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28-425: The Tuareg write from right to left, like other abjads such as Hebrew and Arabic. The alphabet is called “Tifinagh” and contains 25 letters. Tamahaq nouns belong to two noun classes , traditionally called masculine and feminine , each potentially inflecting for two numbers : singular and plural. General rules of Thumb: There are a few exceptions to these rules: We can also obtain feminine names by adding

56-454: A T to the beginning and end of a masculine name (although this is not always the case, there are exceptions). There are three main varieties of Tamahaq: According to Blench (2006), Tahaggart and Ghat are distinct Tuareg languages. This Berber languages -related article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Noun class In linguistics , a noun class is a particular category of nouns . A noun may belong to

84-685: A class for the remaining nouns. The Andi language has a noun class reserved for insects. Among Northwest Caucasian languages, only Abkhaz and Abaza have noun class, making use of a human male/human female/non-human distinction. In all Caucasian languages that manifest class, it is not marked on the noun itself but on the dependent verbs, adjectives, pronouns and postpositions or prepositions. Atlantic–Congo languages can have ten or more noun classes, defined according to non-sexual criteria. Certain nominal classes are reserved for humans. The Fula language has about 26 noun classes (the exact number varies slightly by dialect). According to Carl Meinhof ,

112-411: A classificatory verb system and (b) a gender system. To illustrate, the verb stem -tonh is used for enclosed objects. When -tonh is combined with different gender prefixes, it can result in daaltonh which refers to objects enclosed in boxes or etltonh which refers to objects enclosed in bags. The Dyirbal language is well known for its system of four noun classes, which tend to be divided along

140-443: A combination of the three types of criteria is used, though one is more prevalent. Noun classes form a system of grammatical agreement . A noun in a given class may require: Modern English expresses noun classes through the third person singular personal pronouns he (male person), she (female person), and it (object, abstraction, or animal), and their other inflected forms. Countable and uncountable nouns are distinguished by

168-544: A corresponding plural class (apart from one class which has no singular–plural distinction; also some plural classes correspond to more than one singular class) and there are no exceptions as there are in Swahili. For this reason Ganda linguists use the orthogonal numbering system when discussing Ganda grammar (other than in the context of Bantu comparative linguistics ), giving the 10 traditional noun classes of that language. The distinction between genders and nominal classes

196-445: A given class because of the characteristic features of its referent , such as gender, animacy, shape, but such designations are often clearly conventional. Some authors use the term " grammatical gender " as a synonym of "noun class", but others consider these different concepts. Noun classes should not be confused with noun classifiers . There are three main ways by which natural languages categorize nouns into noun classes: Usually,

224-453: A noun class for things that reflect light. The Diyari language distinguishes only between female and other objects. Perhaps the most noun classes in any Australian language are found in Yanyuwa , which has 16 noun classes, including nouns associated with food, trees and abstractions, in addition to separate classes for men and masculine things, women and feminine things. In the men's dialect,

252-481: Is a clear difference between genders (such as known from Afro-Asiatic and Indo-European ) and nominal classes (such as known from Niger–Congo). Languages with nominal classes divide nouns formally on the base of hyperonymic meanings. The category of nominal class replaces not only the category of gender, but also the categories of number and case . Critics of Meinhof's approach notice that his numbering system of nominal classes counts singular and plural numbers of

280-498: Is a plural class for more than one singular class. For example, Proto-Bantu class 10 contains plurals of class 9 nouns and class 11 nouns, while class 6 contains plurals of class 5 nouns and class 15 nouns. Classes 6 and 10 are inherited as polyplural classes by most surviving Bantu languages, but many languages have developed new polyplural classes that are not widely shared by other languages. Specialists in Bantu emphasize that there

308-845: Is blurred still further by Indo-European languages that have nouns that behave like Swahili's rafiki . Italian , for example, has a group of nouns deriving from Latin neuter nouns that acts as masculine in the singular but feminine in the plural: il braccio / le braccia ; l'uovo / le uova . (These nouns are still placed in a neuter gender of their own by some grammarians.) "Ø-" means no prefix . Some classes are homonymous (esp. 9 and 10). The Proto-Bantu class 12 disappeared in Swahili, class 13 merged with 7, and 14 with 11. Class prefixes appear also on adjectives and verbs, e.g.: Ki tabu CL7 -book ki kubwa CL7 -big ki naanguka. CL7 - PRS -fall Ki tabu ki kubwa ki naanguka. CL7-book CL7-big CL7-PRS-fall 'The big book falls.' The class markers which appear on

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336-522: Is lying on the bed", the verb silá "lies" is used because the subject siziiz "my belt" is a slender, flexible object. Koyukon ( Northern Athabaskan ) has a more intricate system of classification. Like Navajo, it has classificatory verb stems that classify nouns according to animacy, shape, and consistency. However, in addition to these verb stems, Koyukon verbs have what are called "gender prefixes" that further classify nouns. That is, Koyukon has two different systems that classify nouns: (a)

364-482: The Bantu languages have a total of 22 noun classes called nominal classes (this notion was introduced by W. H. I. Bleek ). While no single language is known to express all of them, most of them have at least 10 noun classes. For example, by Meinhof's numbering, Shona has 20 classes, Swahili has 15, Sotho has 18 and Ganda has 17. Additionally, there are polyplural noun classes . A polyplural noun class

