Snat Sajem Tan/Expressing Plurals and Counting

Grammatical number enables a language to express how many of something exists. In English, we have singular (for only one thing) and plural (for more than two things, usually expressed with an -s on the end of a noun). In Sajem Tan, there are a number of ways to express plurals.

â
The suffix -â is attached to a noun or pronoun to make it plural. This is the most basic way of pluralizing words in Sajem Tan. For example, röfit is "wing", and röfitâ is "wings".

ââ
The suffix -ââ signifies and infinity of something. So röfitââ is "infinite wings". You may pronounce a glottal stop or a glottal fricative (that is, ) between each â, or however works for you. There is no official consensus on this.

mon
The suffix -mon signifies a collection of things. So, for example, if you collect rocks, you could say, Ţefammon znöcêt dê "I collect rocks".

no and nâ
The suffixes -no and -nâ express partitives. Partitive quantity is expressed by the words "some" and "any" in English. If you know French, you may be familiar with this concept already (and, if not, this page explains French partitives well).

Sajem Tan -no expresses the singular partitive. In English, this corresponds to phrases such as "some pizza" or "some chocolate"—in Sajem Tan, ţnamökno and rüzimno, respectively.

On the other hand, -nâ expresses the plural partitive. This corresponds to English phrases such as "some books" or "some birds"—jëkëmnâ and viţitnâ in Sajem Tan, respectively.