Independent Plurals for People
In English, we often use words like "many", "some", or "others" on their own to refer to people (e.g., "Many believe that...").
In Dutch, when a quantifier (like veel, sommige, or andere) stands alone without a noun, and it specifically refers to a group of people, it gets an -n suffix.
For example, veel becomes velen (many people) and sommige becomes sommigen (some people).
This also applies to words like anderen (others). Let's see this in the context of group dynamics in a crowd (de menigte) or the masses (de massa).
Standing Out from the Herd
When discussing human behavior, you might talk about herd behavior (het kuddegedrag). We use the exact same -n rule for words like enkelen (a few people) and allen (everyone / all people).
Adjectives as People
This independent -n suffix also applies when you use an adjective on its own to describe a category of people, just like we say "the rich" or "the sick" in English.
For example, ziek (sick) becomes zieken (the sick), and onbekend (unknown) becomes onbekenden (strangers).
Let's put a few of these independent plurals together to describe how people act when they gather!
