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This bugs me a lot. What is the formal plural form of Khajiit? Khajiiti or Khajiits or something different? Also, how do you make a plural out of all the Khajiit breeds, especially those that end with -raht?

And while we're at it, what is the plural of Bosmer? How about Daedroth? Is it Daedra?

Confident it's just Khajiit. Just like deer. But honestly I'm just educated guessing.

One wonders how you learned about the Word Daedroth withouth learning that it's the plural form, lol.

Bosmer, as with other mer, is Bosmer.

I thought this was a Daedroth.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Image:OB-Creature-Daedroth.jpg

daedroth is type of daedra

tho
Linguists will point out that "Daedroth" is also the proper singular of "Daedra", but common usage is Daedroth (singular) and Daedroths (plural) for these creatures, and Daedra (both singular and plural) as the generic term. It is unknown if Daedroth have a more proper, specific name.

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore%3a%44aedroth#Daedroth

None of those words exist for real, so you can say khajiits, daedroths, daedras, bosmers, and so on.

Wow, way to keep up the lore-forum spirit, Gez. -_-

:P

Khajiit = Khajiit. Khajiiti seems to mean "relating to Khajiit".
Daedra = either both singular or plural (see: sheep), or plural with "Daedroth" as the singular. Not to be confused with...
Daedroth (the crocodilian kind) = Daedroths
Bosmer (or Altmer or Dwemer or Maomer or Falmer or Dunmer) = Bosmer (or Altmer or Dwemer or Maomer or Falmer or Dunmer)
Atronatch (just saying, because it's confused others) = Atronatchs

That's me, Captain Plural.

Hardly useful, but still:

Ever since I heard some Khajiit refer to themselves in third person simply by the word "Khajiit", I have always been playing with the idea that in Ta'Agra, the singular of a non-proper noun may simultaneously also refer to all imaginable nondescript instances of that noun.

But that doesn't really answer the question anyway...

Atronach, atronachs.

I've heard somewhere something about Khajiti and Bosmeri being used when describing more then one. I could be wrong though.

"Khajiiti" and "Bosmeri" are adjectives, not plural nouns. I would not say "Jeez, those Bosmeri are really pissing me off!". I would actually say "Jeez, those Bosmer are really pissing me off!"

I would use "Bosmeri"/"Khajiiti" when describing something made by that race ("That Khajiiti shortblade is really sharp") or by relating an attribute to that race ("You have Khajiiti reflexes").

Now class, open your workbooks to page 52...

That's because honestly this isn't the type of lore that I find important. It's basically http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CallARabbitASmeerp. "They're not robots! They're struglumphs!" Okay so far. Very smeerpish, but if it's justified by the fact that they're fleshed out and different enough from the archetypal thing, I can accept it. "The singular is actually straglorfst, and the adjective is strugnupugfti!" Well now it's just gratuitous smeerping.

Give us details about them, not gratuitously irregular rules for their names. Or, back it up with some solid philological work; but not everybody is Tolkien.

Pfft. Everyone knows the plural of Khajiit is Kitten-Gets-High.

I would say it`s rather Bosmerian/Khajiiti

Adjective forms of other mer have the "i" suffix added. Ex: Aldmeri, Aldmeri, Dunmeri, Chimeri. So, it's not a stretch of the imagination to do it with Bosmer as well.

Not everbody is Tolkien - he studied and taught ancient tongues in a serious way - but I guess all the linguistic bits in the addenda to LotR he wrote were smeerping too?

Bassically if you create an alien species / fantasy species, whatever then their language can create or destroy immersion as well as defining their nature.

The way you use language - including names adds to the quality of experience for most people ... you can be trite about it, but then you are not going to be able to enjoy what others enjoy - your choice.

Tolkein did not superfluously redefine the commonplace.

What I was trying to say is that it's okay to make up words for made-up things; but when you decide that these words are irregular just because, it's dumb.

I mean, I can understand if you want an irregular for a race of snakefolk called Slassesses. A regular English plural on that would give something like Slassessesses, which would just not look right. (Of course, in this example it would probably be better to call them Slassess and thus make Slassesses the plural, but whatever.)

There's an abuse in fantasy to make names that have no plural form. A mer, many mer. A khajiit, many khajiit. It's not just in TES; there are many examples in D&D, to give the most famous: a drow, many drow. How does your made-up word suffer if you give it a regular plural so that you get many mers, many khajiits, many drows?


Now, Tolkien, by the way, did redefine plurals. Because of his influence, people don't say elfs and dwarfs anymore but elves and dwarves. I'm cutting him some slack for this though because it was based on existing rules of the English language (see wolf, wolves for example) and because he wanted to give some dignity back to these folk by moving them back towards their old mythic roots, away from the rather silly things that Keebler Elfs and the Seven Dwarfs had become. So it wasn't completely superfluous.

Nicely put Gez - I guess you have now had your morning coffee

A writer's business is redefining and discovering etc




With all due respect - if it is that important - he did ... or if you prefer, one man's commonplace is another man's extraordinary.

Allow me to repeat a RL documentary's findings:

The people of the Orkney Isles on the northern tip of Scotland were 'bedevilled' by strange noises in the middle of the night at certain times of the year ... but when they went to investigate they found nothing - but that the noises seemed to come from deep in the bowels of the land ... so they decided that these had to be made by evil or malevolent spirits / beings etc ... they called them Orcs. Not to be confused with Orcas = whales ... k?

Well a team of scientists visited the islands and discovered that the noises were made by tiny, nocturnal sea-dwelling birds that only came to land to roost in the inaccessible-to-the-islanders caverns beneath the islands.

JRR's fearsome Orcs were actually tiny seabirds ...

I'm sure that the islanders knew the truth and just propagated a tale to impress the Vikings and others that the people of the Orcneys were powerful in magic and not to be messed about with ... The commonplace.

What JRR and the Islanders did do was to make the commonplace seem wonderful/terrible etc ...

... and to folks here the spellings of things can be fascinating - and why not?

Khajiit should be the plural. Khajaat should be the singular.

Technically maybe you have a case - but I sorta feel that Khajiit is more feline, and expression is sometimes what it's really about.

How so?

Here's what lore says about the etymology of "Khajiit":


Not only is the -iit form clearly used for the singular, but nothing supports another form like -aat instead.

I think it's just Khajiit for any referance.

Khajiit = singular
Khajiit = plural
Khajiit like = describing traits of likeness of a khajiit
Khajiit or Khajiit made/forged = when describing things made by or in the likeness of a Khajiit. IE. Khajiit sword, Khajiit bow. Khajiiti just seems wrong to me.

But, yet, the word exists in-game. It's used, for example, in the name of a daedric artifact. We're merely trying to deliniate its usage from any other possible conjugations of the root word Khajiit.

You're forgetting the hyphens. Khajiit-like, Khajiit-made.

Hyphens are more important than one would think: compare "horse-riding nomads" and "horses riding nomads"... Something is seriously wrong in the second phrase.