Plurals — the sound and the broken

Two completely different ways of pluralising, running side by side. And one strange agreement rule that defines half of Arabic syntax.

English makes plurals by tacking -s on the end. Arabic also has a regular suffix system — but it covers a minority of nouns. Most ordinary nouns make their plural by reshaping the word from the inside, in ways that have to be learned individually. The first system is called the sound plural. The second is the broken plural. Both are productive in modern Arabic. And on top of both sits an agreement rule, the famous "non-human plurals are feminine singular," that English speakers find unintuitive but never escape.

The sound plural

The sound plural is the regular one. It adds a suffix and leaves the rest of the word intact. There are two suffixes, one for each gender.

Masculine sound plural: -uuna (in the nominative) or -iina (in the accusative/genitive). It is used almost exclusively for human males — professions, nationalities, agentive participles. In writing the case ending is often dropped, so you'll see it as -uun or -iin.

Feminine sound plural: -aat. It is broader and more common — used for most feminine nouns ending in ة, plus many borrowed and abstract words.

The broken plural

The broken plural reshapes the word. The root letters stay; the vowel pattern between them is replaced. Compare:

Same three consonants, different inner vowels. The Arabic grammatical tradition catalogues roughly thirty broken-plural patterns. They are not random — there are loose regularities, and a given singular pattern tends to take certain plural patterns more than others — but in practice you have to learn the plural with the singular, the way English learners memorise foot/feet, mouse/mice, child/children. The difference is that in Arabic this is the norm, not the exception.

Common broken-plural patterns

A handful of patterns will cover a large fraction of vocabulary. Internalise these shapes:

The non-human-plural agreement rule

This is the rule. A plural inanimate or non-human noun takes feminine singular agreement on its verb, adjective, and pronoun. Not plural. Not even necessarily feminine in the singular. Feminine singular.

For human plurals, agreement is normal — the noun is plural, so everything else is plural and gendered to match. The split runs along human/non-human, not along singular/plural or animate/inanimate in any other sense.

Why English speakers find this hard

The unpredictability of broken plurals is grinding. There is no "hack"; you have to memorise the plural of every noun. The good news is the patterns are finite, you start recognising them, and a paper Arabic dictionary lists each plural with its singular for exactly this reason.

The non-human agreement rule is harder, because it is conceptually unfamiliar. English speakers want plural agreement on plural subjects. After enough exposure the feminine-singular pattern starts to sound natural — but only after enough exposure. Use it deliberately for the first few months until it stops feeling odd.

What it's called in the Arabic tradition

Plural is جَمْع (jamʿ). The sound plural is جَمْع المُذَكَّر السالِم (jamʿ al-mudhakkar as-saalim) for masculine and جَمْع المُؤَنَّث السالِم (jamʿ al-mu'annath as-saalim) for feminine — the word saalim means "intact, sound." The broken plural is جَمْع التَّكْسير (jamʿ at-taksiir), "the plural of breaking."