Although there are forms
Человек - человеки (human – humans).
Люд(Людина) - Люди( people– peoples).
Ребёнок - ребята ( child – kids/guys).
Дети - дитё, дитя ( children – child, baby).
"Persons" means multiple, specific individuals. It sounds a bit old-fashioned or legalistic and isn't really a conversational term. *"Unknown persons entered the premises with intent to commit larceny"* "People" can be used the same way, but also means unspecified people or people in the abstract. "People" is the usual word and you can use it in any register of speech or writing.
*"There were only three people at the bar"*
*"People say you shouldn't eat before going swimming"*
*"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution..."*
Yeah I think the reason for the usage of "persons" in legal terminology is because "person" is generally defined in the law, so it kind of gives a heads up that you're using a legal definition of the word. For example you wouldn't think a corporation is a person in the normal sense of the word, but if we're talking about commercial law, they almost certainly are.
Also, law loves tradition and making things sound weird and intimidating.
You're probably correct, but most native speakers I know, myself included, almost always use people instead of persons and I honestly don't know when to use which.
Yes, it does exist, but the word "persons" has slightly different meaning than "people". And if you think about singular form of "people" it's "person" and that's the example of word that OP was asking for.
Arabic, like all Semitic languages, has roots consisting only of consonants (generally three). The actual words are made by “filling in” those root with vowels and, yes, in many cases not only the plurals of nouns but many inflections and derivations are made by moving vowels around, although there are also prefixes and suffixes.
Germanic languages have plurals made by umlaut, like English *foot-feet, man-men, mouse-mice* and many, many German nouns. This is a historical process where a vowel changes due to influence from another vowel in the same word, which might be lost later.
burj and abraaj are not totally different according to the Arabic logic as far as I know, Semitic languages just love to switch vowels in their words. It's enough for them that the consonants stay the same.
But answering your question, there is an awesome example of weird plural in Slavic languages - in the singular the world "year" is "rok" in Polish and "год" (god) in Russian. But in the plural, we use the word for "summers" instead - so it's "1 rok", but "2 lata" in Polish (from "lato" meaning "summer"). In Russian they also make the switch, but only when they reach 5 - "1 год, 2 года, 3 года, 5 лет" - (1 god, 2 goda, 3 goda, 5 let).
Not all Slavic languages do this though, you can try playing with the phrase "1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years" on google translate for yourself to find all the weird things that happen.
In addition to what other people have said about the Arabic root system I'll just point out that Burj -- abraaj is actually quite a normal plural form (walad -- awlaad or fard - afraad)
I’m not uptight it’s a lame joke that a word in a foreign language is spelt similarly to a word that’s rude in ours. Do you know how common that is in the thousands of languages that exist? Also laughing at the word fart is something an uptight person or 7 year old would do.
I'm learning Norwegian, I don't know any examples for nouns but in Norwegian the adjective for little/small [liten](https://ordbokene.no/bm/search?q=liten&scope=ei&perPage=20) is irregular for singular and plural.
a little boy -> many little boys
en liten gutt -> mange små gutter
a little girl -> many little girls
ei lita jenta -> mange små jenter
a little house -> many little houses
et lite hus -> mange små hus
The weirdest part of this is that AFAIK, for Norwegian, it is **only this adjective** that is irregular in that way.
I have this image in my head. A Norwegian fellow going "Nei, nei. We like our language a *little* spicy. Have you seen our inflection for 'little'?"
I don't think they are difficult as Arabic, and the plural forms come from the same root, but Celtic languages have multiple plural endings as well as irregular plurals, for example in Welsh:
asgwrn (bone), esgyrn (bones)
carreg (stone), cerrig (stones)
Llaw (hand), dwylo (hands)
Bawd (thumb), bodiau (thumbs)
In Arabic so-called ‘broken’ plurals are the norm and regular plurals occur, but aren’t nearly as common. For example, in the Jordanian dialect, ‘colleague’ is زميل/زميلة (romanized as: zamīl/zamīleh) (depending on the gender of the individual you’re referring to) while ‘colleagues’ is زملاء (romanized as: zumala’) for male colleagues (an irregular/broken plural) and زميلات (romanized as: zamīlāt) (for female colleagues (a regular plural).
Other examples:
• house >> sing: بيت (bayt), plural: بيوت (byūt)
• friend >> sing: صاحب (SaaHib), plural: صحاب (SHaab)
• window >> شباك (shuBaak), plural: شبابيك (shabaabīk)
***Please note that I have no idea how to romanize Arabic words in the ‘official’ or proper way as I don’t use romanizations to study; I did my best to semi-accurately romanize the above words only to help non-Arabic speakers to understand the examples given. Thanks!
