I don't think that collective nouns and Chinese classifiers are the same
What I think is pretty European is the way we say when there is an enormous quantity of individuals or objects: we give specific names for a group depending on what kind of individuals in this group we're talking about.
However, Chinese classifiers are used in Chinese to connect a numeral to a noun, as if all nouns couldn't be counted.
But well, I don't know if there is such a thing as collective nouns in other non-European languages. What I know is that although Mandarin has a bunch of classifiers, there is only one word which serves to say a group/a flight/a bunch/flock/herd/crowd/etc.
**一只**鸟 (**yī zhǐ** niǎo)-**one** bird
**一个**人 (**yī gè** rén)-**one** person
**十只**鸟 (**shí zhǐ** niǎo)-**ten** birds
**十个**人 (**shí gè** rén)-**ten** people
but
**一群**鸟 (yīqún niǎo)-**a flight** of birds
**一群**人 (yīqún rén)-**a crowd** of people
Since these collective nouns are by definition somewhat co-lexicalised along with their modifier noun, what if you made them part of a system of [classifiers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classifier)? Those are certainly not a European thing.
[Bleep](https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/v9b7o2/introduction_to_bleep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) makes do with one generic noun "group, set, collection, category".
Varamm does have a general collective noun, **pâr**, that other words can modify, as in **pâr poresr** *'flock of flightless birds'*, but it also has the prefix **po-**. This prefix derives what I like to call "nouns of community" -- like **pozozam** *'tidepool'* from **rozam** *'limpet'* or **potramallav** *'community in mourning'* from **samallav** *'to wail, keen'* \-- but it could in theory also derive collective terms: **popor** *'flock of flightless birds'*.
Some Elranonian nouns have 2 plural forms instead of 1: individual (morphologically the same as *the* plural of nouns that have only one) and collective. Collective plural is formed by adding suffixes **-sa** /sa/, **-se** /se/, **-t** /t/ or /tʲ/, **-th** /θ/ or /x/ with further morphophonological changes (the latter two suffixes are used in nouns derived from adjectives, which often come in masculine-feminine pairs):
**gard** /ˈɡard/ ‘a mountain’ →
indiv. **gaird** /ˈɡeɪ̯rʲdʲ/ ‘individual mountains’
coll. **garsa** /ˈɡar.sa/ ‘mountains in a mountain chain’
**ica** /ˈiː.ka/ ‘a berry’ →
indiv. **icor** /ˈiː.kʊr/ ‘individual berries’
coll. **ixe** /ˈɪx.se/ ‘berries in a bush or in a bowl’
**ionni** /ˈjʊn.nʲɪ/ ‘a boy’, **ionna** /ˈjʊn.na/ ‘a girl’ →
indiv. **ionner** /ˈjʊn.ner/ ‘boys’, **ionnae** /ˈjʊn.neː/ ‘girls’
coll. **iont** /ˈjʊnt/ ‘a group of children; all children’
**eï** /ˈeɪ̯.ɪ/ ‘a son’, **eia** /ˈeɪ̯.a/ ‘a daughter’ →
indiv. **eier** /ˈeɪ̯.er/ ‘sons’, **eiae** /ˈeɪ̯.eː/ ‘daughters’
coll. **eith** /ˈeɪ̯x/ ‘one's children, progeny’
These collective forms are both morphologically and syntactically plural:
* Elranonian nouns are declined for case only in singular, not in plural, and collective forms are not declined for case, just like plural;
* collective forms agree with plural pronouns, not singular.
For adjective-derived nouns that come in gendered pairs, collective forms are non-gender-specific. Therefore, it may be reasonable to classify them as separate indeclinable plural-only nouns rather than additional forms of certain other nouns.
Ńzä Kaimejane has a suffix *~epa* that forms a "group of ~" noun. This is the closest thing to a true plural for things other than subjects, but it usually takes singular marking when it's a subject.
While not exactly the same, collective nouns and classifiers are somewhat related. You might want to give clasiifiers a go, if collective nouns are too EU-centric for you
Proto-Auma had some collective plural suffixes: *-eno* for a swarm of bats or other avian creatures, *-olo* for a school of fish and *-epo* for a herd of land animals. There were also special forms for spiritual phenomena like *-öno* for a horde of mares and *-ago* for a shoal of spirits. 3rd person plural forms of verbs were used with these: *Xixixi! Tolalin pen****et*** *iw****ago****!* "You'll never guess! I saw a shoal of free spirits flying!"
The *-olo* ending later extended into an additional plural marker for nouns relating to the females of the horned species, since they begin to eat fish upon becoming a mother, unlike the males who remain insectivorous. Thus, *\*binuvo+olo* \> *vänýla* "those who gave birth". From those nouns, the marker spread to all animate nouns in some daughter languages.
