466 
THE KILIMA-NJARO EXPEDITION. 
A 
Ol-doinyo oibor (the white mountain), sing.; 
but 
El-doinyon eibor (the white mountains), plur. 
The adjectives, however, remain the same in both 
numbers for feminine and common nouns. 
In Masai, the adjectives always follow the nouns. 
In treating of the prefixes, pronouns, and adjectives, 
I have said so much about the substantive indirectly 
that there remains but little to remark respecting this 
important part of speech. 
In Masai, it seems to me that the substantive 
originates from a verbal-root rather than that it gives 
birth to the verb, as seems to be the case in the com¬ 
mencement of Aryan speech, I shall treat of this 
further when discussing the verb. 
I have already treated of the three genders, or 
classes of nouns, in Masai; I will now briefly explain 
how the plural is formed. This, in the majority of 
substantives, is done by adding h or Id , n or ni 4 to 
the root, with, unless it ends in a vowel or a liquid, a 
vowel in between the root and the plural suffix. As a 
matter of fact, most substantives end in a vowel. 5 
One or two seemingly irregular plurals are formed 
by adding a to the root, or tin* as :— 
Kent, plur. of Ker, “ a sheep.” 
Ewejitin , ,, Eweji , “ a place.” 
Tokitin , ,, Toki, “ a thing.” 
Many collective nouns, or nouns of neuter gender, 
form no plural, or occasionally (and this is also notice¬ 
able in certain adjectives) form a plural by prefixing 
hu. This prefix hi will have been already noticed in 
4 Vide passive of verbs. 6 Vide verbs. 
6 0 is sometimes a plural termination. Compare the plurals in 
Bari given in Mitterrutzner’s Bari Grammar. 
