fish)
Ka -- kije......................(bullock/bullocks)
Dash -- desh................(ram/rams)
Luan -- luaj..................(lion/lions)
Derë -- dyer.................(door/doors)
Dele -- dhen................(sheep/sheep)
Zog -- zogj..................(bird/birds)
Kalë -- kuaj.................(horse/horses)
Thes -- thasë.............(bag/bags)
I madh--të mëdhenj...(big/big)
I vogël -- të vegjël......(little/little)
gjarpër -- gjarpinj......(snake/snakes)
peng -- pengj.............(hostage/hostages)
etc ...
Really weird in my opinion.