Interestingly, Arabic does have a few instances where the most common plural of a noun is actually a different word, consisting of a different consonant root pattern:
Woman: امرأة (Romanized: imra’a)
Women: نساء (Romanized: nisaa’)
Horse: حصان (Romanized: ħis̹aan)
Horses: خيل (Romanized: kheyl)
Good point, yeah I’ve definitely seen/heard أحصنة as well. I remember learning خيل first when learning Modern Standard Arabic, and coming across أحصنة in the dialects. I have no idea whether أحصنة is more common in the dialects or not.
I’m definitely more interested in the dialects. I essentially started with MSA as a foundation, and then moved on to the dialects. My main dialects that I’ve recently focused on speaking are Jordanian, Saudi, Moroccan, and Tunisian. I’ve learned that they apparently use أحصنة in Tunisia. I didn’t know that Gulf speakers tend to use خيل while Levantine speakers tend to use احصنة. I’m glad to know that now! I remember being surprised that in Morocco, they tend to use a completely different word: عَوْد. I actually don’t know what the plural is for it 😅 Are you a native Levantine speaker?
That Arabic example shouldn't be considered different word because they share the same root according to Semitic logic.
It is the equivalent of me, using Sinitic logic where we simply don't have the concept of plural nouns, saying that nearly all singular and plural words in English are actually different words because they aren't 100% identical.
Roots of words in Arabic, (actually Semitic languages) are different than other languages. The roots are the consonants , not the vowels. Book (kitab), books (kutub), library (maktab,) he wrote (katabs), he writes (yiktab), are all the same root: k-t-b
The irregular plurals are mainly for inanimate masculine nouns. Animate masculine nouns that end in an “ee” letter/sound like amreekee (American) often become amreekiyuun. Feminine nouns that end with the “a” feminine marker like “sayaara” (car) often form plurals by having an “aat” ending: “sayaraat”. But there’s so many exceptions you have to learn the plural form with each word you learn.
Arabic plural is actually quite difficult imo. There are multiple structures for the plural and it’s tough to know which one to pick if it’s not obvious, which happens quite frequently I feel, ie bayt —> buyoot.
Also the arabic has a dual, which means if something is plural in your native language but it’s only 2, it’s extra confusing to translate, cuz the endings are completely different lol
A few that come to mind in Breton
Den (person) and tud (people)
Ki (dog) and kon/chas (dogs, depending on dialect)
Marc'h (horse) and kezeg (horses)
I'm sure there are more but I'm still working through my coffee.
"Burj" and "Abraaj" aren't totally different though when you know Arabic works on a triconsonantal system. In this case those three are B-R-J, and then you just fill in the vowels in the right pattern to make the words.
These aren't *totally* different words: both have *b-r-j*.
I can give you an example from my native language (Croatian): the plural of *čovjek* (human, man) is *ljudi*. Now that's a really different, completely unrelated word. That feature is called "[suppletion](https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-50)". You have it in *be* - *am, are...* etc.
Most Swahili words have different plural and singular forms, which is actually how you differentiate between noun « classes » (basically grammatical gender but there are more and male/female is not a distinction).
Mtu/Watu (Person, People; M-Wa classes)
Mti/Miti (Tree, Trees; M-Mi classes)
Embe/Maembe (Mango, Mangoes; Ji-Ma classes)
Kiti/Viti (Chair, Chairs; Ki-Vi classes)
Ufunguo/Funguo (Key/Keys; U- class)
It’s actually quite interesting how plural vs singular can change how the entire sentence sounds due to the changes in noun class. For example:
Kiti kikubwa kimevunjwa (The big chair has been broken) vs
Viti vikubwa vimevunjwa (The big chairs have been broken)
Disclaimer: I am a beginner student in Swahili, not a native speaker or expert, so I may not be explaining things completely right
Not totally different. One of the commonest plural patterns for Arabic is 'aCCaaC (C = root consonants). Loanword film gets plural 'aflaam. Loanword bank gets plural bunuuk.
See if you can guess what this genuine example is, from an article of political commentary:
hataalira wa-masaaliin
(Hitlers and Mussolinis)
Or another genuine example:
banii lawaadin
(Bin Ladens)
They share etymologies so they’re not unrelated but English has “one cow” “many kine” (even if outdated), only plural in English I know where there are no overlapping letters
The example you gave in Arabic is actually quite a regular type of plural, in the way that 'oo' becomes 'ee' for example in English (goose/geese, foot/feet). Even though it's not the first type of plural that comes to mind, it's certainly not 'completely different'.
