Irregular and Mutated Plurals | Afrikaans Grammar

Most Afrikaans plurals are utterly predictable: add -e or -s and you are done (boek → boeke, tafel → tafels). This page is about the minority that are not predictable — the ones where the stem changes shape, takes an unusual ending, or reveals a consonant that the singular had hidden. The good news is that these irregulars are not scattered randomly: they fall into a few learnable groups, several of which are relics of old Dutch neuter nouns and therefore cluster around a recognisable set of everyday words (children, songs, calves, eggs). Learn the groups and the apparent chaos becomes a short, memorisable list. (For the regular system, see forming plurals; for loan plurals, see plurals of loanwords.)

The -ers plural: children, calves, eggs

A small, high-frequency group adds -ers instead of plain -e or -s. These are descendants of Dutch neuter nouns that took an -er- plural, and they cluster tightly around a few concrete, everyday meanings — which is exactly why you can learn them as a set rather than one by one.

Singular	Plural	Meaning
kind	kinders	child → children
kalf	kalwers	calf → calves
lam	lammers	lamb → lambs
eier	eiers	egg → eggs
volk	volkere	nation → nations

The most important of these by far is kind → kinders. It is one of the first irregular plurals every learner meets, and the temptation to "regularise" it to kinde is strong and always wrong.

Die kinders speel buite in die tuin.

The children are playing outside in the garden.

Ons het ses kalwers vanjaar gehad.

We had six calves this year.

Hoeveel eiers het jy nodig vir die koek?

How many eggs do you need for the cake?

Notice kalf → kalwers: the -ers ending also triggers the f-to-w change discussed below — the singular kalf hides a w that surfaces in the plural. We will come back to that.

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The -ers plurals are old Dutch neuter relics, so they cluster in a small semantic set — young creatures and a few basic words: kind, kalf, lam, eier. Don't memorise them as random exceptions; learn them as a themed group of about half a dozen, and you have the whole class.

The -ere plural: songs and a poetic handful

A close cousin adds -ere, and this one is even smaller and slightly more literary in flavour. The flagship word is lied → liedere ("song → songs").

Singular	Plural	Meaning
lied	liedere	song → songs
kind	kindere	children (archaic/literary variant of kinders)
been	beendere	bone → bones (anatomical/collective)
gelid	gelede	rank/row → ranks (military, formal)

Two notes of honesty here. Lied → liedere is the form for "songs" in the sense of composed pieces (hymns, art songs); the everyday diminutive liedjie → liedjies ("little song / tune / pop song") is what you will hear far more in casual speech. And been → beendere is the plural for bones of the body collectively (literary or anatomical); the ordinary plural bene means "legs". The vowel-changed pair below handles the everyday "legs".

Die koor het pragtige liedere gesing.

The choir sang beautiful songs.

Die argeoloë het ou menslike beendere gevind.

The archaeologists found old human bones.

Die soldate het in netjiese gelede gestaan.

The soldiers stood in neat ranks. (gelede, formal/military)

Vowel-change (mutated) plurals: stad, skip, lid

A second group keeps a fairly normal -e ending but changes the stem vowel — a relic of the old short-vowel patterning where the plural opened the syllable and lengthened the vowel. These must be learned individually, but there are only a handful in common use.

Singular	Plural	Meaning	Change
stad	stede	city → cities	a → e
skip	skepe	ship → ships	i → e
lid	lede	member → members	i → e (+ d-voicing)
smid	smede	smith → smiths	i → e (+ d-voicing)

The pattern is consistent: the short stem vowel of the singular (the a of stad, the i of skip) opens into a long e in the plural. There is no rule that predicts which words do this — stad changes but kat does not (katte) — so these four are simply learned.

Kaapstad en Pretoria is groot stede.

Cape Town and Pretoria are big cities. (stad → stede)

Daar lê drie ou skepe in die hawe.

There are three old ships lying in the harbour. (skip → skepe)

Al die lede van die klub was teenwoordig.

