It’s been a while since I did anything about Kyrgyz grammar, but this week, I wanted to explain something that’s both simple and complicated at the same time: Plurals.  Let’s take a look!

Plurals in Turkic languages, as in many languages, are formed by attaching a simple suffix onto the word that needs to be made plural.  For simplicity’s sake, let’s start with Uzbek, since it’s the simplest of the Turkic plurals (and will give us a conceptual foundation to build on for Kyrgyz).

In Uzbek, you simply add -лар (“-lar”) onto the end of the word you wish to make plural.  For example:

дос (“dos,” friend)  becomes дослар (doslar)
мошина (“moshina,” car) becomes мошиналар (“moshinalar”)

Easy, right?  Let’s up the ante.

For Modern Turkish from Turkey, things complicate slightly: one layer of vowel harmony is added.  Remember the Kyrgyz vowel harmony table?

For words where the last vowel is in the top half of this diagram (a, ı, o, and u), you use the suffix -lar.

For words where the last vowel is in the bottom half of this diagram (e, i, ö, ü), you use the suffix -ler.  Examples:

yolu (path, line) becomes yollar (I’m ignoring the vowel drop for simplicity)
simit (a type of ring-shaped pastry) becomes simitler

For Kyrgyz, we add one more dimension: alignment with the last letter of the word, along with vowel harmony.  For simplicity, let’s just start with the top line of our vowel table, а and ы.

For words ending in a vowel or й: –лар (-lar)
For words ending in a voiced consonant: –дар (-dar)
For words ending in an unvoiced consonant: –тар (-tar)

What’s voiced versus unvoiced mean?  I glossed over it a little in our lesson on vowel harmony.  Essentially, it’s the difference between B and P, between D and T, and between S and Z.  Voiced consonants vibrate your vocal cords, while unvoiced consonants are just air moving out of your mouth.  Don’t worry too much about this – it’s an orthographical rule for the most part, and your mouth with usually automatically make the correct -dar or -tar.  And, most importantly, even if you mix the two up (or just think you’re mixing them up), people will understand you, and sometimes not even notice.

Finally, we add the full force of Kyrgyz vowel harmony into this for the following *ahem* PLURALITY of permutations (sorry, it was cheap but I went for it):

Vowel: –лар, –лор, –лер, –лөр (-lar, -lor, -ler, -lör)
Voiced: –дар, –дор, –дер, –дөр (-dar, -dor, -der, -dör)
Unvoiced: –тар, –тор, –тер, –төр (-tar, -tor, -ter, -tör)

By the way, practicing repeating these lists of endings is a GREAT way to improve your diction and accent.

Let’s apply this to a few words!

кино (“kino,” movie) becomes кинолор (kinolor)
дос (“dos,” friend) becomes достор (dostor, not doctor!  Compare this to how it works in Uzbek above)
гүл (“gül,” flower or rose) becomes гулдөр (güldör)
банк (“bank” – this is a cognate!) becomes банктар (banktar)
мектеп (“mektep,” school) becomes мектептер (mektepter)
Джинс (“djeens,” jeans) becomes джинстер (djeens-ter, to our eyes, a double plural)
and one of the only irregulars in Kyrgyz:
бала (“bala,” boy) becomes балдар (baldar, also means “children”)

While it seems complicated at first, like vowel harmony, it becomes very simple at first.  And, luckily, in Osh, people are accustomed to using -lar for everything, so don’t sweat it!

The last thing about plurals: Kyrgyz doesn’t have agreement between numerals and nouns.  That means that when you’re talking about a specific number of an object, then the object stays singular.  This is because, in the Kyrgyz mind, by stating that you have a specific number of objects, you’ve already made it clear that there’s more than one.  For example, you say “7 book” instead of “7 books,” and “9 apple” instead of “9 apples.”  But, for approximations, like “about” or “hundreds,” you make the noun plural too.

What parts of Kyrgyz grammar should I discuss next?  Let me know in the comments!

Here’s some more words for you to practice making plural:
стул
терезе
дерахт
сурут
кыз
машина
көз
дары
алма
помидор

4 cars
3 windows
… oh wait, I haven’t taught you numbers yet 🙂 next time!

Looking for more Kyrgyz language lessons?  Check out the entire series here!