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

Nik wrote:

> 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?
AFMNL.
There are many colectives and probably the most wide colective used for
(wild?) mamals is _manada_, so in case of dubt you can safely use it.  We=
ll
even for ducks I've heard of _manada_.  For herbivores, mainly domesticat=
ed
ones, _raba=F1o_ is used.  For cows _hato_ is used but I'm not sure if _h=
ato_
are only the kyne or include the place they are.

A set of dogs is called _jaur=EDa_, but _manada_ can be used, but in much
lesser extend.  I've heard using both _jaur=EDa_ and _manada_ for wolves.

For birds, _banda_ and _bandada_ are used.  I guess _bandada_ is more use=
d
when there is no clear formation in it.  But none of those words quite fi=
t
for goose flying in V formation.  Proabably the word _formaci=F3n_ is the
correct in the later case.

Fish form either a _banco_ or a _escuela_, but it seams that _escuela_ is
mainly used in bad translations from English.

Ants, Termites and Bees, each form a _colonia_.  The word _colonia_ is al=
so
used in wildlife TV programs for most agrupations of animals located in s=
ome
specific area.

AFMCL:

Hangkerimce has an special declination meaning colective, so most of the
cases the colective plural is used.  Probably some special formations wil=
l
have their own word... I have not meet any such case yet.

Chleweyish has no vocabulary on the field yet but I'm inclined to use one
word modified by the name of the animal for most cases and those special
cases that are important in Chleweiness will have their own word.

-- Carlos Th