All the members of the club were present. (lid → lede)

Consonant alternations: f-to-w and d-voicing

This last group is the subtlest, and it catches English speakers because the change is partly hidden by Afrikaans spelling and final-devoicing. The principle: a stem-final consonant that is devoiced at the end of the singular reappears in its voiced form when the plural ending opens the syllable.

f becomes w

A word ending in -f very often switches that f to a w before the plural ending, because the underlying sound was always a w/v-like consonant that simply gets pronounced as f word-finally:

Singular	Plural	Meaning
graf	grawe	grave → graves
kalf	kalwers	calf → calves
brief	briewe	letter → letters
dief	diewe	thief → thieves

Ons het blomme op die grawe gesit.

We put flowers on the graves. (graf → grawe)

Sy het al my ou briewe gehou.

She kept all my old letters. (brief → briewe)

This is exactly parallel to English thief → thieves, life → lives — the same Germanic alternation, where English writes -ves and Afrikaans writes -we.

d and g reappear, voiced

Similarly, a singular ending in -d is pronounced with a final t (because of final devoicing), but the d comes back, voiced, when the plural ending follows:

Singular (sounds like)	Plural	Meaning
brood (-t)	brode	bread/loaf → loaves
hand (-t)	hande	hand → hands
vriend (-t)	vriende	friend → friends
berg (-ch)	berge	mountain → mountains

Sy bak elke week twee brode.

She bakes two loaves every week. (brood → brode, the d reappears)

Was jou hande voor jy eet.

Wash your hands before you eat. (hand → hande)

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The f-to-w and d-voicing changes are not really "irregular" — they are final devoicing run backwards. The singular hides the voiced consonant (saying graf, broot); the plural ending re-opens the syllable and lets it surface (grawe, brode). If you know the final-devoicing rule, these plurals stop looking like exceptions and start looking inevitable.

A note on the -te / -ens type: lewe

One more small pattern worth flagging: a handful of nouns ending in a vowel take -ns rather than plain -s, most notably lewe → lewens ("life → lives"). This is a remnant ending (the -n was once part of the stem) and applies to only a few words such as lewe (life), so treat it as a memorised item, not a rule to extend.

Die ongeluk het twee lewens geëis.

The accident claimed two lives. (lewe → lewens)

Common mistakes

❌ Die kinde speel buite.

Incorrect — kind pluralises to kinders, not regular *kinde*.

✅ Die kinders speel buite.

The children are playing outside.

❌ Die koor het mooi liede gesing.

Incorrect — the plural of lied is liedere (or, casually, liedjies), never *liede*.

✅ Die koor het mooi liedere gesing.

The choir sang lovely songs.

❌ Ons het blomme op die graffe gesit.

Incorrect — graf changes f to w in the plural: grawe, not *graffe*.

✅ Ons het blomme op die grawe gesit.

We put flowers on the graves.

❌ Sy bak twee broode.

Incorrect — the d resurfaces voiced and the vowel is not doubled: brood → brode.

✅ Sy bak twee brode.

She bakes two loaves.

❌ Kaapstad en Pretoria is groot stadde.

Incorrect — stad mutates its vowel: stad → stede, not a regular doubled-consonant plural.

✅ Kaapstad en Pretoria is groot stede.

Cape Town and Pretoria are big cities.

Key takeaways

The -ers plurals (kinders, kalwers, lammers, eiers) are old Dutch neuter relics — learn them as a small themed group, not random exceptions.
The -ere plurals (liedere, beendere) are smaller and more literary; everyday speech often prefers a diminutive (liedjies).
Vowel-change plurals (stad → stede, skip → skepe, lid → lede) must be learned individually, but there are only a handful.
The f-to-w (graf → grawe, brief → briewe) and d-voicing (brood → brode) alternations are simply final devoicing reversed — predictable once you see the logic.
A few vowel-final nouns take -ns (lewe → lewens) as a memorised exception.

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