The plural in Arabic - الْجَمْعُ | Arabic Free Course

Introduction

There are two types of plurals in Arabic:

• اَلْجَمْعُ السَّالِمُ — the regular plural
• اَلْجَمْعُ الْمُكَسَّرُ — the broken plural

The Regular Plural اَلْجَمْعُ السَّالِمُ

The Regular Masculine Plural

In forming the regular plural, the original form of the noun does not change. The regular plural has different endings for masculine and feminine nouns. For the masculine, in the nominative case, it is formed by adding:

وْنَ

and in the accusative and genitive cases:

يْنَ

Examples

Nominative Case

Accusative Case

Genitive Case

The Regular Feminine Plural

For the regular feminine plural, we add:

اتٌ

in the nominative case, and:

اتٍ

in the accusative and genitive cases.

Examples

Note

In the singular, the nominative, accusative, and genitive cases are indicated by the final vowel (haraka):

-ٌ, -ً, -ٍ

In dual and plural forms, the grammatical cases are marked by the ending letters such as:

وْنَ, يْنَ, انِ

Quranic Example

إِنَّ الْمُسْلِمِينَ وَالْمُسْلِمَاتِ.

The Muslim men and the Muslim women, the believing men and the believing women… Allah has prepared for them a great reward. (33:35)

The Broken Plural اَلْجَمْعُ الْمُكَسَّرُ

Unlike regular plurals, the broken plural changes the internal structure of the word by adding or removing letters.

Example with the word كِتَابٌ (book)

Other Examples

Quranic Examples

وَجَنَّاتٌ تَجْرِي مِن تَحْتِهَا الْأَنْهَارُ

And gardens beneath which rivers flow. (3:136)

أَأَرْبَابٌ مُّتَفَرِّقُونَ خَيْرٌ أَمِ اللَّـهُ الْوَاحِدُ الْقَهَّارُ

Are many lords better, or Allah, the One, the Dominant? (12:39)

وَالْجِبَالَ أَوْتَادًا

And the mountains as pegs? (78:7)

Conclusion

This free Arabic lesson is now complete. The next one will be about Arabic pronouns.

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