Re: Animal plurals/collective nouns (was Re: Re: irregularconlangs)

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Eric Christopherson wrote:
> > Hey! That reminds me: does anyone know why English has such bizarre plurals
> > and collective nouns for animals? A lot of wild animal names seem to be the
> > same in the singular and plural, such as buffalo, moose, etc.
>
> Well, game animals are regularly made in the plural with no change, even
> a word like "duck" is normally used as a plural when speaking of
> hunting, as in "How many duck did you get?".  Apparently an analogical
> leveling based on "deer" and one or two other common game animals.  (A
> survival in turn of the old gender system?)  Besides, everyone knows
> that "moose"'s plural is "meese".  ;-)
>
> > I mean things such as a pride of lions, gaggle of geese,
> > etc. Some of these words are so out there as to make me think someone
> > invented them to be silly, such as a memory of elephants. But how did they
> > reach such currency?
>
> Hmm, a closet conlanger making dictionaries?  :-)  But seriously, that's
> a good question.  Does this occur in many other natlangs?  That is,
> using odd collectives?
>
        No, French has only a few words for that and most of them are used in a
regular way (but I know there are some rare exceptions). Herbivores
(wild or domesticated) are usually grouped in "troupeaux", canines
(dogs, wolves) and some other carnivores are grouped in "meutes". I
don't know the words for the other animals. But I know that on TV
programs, the people that study lions, or monkeys speak generally of
"communaute's" (communities!). The only strange example I can find is
for small birds. One speak of a "vole'e (related to "voler": to fly)
d'oiseaux".

> > Obligatory conlang content: Does anyone's conlang do this? :)
>
        I don't know for most of my conlangs, and I know that Tj'a-ts'a~n
simply uses a subgender "group" of the genders "human" and "animal".

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        Christophe Grandsire

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