[AndriyKunitsyn]

I’m ESL, how far should the “thou should pluralize a loanword as it was in the original language” rule go? It seems to be not universal.

I mean, it’s “hamburgers”, not “die Hamburger”, “robots”, not “roboti”, and “rubles”, not “rubli”/“рубли”.

[jcranmer]

> I’m ESL, how far should the “thou should pluralize a loanword as it was in the original language” rule go? It seems to be not universal.

The basic rule of thumb is: assume it doesn't apply. That is, for most foreign words, -(e)s is usually an acceptable plural word, and even if it isn't, people will understand what you mean.

[Youden]

Just curious, is your mother tongue a language where borrowed words are pluralized consistently?

I'm a native English speaker but also speak German and Russian and all three languages pluralize loanwords inconsistently.

e.g. in Russian, some loanwords are treated like native words, like "computer" or "restaurant", while others don't seem to have plurals at all, like "cafe", "coffee", "radio" and "coat" [0].

And in German, it depends a lot on the original language [1], just like English.

If your language is different, I'd be curious to hear how it works.

[0]: http://webhome.auburn.edu/~mitrege/russian/tutorials/0051.ht...

[1]: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~deutsch/Grammatik/Wortbildung/Frem...

[AndriyKunitsyn]

My mother tongue was a Russian-Ukrainian mix :)

In Russian, some loanwords are not pluralized, because in order to make a plural, we need to know the word’s declension first, judging from words’ ending, gender and sometimes stress. So for loanwords, it can be hard for the “language feeling” to choose a correct declension form, because no nouns with similar ending and gender can be found. And if no form is found, the word is not declined at all. I think that’s the reason some loanwords in Russian have no declension.

This means that no nouns, except for a limited amount of old native irregular nouns, can “bypass” Russian declension tables - loanwords are never loaned together with their plural forms as it happens in English, they are either pluralized as native words or not pluralized at all. So it’s probably a little bit more consistent. (Ukrainian also works this way, declension tables are just different.)

[Youden]

Do you happen to know why there's no plural form for the borrowed nouns ending in "o", like "radio"? Russian treats these words as neuter, which usually replaces the "o" with an "a" to form the plural (e.g. window), why doesn't it do it here?

[AndriyKunitsyn]

I can't say for sure, I'm not a linguist.

But it's probably because of a declension choosing process which I described. Take "ра́дио", for example - it has this "ио" thing in the ending that is really not typical to Russian, so it made people think "hey, this word is weird, we probably shouldn't touch it when speaking", and since a lot of people thought this way, this became codified.

Now, some other loanwords are not that weird, for example "пальто́" - it's not that different from "окно́", or "весло́", or "ремесло́", and in fact, rarely people do decline it, like "пальта́", "у меня есть два пальта́", "у меня есть пятеро па́льт" - but it's rare, and "officially", it also has no declensions, probably to make things simpler.

[ouchjars]

Borrowed plural forms are most likely to happen with French, Latin, and Greek loans, and also those from languages that don't change words to make them plural, e.g. Japanese and Maori.

Sometimes it happens with other languages, like the use of Hebrew plural rules for cherub/cherubim, but there's the best approximation.

[majewsky]

> Sometimes it happens with other languages, like the use of Hebrew plural rules for cherub/cherubim

For what it's worth, the few times I've seen the plural of cherub in the English language (mostly in song lyrics), it was always "cherubs", not "cherubim". Not saying the latter wouldn't be acceptable: Wiktionary lists both.

[spindle]

Right! I especially like your Russian example.

There is no general rule. Life sucks.

[unscaled]

This is mostly relegated to Latin and some Greek plurals:

Latin:

  stimulus/stimuli, fungus/fungi (2nd declension masculine)
  medium/media (2nd declension neuter)
  alga/algae, larva/larvae (1st declension)
  index/indices (3rd declension)

Greek:

  phenomenon/phenomena, criterion/criteria (2nd declension neuter)
  analysis/analyses (3rd declension, I think proper Greek and Latin would actually be 'analyseis')

Latin and Greek were the classical languages that were expected to be spoken by the educated upper class in 19th century Anglo-Saxon world (the British Empire and the US). Most of the present day language conventions we have were gradually developed throughout the 17th to 19th centuries, as a result of print becoming established. Before that, English spelling varied greatly from text to text and the even the English plural themselves were determined by the writer's dialect, as in this example by William Caxton (England's first printer) in 1490 (in modernized spelling):

In modern spelling:

"And specially he asked after 'egges'. And the good wife answered that she could speak no French. And the merchant was angry for he also could speak no French, but would have had 'egges' and she understood him not. And then at least another said that he would have 'eyren'. Then the good ife said she understood him well.

The original splling was[1]:

"And specyally he axyed after eggys. And the good wyf answerde that she coude speke no frenshe. And the marchaunt was angry for he also coude speke no frenshe but wold haue hadde egges and she understode hym not. And thenne at laste a nother sayd that he wolde haue eyren. Then the good wyf sayd that she understood hym we."

During the period of standardization, it was the educated class I mentioned before that influenced spelling the most. Up to the 19th century they were expected to have a good grasp of Latin (and sometimes Greek) grammar, which is why "Grammar Schools" existed (originally meant to teach Latin grammar). Latin remained a requirement in some Elite schools and universities (like Oxford and Cambridge) well into the mid 20th century. This explains why the standard setters were quite pedantic about pluralizing Latin (and sometimes Greek) nouns correctly, but gave themselves a free hand in mutilating plurals (and even the words themselves) in other languages.

Since most of the educated upper class didn't know Ancient Greek as well as Latin, you find that Greek plural usage is not as systemic as Latin. That's why we're missing the first declension (we do not pluralize catastrophe as catastrophai, we say dogmas and not dogmata, atlases and not atlantes) and second declension masculine (cosmos is pluralized as cosmoses, not cosmoi). On the other hand, the high classes in the 19th century often spoke French and Italian, which is why it used to be fashionable to have some pluralizations such as -eau/eaux (bureau/bureaux) and -o/i (virtuoso/virtuosi). I feel like this is not so faddish anymore.

It's also important to note that the words we're covering here are _learned words_ - which are more influenced by elitist tendencies, since they first appear in print in academic publications and newspapers, before finding their way into everyday speech (if at all). Early borrowed words from Latin that have long become colloquial by then like wine (vinum/vina), pillow (pulivnus/pulvini) dish (discus/disci) and pound (pondus/pondera) don't even much the Latin singular form and are sometimes barely recognizable.

tl;dr: The explanation has to do mostly with elitist tendencies and the particular languages the elite during the time of standardization knew well and happened to care about. There are many exceptions.

The best rule of thumb is that learned Latin words are mostly pluralized as in Latin, Greek words are pluralized as in Greek only with certain suffixes (-on/a and -sis/ses) and very rarely with any other language.

The second rule of thumb to remember is that once a Latin or Greek word becomes colloquial, the foreign plural is often used in conjunction with a native English plural or becomes abandoned completely. To use medium as an example:

Academic usage:

  * means of communication (media) - 'mass medium' is almost always pluralized 'mass media'
  * material conductor (e.g. air as medium) - usually 'media'

Colloquial usage:

  * average, in the middle - usually mediums
  * someone who communicates with spirits and ghosts - always mediums

[1] https://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126611.html