Almost all common nouns have the same form for singular and plural. (In this respect, they are similar to the English words ‘sheep’ and ‘deer’.) For example:
|
Singular/Plural |
Translation |
|
ngā manu |
‘the birds’ |
|
ngā ika |
‘the fish’ |
|
ngā kōtiro |
‘the girls’ |
|
ngā whare |
‘the houses’ |
|
ngā waiata |
‘the songs’ |
|
ngā rangatira |
‘the chiefs’ |
The very few common nouns that do show a change are all words referring to people, and, for all of them except tamaiti (‘child’) the change involves simply the lengthening of a vowel-sound for the plural.