Re: Adopting a plural

Jeffrey Henning wrote:

> In this case, they've borrowed about 50% of their vocabulary from the
> "imperial" language, dramatically changing their tongue.  Since the plural
> is in the prestige language, copying it has a cachet among speakers....
> Any natlang examples of languages without number adopting a number
> distinction from another natlang?
I think your borrowing scenario is quite plausible, even if a natlang
precedent is hard to come up with.  After all, how many languages have
absolutely _no_ way to express plurality?

Indonesian can express it (natively, by reduplication), but only if
necessary for clarity, politeness etc. I can think of one example of a
borrowed form (Arabic):

hadlirin 'those present; audience'-- the only problem is that the base form
hadlir is a verb, 'to be present'. (Hadir ~hadirin also exist)

Hadlirin is quite formal-- heard mostly in oratory; and is often redundantly
pluralized with _para_ (I suspect < Sanskrit, used in Indo. as a collective
pluralizer, again rather formal).

para hadlirin (yang terhormat) (....honored) 'ladies and gentlemen'-- much
more elegant than "bapak-bapak dan ibu-ibu" which is also used.
para pemuda 'youth, young people'
para (maha)siswa 'students; student body'

Admittedly, however, hadlirin is a rare, possibly unique example.