• IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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    5 months ago

    I’m Ojibway/Cree from northern Ontario in Canada

    In English - a group of moose is just ‘a group of moose’ … as far as I know, I’ve never heard of meese or mooses … or else people just say two moose, three moose, four moose, etc.

    In Ojibway/Cree - one moose is ‘moose’, because moose is an indigenous word … a group of moose in my language is MOOSUK

    • dave@hal9000@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      Very interesting, thanks for sharing. Just curious, is -uk just a general suffix to make anything plural, or this is just a one off thing here?

      • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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        5 months ago

        Yes it is for most words.

        Goose is niska … the plural is niskuk

        Beaver is amisk… the plural is amiskuk

        It’s not a hard rule but it applies to many things, objects and animals.