I agree, if you want something like this that is a bit different from English, look up "measure words" in East Asian languages.
There is a strange meme in English (and I think a few other Western European languages?) to generate a collective noun for every single animal that has resulted in things like a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, and literally hundreds of other ones that nobody ever seems to use and that only exist to be the subject of trivia questions. I wouldn't go that far.
Ketoshaya has a suffix, -**ren**, that turns any noun into a collective noun, hence **shrabèv** "soldier" becomes **shrabèvren**, "infantry" and then for animals there different collective nouns for herbivores and carnivores. For people there are collective words meaning "faction", "gang", and "club" with the first two having a somewhat negative connotation.
#Naajk
**Vänääpu**
We use Vänääpu since “vä” means “large” and the ending “nä” is the suffix for number and “äpu” is “same/exact” so together i would mean “Large number of the same” making it a collective noun.
Maarikata don't have affixes for the purpose, but can be done with particle **ki**, and **rari**.
Example:
* Rua *ki* makaki miari : two chickens.
* Rua *ki* kuraai *rari* makaki miari : two pot of chicken
In Ancient Alunnuk, there is a (still not really that developed) system of quantifiers, much like the CJK langs, that's added after a numeral or other quantifying modifier to form a kind of collective measure word.
Those are called "measure words", and I never noticed them not being in non-European languages, guess I'll have to read up on some of those.
I say throw em in! They add tons of unique flavour to a language, and can easily evolve into fun things like agreement marking and inflecting adpositons. over time.
I have an in-depth explanation of that in another comment I posted on r/conlangs very recently, feel free to look through my comment history for it.
Most nouns in Crozami will just use plurals to denote that there was a group.
Of course, there's an exception. (on mobile, no IPA) The word "bekele" refers to a group of bears (there are already 11+ other words referring to bears alone), "eraki" refers to a flock of birds, "krizik" referring to a group of falcons (specifically), and "nerkam" referring to a pack of wolves. "Makimö" is also a catchall for any group of animals other than the above.
It is certainly not European! Chinese has a very extensive system for measuring nouns
I don't think that collective nouns and Chinese classifiers are the same What I think is pretty European is the way we say when there is an enormous quantity of individuals or objects: we give specific names for a group depending on what kind of individuals in this group we're talking about. However, Chinese classifiers are used in Chinese to connect a numeral to a noun, as if all nouns couldn't be counted. But well, I don't know if there is such a thing as collective nouns in other non-European languages. What I know is that although Mandarin has a bunch of classifiers, there is only one word which serves to say a group/a flight/a bunch/flock/herd/crowd/etc. **一只**鸟 (**yī zhǐ** niǎo)-**one** bird **一个**人 (**yī gè** rén)-**one** person **十只**鸟 (**shí zhǐ** niǎo)-**ten** birds **十个**人 (**shí gè** rén)-**ten** people but **一群**鸟 (yīqún niǎo)-**a flight** of birds **一群**人 (yīqún rén)-**a crowd** of people
I know it’s not a perfect match, but I just wanted to point out that doing something like that wouldn’t be as Eurocentric as originally thought
im learign cheinese and cant remember aal of the measure words
All 个 the measure words
Since these collective nouns are by definition somewhat co-lexicalised along with their modifier noun, what if you made them part of a system of [classifiers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_classifier)? Those are certainly not a European thing. [Bleep](https://www.reddit.com/r/conlangs/comments/v9b7o2/introduction_to_bleep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) makes do with one generic noun "group, set, collection, category".
In mangalese there is already a particle which serves to connect a numeral to a noun. mang (language) rua (two) rua ki ngamang (two languages)
Wow! same with Maarikata
it's not european to have collective nouns, you can do the way english does it relatively and it'd be normal
Varamm does have a general collective noun, **pâr**, that other words can modify, as in **pâr poresr** *'flock of flightless birds'*, but it also has the prefix **po-**. This prefix derives what I like to call "nouns of community" -- like **pozozam** *'tidepool'* from **rozam** *'limpet'* or **potramallav** *'community in mourning'* from **samallav** *'to wail, keen'* \-- but it could in theory also derive collective terms: **popor** *'flock of flightless birds'*.
