A noun is a word that refers to a concrete or abstract object, such as person, tree, house, life and beauty. Like all words in Pandunia, nouns don’t ever change in form. The same word form is always used, no matter whether the referred thing is singular or plural, definite or indefinite, subject or object, etc. Therefore the same Pandunia word form can correspond to many different word forms in English.
haus
– a house, houses, the house, or the houses
mez
– a table, tables, the table, or the tables
korse
– a chair, chairs, the chair, or the chairs
sui
– water, the water
Number and definiteness are often known because they were previously mentioned in the conversation or because they are general knowledge. For example, normally the word sol refers to the sun and lun refers to the moon, our only sun and moon.
Pandunia nouns have the same form in singular (when there is one) and plural (when there is more than one). Therefore all Pandunia nouns are like the English words sheep, deer and fish, which also have only one form though they can refer to one or many things.
In Pandunia, the number is indicated only when it matters and when it is new information. It is done simply by inserting a number or a quantity word before the noun.
meme
– (one or more) sheep
un meme
– a sheep or one sheep
du meme
– two sheep
tri meme
– three sheep
multi meme
– many sheep
korse
– a chair or chairs
un korse
– one chair
du korse
– two chairs
tri korse
– three chairs
multi korse
– many chairs
It is possible to specify plurality also by reduplication, by saying the noun two times.
haus haus
– houses and houses, a variety of houses
buk buk
– books and books, a variety of books
Quantity words should not be used together with reduplication. Therefore, a phrase like tri buk buk would be superfluous, whereas tri buk (‘three books’) is just perfect.
There is so called associative plural in Pandunia. It is expressed by the particle men, and the structure X men means ‘X and other people associated with X’.
Adam men
– Adam and his people
Maria men
– Maria and her people
The same particle is used also for forming the plural personal pronouns.
memen
– we = ‘I and my people’ (not ‘many mes’)
tumen
– you = ‘you and your people’ (not ‘many yous’)
homen
– they = ‘a certain group of associated people’
Proper names are nouns for individual people, places and other things.
Names of people can be tagged with the universal title of respect si. Using it shows respect and politeness. In Pandunia, you use it in front of someone’s name.
It can be used in formal and informal situations and for all age groups, for all social groups and for all sexes and genders. The closest translation for it in English is Mr or Ms or Mx.
There are different customs concerning honorific titles in different cultures. In some cultures it is not polite to use someone’s name without a title of respect. Therefore it is advisable to use si always when you meet new people from different cultures.
A title of respect can be used with a given name, a family name, or both.
si Bili King
– Mx Billy King
si Bili
– Mx Billy
si King
– Mx King
Nouns can end in any vowel or consonant in Pandunia. They don’t have dedicated endings, unlike verbs, adverbs and adjectives do. As a rule of thumb, those words that don’t end in the single vowels -a, -u, -i and -o are nouns. This rule is highly reliable but there are still exceptions to it, including a few cultural loanwords, like piza (‘pizza, an Italian pie with tomato, cheese and other toppings’) and sushi (‘a Japanese dish of rice, seaweed and fish’), and many proper names, like Ana, Marta, Lili, Marko and Lulu.