392-770: The Northwest Territories . The sprachraum of Northern Athabaskan languages spans the interior of Alaska to the Hudson Bay in Canada and from the Arctic Circle to the Canadian-US border. Languages in the group include Dane-zaa , Chipewyan , Babine-Witsuwitʼen , Carrier , and Slavey ;. The Northern Athabaskan languages consist of 31 languages that can be divided into seven geographic subgroups. In at least one Northern Athabaskan language, Slavey,

420-413: The absolutive case form of the word if it ends in a vowel. For example, the noun ume "child" has the singular ablative form umearengandik or umeagandik "from the child", the plural ablative form umeengandik "from the children", and the indefinite ablative form umerengandik or umegandik (cf. the genitive forms umearen , umeen , and umeren and the absolutive forms umea , umeak , and ume ). In

448-405: The adjectives and verbs may differ from the noun prefixes: M toto CL1 -child wa ngu CL1 -my a linunua CL1 - PST - CL7 -buy ki tabu. CL7 -book M toto wa ngu a linunua ki tabu. CL1-child CL1-my CL1-PST-CL7-buy CL7-book 'My child bought a book.' In this example, the verbal prefix a- and the pronominal prefix wa- are in concordance with

476-479: The choice of many / much . The choice between the relative pronoun who (persons) and which (non-persons) may also be considered a form of agreement with a semantic noun class. A few nouns also exhibit vestigial noun classes, such as stewardess , where the suffix -ess added to steward denotes a female person. This type of noun affixation is not very frequent in English , but quite common in languages which have

504-428: The classes for men and for masculine things have simplified to a single class, marked the same way as the women's dialect marker reserved exclusively for men. Basque has two classes, animate and inanimate; however, the only difference is in the declension of locative cases (inessive, ablative, allative, terminal allative, and directional allative). For inanimate nouns, the locative case endings are attached directly if

532-508: The distinction is between things which are powerful and things which are not. Living things, as well as sacred things and things connected to the Earth, are considered powerful and belong to the animate class. Still, the assignment is somewhat arbitrary, as " raspberry " is animate, but " strawberry " is inanimate. In Navajo ( Southern Athabaskan ) nouns are classified according to their animacy, shape, and consistency. Morphologically , however,

560-416: The distinctions are not expressed on the nouns themselves, but on the verbs of which the nouns are the subject or direct object. For example, in the sentence Shi’éé’ tsásk’eh bikáa’gi dah siłtsooz "My shirt is lying on the bed", the verb siłtsooz "lies" is used because the subject shi’éé’ "my shirt" is a flat, flexible object. In the sentence Siziiz tsásk’eh bikáa’gi dah silá "My belt

588-470: The following semantic lines: The class usually labeled "feminine", for instance, includes the word for fire and nouns relating to fire, as well as all dangerous creatures and phenomena. (This inspired the title of the George Lakoff book Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things .) The Ngangikurrunggurr language has noun classes reserved for canines and hunting weapons. The Anindilyakwa language has

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616-433: The houses", and the indefinite ablative form etxetatik (the indefinite form is mainly used with determiners that precede the noun: zenbat etxetatik "from how many houses"). For animate nouns, on the other hand, the locative case endings are attached (with some phonetic adjustments) to the suffix -gan- , which is itself attached to the singular, plural, or indefinite genitive case ending. Alternatively, -gan- may attach to

644-782: The inessive case, the case suffix is replaced entirely by -gan for animate nouns (compare etxean "in/at the house" and umearengan / umeagan "in/at the child"). Some members of the Northwest Caucasian family, and almost all of the Northeast Caucasian languages , manifest noun class. In the Northeast Caucasian family, only Lezgian , Udi , and Aghul do not have noun classes. Some languages have only two classes, whereas Bats has eight. The most widespread system, however, has four classes: male, female, animate beings and certain objects, and finally

672-439: The noun is singular, and plural and indefinite number are marked by the suffixes -eta- and -(e)ta- , respectively, before the case ending (this is in contrast to the non-locative cases, which follow a different system of number marking where the indefinite form of the ending is the most basic). For example, the noun etxe "house" has the singular ablative form etxetik "from the house", the plural ablative form etxeetatik "from

700-510: The noun prefix m- : they all express class 1 despite their different forms. The Zande language distinguishes four noun classes: Northern Athabaskan languages Northern Athabaskan is a geographic sub-grouping of the Athabaskan language family spoken by indigenous peoples in the northern part of North America , particularly in Alaska ( Alaskan Athabaskans ), Yukon , and

728-644: The same noun as belonging to separate classes. This seems to them to be inconsistent with the way other languages are traditionally considered, where number is orthogonal to gender (according to the critics, a Meinhof-style analysis would give Ancient Greek 9 genders). If one follows broader linguistic tradition and counts singular and plural as belonging to the same class, then Swahili has 8 or 9 noun classes, Sotho has 11 and Ganda has 10. The Meinhof numbering tends to be used in scientific works dealing with comparisons of different Bantu languages. For instance, in Swahili

756-566: The true grammatical gender , including most of the Indo-European family, to which English belongs. In languages without inflectional noun classes, nouns may still be extensively categorized by independent particles called noun classifiers . Common criteria that define noun classes include: The Ojibwe language and other members of the Algonquian languages distinguish between animate and inanimate classes. Some sources argue that

784-490: The word rafiki 'friend' belongs to the class 9 and its "plural form" is marafiki of the class 6, even if most nouns of the 9 class have the plural of the class 10. For this reason, noun classes are often referred to by combining their singular and plural forms, e.g., rafiki would be classified as "9/6", indicating that it takes class 9 in the singular, and class 6 in the plural. However not all Bantu languages have these exceptions. In Ganda each singular class has

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