Guild Wars 2

Now i have been wondering this for quite some time by now.
And multiple discussions have shared this topic in my guild.
What would be the Plural form of norn, charr, asura and sylvari?
Do we change the word as we do with humans?
Since, first of all it sounds odd when talking about multiple norns.
And second, i have been checking the wiki, where in case of the norn they say:
“The norn are a race of nine-foot tall Nordic-like warriors…”
Which makes me think we do -not- change the word.
This is the case for all races, except the humans.
Also when searching (Ctrl+f) for “norns” (or any other excepts humans) in their respective pages nothing comes out.

I’d love to see your opinions on the matter, preferably -why- you think your right.
And if a dev would take a peek, that would be best to once and for all make an end to this discussion.

-Eylim

asurae
humans
charrs
norns
sylvari (singular & plural)

Vol.5241:

asurae
humans
charrs
norns
sylvari (singular & plural)

Can you Substantiate this answer?
Maybe it is an english gammar rule that is/can be applied here that i do not know of.
(I’m not native english)

In the game itself you hear “the Charr”, “the Sylvari”, “the Asura” or “the Asurans”, “the Norn” and “Humans”.

Val’s just joking, I think…

In these cases, it’s actually that the singular and plural form are the same, sans humans. Charr, asura, norn, and sylvari can all be used in singular and plural forms.

If you’re unsure what the plural version is of a race, go to the official wiki’s category for NPCs of the race (seen at the bottom of each race entry or here for GWW and here for GW2W ).

That’s just how ArenaNet set it up – sylvari we were told specifically, but the rest were figured out via in-game dialogue and how developers say the names in interviews and other press releases. Krait, kodan, largos, grawl and skritt – and most other original named races – are all both plural and singular versions too.

As Konig says, pretty much everything except Humans have one name for both the singular and plural names. I’m pretty sure there are linguistic reasons for it being so but I can’t be bothered sitting here and figuring it out. They all naturally would be said as both singular and plural though, but yes in game dialogue and Anet commentaries back them all up.

It’s become convention that races ending in “-an” or “-on” get the plural after the example oh “human → humans” while everything else has a good chances of being the same in singular and plural. This sounds slightly more exotic to our ears. (“This race is so exotic, we don’t even know how to form a plural!”)

This is the fashion right now in fantasy. That wasn’t always the case.

Traditional examples from Tolkien: Tolkien put a great deal of thinking into what the plurals of the race names should be and coined elves, dwarves (as opposed to the grammatically correct “dwarfs”) (although rumour has it he first wanted to used the anicent version, “dwarrows”), orcs, hobbits… Tolkien only used the more exotic sounding singular=plural formula to either create additional mystery (e.g. the Dúnedain), additional threat (e.g. the Nazgûl, the Uruk-Hai) or additional strange-ness (as in “from far away”) (e.g. the Haradrim).

Centaurs is also a word that has been around forever.

It seems a lot more formulaic in modern fantasy/SF, singular = plural is almost the default. Examples from Star Trek:

• Klingon → Klingons
  Romulan → Romulans
  Bajoran → Bajorans, but
• Ferengi → Ferengi
  Borg → Borg
  Ocampa → Ocampa
• Exceptions:
  Kazon → Kazon, for some reason, even though it ends in -on
  Gorn → Gorns (although I assume that if the Gorns had appeared in the Trek of this century (as opposed to 1966), the plural would be “Gorn”)

Other modern examples outside of Star Trek: the Dothraki, the Bravoosi (GRRM also does the “exotic = from far away” thing); the Jedi and Sith, but the Cylons.

Interestingly, the plurals of various races of Defiance are pretty mixed and break this loose rule – but they do have a conlang expert working on the show. It is safe to assume that he put a lot of thought into such issues; my guess is that this is intentional. David J. Peterson is on twitter, I could ask him.

TL;RD: plural = singular has become increasingly popular over the least few decades and is the fashion in fantasy writing right now.

Asura is an old word too… as is norn.
Asura are hindu powerseeking deities.
Norn is a group of female deities in norse mythology, that controls the fate of gods and humans.

Actually after looking up the original meaning of the 2 it seems that traditionally it would be asuras and norns, but then wiki might not always be right.
Personally I just think norn and asura sound better… asuras and norns just sound a bit off.

In Eye of the North cinematics, Norn and Asura were both plural. In Prophecies Charr was plural. It can actually be tricky to find examples where they are referring to groups of individuals and not the race as a whole.

It does seem that Guild Wars writers have always had a fondness for race names where the singular and plural are the same.

Minor races where singular and plural are the same:
Hylek, Skritt, Tengu, Krait, Grawl, Kodan, Dredge, Jotun, Mursaat, Risen, Branded, Icebrood, Afflicted, Heket, Yeti, Djinn

Different:
Quaggans, Ogres, Margonites, Wardens, Centaurs, Harpies, Ettins, Giants, Dwarves

Unclear:
Largos

Note that not all these words originated with ANet, but they did often remove the “s”:
Asuras, Norns and Jotuns.