Pluralizing nouns

Animate words inflect a certain way  Animate words are those objects which are living, spiritual, words in nature and words in motion.

Pluralizing animate words  The rule of thumb is when you pluralize an animate word you add k or ek 9 out of 10 times.

Pluralizing inanimate words  The rule of thumb is you add n or en to inanimate objects to pluralize them.

Some animate words  Mko- bear Mkok- bears  Nemosh- dog Nemoshek- dogs  Sengo- squirrel Sengok- Squirrels  Kwe- woman Kwek- women  Pwagen- pipe pwagenek- pipes  migwen- feather migwenek- feathers  Dewegen- drum dewegenek- drums

Some inanimate words  Dopwen- table Dopwenen- tables  Jiptebwen- chair jiptebwenen- chairs  Tasomkekos- computer tasomkekosen- computers.  Wasechgen- window wasechgenen- windows.  Taswen- cabinet Taswenen- cabinets  Bgejgen- hammer bgejgenen- hammers

An older form  Older speakers and occasionally in older documents you will see yek used for animate plural and yen used for inanimate plural. Occasionally on certain words I will use these as well.

Words that end in k.  Mtek- tree Mtekok- trees  Mek- beaver Mekok- beavers  Mkek- box Mkekwen- boxes  Datbek- leaf Datbekwen- leaves

Some words are not able to be pluralized because they are an uncountable amount  Mbop- soup  Sema- tobacco  Mbish- water

Hints  One thing to keep in mind is that if a word ends in gen or wen it is probabally an inanimate word.  Also occasionally there are words which are treated as animate that there isnt any real clear rymth or reason. These words will just have to be memorized. Food words tend to be somewhat confusing.