{"id":26,"date":"2011-06-30T19:26:43","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T19:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/?p=26"},"modified":"2011-06-30T21:56:37","modified_gmt":"2011-06-30T21:56:37","slug":"the-plural-plurals-of-danish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/danish\/2011\/06\/30\/the-plural-plurals-of-danish\/","title":{"rendered":"The Plural Plurals of Danish"},"content":{"rendered":"

Let\u2019s break away from the outer world of danskhed <\/strong>(Danishness), and take a look at an essential part of any grammar: plurals. It\u2019s inevitable that you\u2019ll sooner or later want to refer to more than one of the same thing. The same can be said of this blog, where I cannot let every<\/em> guest-starring Danish noun appear as a lone wolf\u2026 (Remember all those b\u00e5l<\/strong> on Sankthans?)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Sometimes you need to know there\u2019s more than one of something\u2026 (Thank you, Troels, for the shot!)<\/p><\/div>\n

Basically, Danish plurals, just like English ones, are made by adding an ending to the basic or singular form.\u00a0(There may be other changes occurring to the word as well, but we\u2019ll cover that later on.) Unlike English, however, modern Danish has several endings:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-ER<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

This is this is the king of Danish pluralizers. Most new words\u00a0take this ending. When in doubt, add -er<\/em>!<\/p>\n

Some common nouns in this category\u00a0include:<\/p>\n

uge > uger<\/strong> \u2019week(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

sky > skyer<\/strong> \u2019cloud(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

menneske > mennesker<\/strong> \u2019human(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

tr\u00e6 > tr\u00e6er <\/strong>\u2019tree(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

bil > biler<\/strong> \u2019car(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

kvinde > kvinder<\/strong> \u2019woman\/women\u2019<\/p>\n

pige > piger<\/strong> \u2019girl(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

ven > venner<\/strong> \u2019friend(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

(As you can see, \u00a0a final \u201d-e\u201d is merged into the ending. Also, the ending may cause a final consonant to be reduplicated in writing, as in the last example.)<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-E<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

As a close second comes\u00a0-e<\/em>. Among the words in this category are the words already ending in -er<\/em> (wouldn\u2019t \u201d-erer\u201d look\u00a0awkward?)<\/p>\n

dag > dage<\/strong> \u2019day(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

hest > heste<\/strong> \u2019horse(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

hund > hunde<\/strong> \u2019dog(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

dreng > drenge<\/strong> \u2019boy(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

dansker > danskere<\/strong> \u2019Dane(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

computer > computere<\/strong> \u2019computer(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

NO ENDING<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/em><\/strong>A handful of very common words take no ending at all in the plural \u2013 just like \u201done sheep \u2013 many sheep\u201d in English.<\/p>\n

\u00e5r > \u00e5r<\/strong> \u2019year(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

f\u00e5r > f\u00e5r<\/strong> \u2019sheep\u2019<\/p>\n

ord > ord<\/strong> \u2019word(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

b\u00e5l > b\u00e5l<\/strong> \u2019bonfire(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

kys > kys<\/strong> \u2019kiss(es)\u2019<\/p>\n

knus > knus<\/strong> \u2019hug(s)\u2019<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, there are no handy rules telling you which ending to choose. (Those familiar with Icelandic, Faroese or Nynorsk Norwegian may note that there is a certain correspondence between –ar<\/em> plurals in those languages and –e<\/em> plurals in Danish \u2013 Icelanders, Faroe Islanders and Norwegians say dagar<\/em> and hestar<\/em>.) Unless you are an expert in language history, the best thing you can do is simply to always note the plural ending of a word! \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Last but not least, the pesky little ending<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

-S<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

is sneaking into the Danish language, mostly through English (and some Spanish) loan-words:
\n <\/strong><\/p>\n

joke > jokes<\/strong><\/p>\n

mail > mails<\/strong><\/p>\n

band > bands<\/strong><\/p>\n

tortilla > tortillas<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>While not every Dane approves of this novelty, most younger Danes seem to have adopted it playfully and made it part of their expressive repertoire.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\"\"

Let\u2019s break away from the outer world of danskhed (Danishness), and take a look at an essential part of any grammar: plurals. It\u2019s inevitable that you\u2019ll sooner or later want to refer to more than one of the same thing. The same can be said of this blog, where I cannot let every guest-starring Danish…<\/p>\n

Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":28,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t