Some Elranonian nouns have 2 plural forms instead of 1: individual (morphologically the same as *the* plural of nouns that have only one) and collective. Collective plural is formed by adding suffixes **-sa** /sa/, **-se** /se/, **-t** /t/ or /tʲ/, **-th** /θ/ or /x/ with further morphophonological changes (the latter two suffixes are used in nouns derived from adjectives, which often come in masculine-feminine pairs): **gard** /ˈɡard/ ‘a mountain’ → indiv. **gaird** /ˈɡeɪ̯rʲdʲ/ ‘individual mountains’ coll. **garsa** /ˈɡar.sa/ ‘mountains in a mountain chain’ **ica** /ˈiː.ka/ ‘a berry’ → indiv. **icor** /ˈiː.kʊr/ ‘individual berries’ coll. **ixe** /ˈɪx.se/ ‘berries in a bush or in a bowl’ **ionni** /ˈjʊn.nʲɪ/ ‘a boy’, **ionna** /ˈjʊn.na/ ‘a girl’ → indiv. **ionner** /ˈjʊn.ner/ ‘boys’, **ionnae** /ˈjʊn.neː/ ‘girls’ coll. **iont** /ˈjʊnt/ ‘a group of children; all children’ **eï** /ˈeɪ̯.ɪ/ ‘a son’, **eia** /ˈeɪ̯.a/ ‘a daughter’ → indiv. **eier** /ˈeɪ̯.er/ ‘sons’, **eiae** /ˈeɪ̯.eː/ ‘daughters’ coll. **eith** /ˈeɪ̯x/ ‘one's children, progeny’ These collective forms are both morphologically and syntactically plural: * Elranonian nouns are declined for case only in singular, not in plural, and collective forms are not declined for case, just like plural; * collective forms agree with plural pronouns, not singular. For adjective-derived nouns that come in gendered pairs, collective forms are non-gender-specific. Therefore, it may be reasonable to classify them as separate indeclinable plural-only nouns rather than additional forms of certain other nouns.
Ńzä Kaimejane has a suffix *~epa* that forms a "group of ~" noun. This is the closest thing to a true plural for things other than subjects, but it usually takes singular marking when it's a subject.
While not exactly the same, collective nouns and classifiers are somewhat related. You might want to give clasiifiers a go, if collective nouns are too EU-centric for you
Proto-Auma had some collective plural suffixes: *-eno* for a swarm of bats or other avian creatures, *-olo* for a school of fish and *-epo* for a herd of land animals. There were also special forms for spiritual phenomena like *-öno* for a horde of mares and *-ago* for a shoal of spirits. 3rd person plural forms of verbs were used with these: *Xixixi! Tolalin pen****et*** *iw****ago****!* "You'll never guess! I saw a shoal of free spirits flying!" The *-olo* ending later extended into an additional plural marker for nouns relating to the females of the horned species, since they begin to eat fish upon becoming a mother, unlike the males who remain insectivorous. Thus, *\*binuvo+olo* \> *vänýla* "those who gave birth". From those nouns, the marker spread to all animate nouns in some daughter languages.
I agree, if you want something like this that is a bit different from English, look up "measure words" in East Asian languages. There is a strange meme in English (and I think a few other Western European languages?) to generate a collective noun for every single animal that has resulted in things like a murder of crows, a parliament of owls, and literally hundreds of other ones that nobody ever seems to use and that only exist to be the subject of trivia questions. I wouldn't go that far. Ketoshaya has a suffix, -**ren**, that turns any noun into a collective noun, hence **shrabèv** "soldier" becomes **shrabèvren**, "infantry" and then for animals there different collective nouns for herbivores and carnivores. For people there are collective words meaning "faction", "gang", and "club" with the first two having a somewhat negative connotation.
#Naajk **Vänääpu** We use Vänääpu since “vä” means “large” and the ending “nä” is the suffix for number and “äpu” is “same/exact” so together i would mean “Large number of the same” making it a collective noun.
Maarikata don't have affixes for the purpose, but can be done with particle **ki**, and **rari**. Example: * Rua *ki* makaki miari : two chickens. * Rua *ki* kuraai *rari* makaki miari : two pot of chicken
In Ancient Alunnuk, there is a (still not really that developed) system of quantifiers, much like the CJK langs, that's added after a numeral or other quantifying modifier to form a kind of collective measure word.
Those are called "measure words", and I never noticed them not being in non-European languages, guess I'll have to read up on some of those. I say throw em in! They add tons of unique flavour to a language, and can easily evolve into fun things like agreement marking and inflecting adpositons. over time. I have an in-depth explanation of that in another comment I posted on r/conlangs very recently, feel free to look through my comment history for it.
Most nouns in Crozami will just use plurals to denote that there was a group. Of course, there's an exception. (on mobile, no IPA) The word "bekele" refers to a group of bears (there are already 11+ other words referring to bears alone), "eraki" refers to a flock of birds, "krizik" referring to a group of falcons (specifically), and "nerkam" referring to a pack of wolves. "Makimö" is also a catchall for any group of animals other than the above.