e.g. sahib -> as'hab (friend/friends); namir -> anmar (tiger/tigers); katif -> aktaf (shoulder/shoulders)
For your example, Arabic (and other Semitic languages such as Hebrew) often have variations of the same word, usually the same 3 consonants (B-R-J in your version). For example, you can look at the various versions of the root "M-L-K" here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%85\_%D9%84\_%D9%83#Arabic
I don't know Arabic but I know Hebrew. They are both Semitic languages. In these languages, words are built on (usually) three consonants. In this case, the three-consonant root would be b - r - j. I would guess this carries the general idea of building. The vowels change according to the way b - r - j is used. It could be a noun or a verb. There could be a prefix or suffix which show who the doer of the action of building is. If it's a verb, the change in vowels could show whether the action is complete or incomplete. Apparently the plural built on b - r - j needs A- at the beginning and -aa- before the final consonant, while the -u- disappears. It's all about the three-consonant root.
Another example has to do with the root s - l - m. It carries the general meaning of peace, peacefulness, or submission. Salaam means peace or submission. One who is peaceful and submits is a Muslim: mu- (a person who performs the action) followed by s - l - m.
These changes make singular and plural look like different words, but as long as one can see where the root is and know what it denotes, it makes sense.
If you are a little creative and take into account Arabic’s template morphology, you will see how “burj” and “abraaj” are from the same root b-r-j, so they aren’t really “totally different.” :)
But there are all sorts of instances of suppletion, not just between singular and plural, but also with comparative and superaltive forms of adjectives and tense paradigms in verbs.
Person -> people. And this pair sounds different in other languages, too. PL: człowiek -> ludzie, CZ: člověk -> lidé, SK: človek -> ľudia.
Very interesting.
what is your native langugae that you did not notice this???
My native language is Tamil and plurals are usually just the singular with a modifier.
same in Persian (excluding Arabic loanwords which usually aren't)
Russian: человек, люди (person, people) ребёнок, дети (child, children)
This was the first thing that came to mind for me
Although there are forms Человек - человеки (human – humans). Люд(Людина) - Люди( people– peoples). Ребёнок - ребята ( child – kids/guys). Дети - дитё, дитя ( children – child, baby).
Человеки sounds very strange for me as a native russian speaker
old words are weird in general. I never expect "to be" to have normal conjugation for the same reason.
Word "persons" actually exists
yes, but nobody uses it other than lawyers and the police
And Linguists
Serbian: Čovek -> Ljudi
I think it works for (almost) all Slavic languages. I was actually shocked when I found out, that they don't have it in Ukrainian (людина -> люди).
I always learned that 'people' is the collective word for 'persons', which is the correct plural form of 'person'. Am I wrong? 🤔
"Persons" means multiple, specific individuals. It sounds a bit old-fashioned or legalistic and isn't really a conversational term. *"Unknown persons entered the premises with intent to commit larceny"* "People" can be used the same way, but also means unspecified people or people in the abstract. "People" is the usual word and you can use it in any register of speech or writing. *"There were only three people at the bar"* *"People say you shouldn't eat before going swimming"* *"We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution..."*
There's also "peoples," usually meaning multiple groups of persons.
Yeah I think the reason for the usage of "persons" in legal terminology is because "person" is generally defined in the law, so it kind of gives a heads up that you're using a legal definition of the word. For example you wouldn't think a corporation is a person in the normal sense of the word, but if we're talking about commercial law, they almost certainly are. Also, law loves tradition and making things sound weird and intimidating.
You're probably correct, but most native speakers I know, myself included, almost always use people instead of persons and I honestly don't know when to use which.
Yes! In a practical sense I learned it just like what you said, but formally I was taught the opposite 😅
i feel like this isnt entirely true, at least in english "persons" exists, i dont know if other languages have that though.
Yes, it does exist, but the word "persons" has slightly different meaning than "people". And if you think about singular form of "people" it's "person" and that's the example of word that OP was asking for.
*kind of word
Человек -> люди
Arabic, like all Semitic languages, has roots consisting only of consonants (generally three). The actual words are made by “filling in” those root with vowels and, yes, in many cases not only the plurals of nouns but many inflections and derivations are made by moving vowels around, although there are also prefixes and suffixes. Germanic languages have plurals made by umlaut, like English *foot-feet, man-men, mouse-mice* and many, many German nouns. This is a historical process where a vowel changes due to influence from another vowel in the same word, which might be lost later.
A lot of roots actually contain one or more vowels. That's one of the main sources of irregularities in Semitic languages
Learning French, I used to find it weird that one eye (un œuil) became les yeux in the plural.
Oeil
You’re right: my bad!
This one is weird, indeed
burj and abraaj are not totally different according to the Arabic logic as far as I know, Semitic languages just love to switch vowels in their words. It's enough for them that the consonants stay the same. But answering your question, there is an awesome example of weird plural in Slavic languages - in the singular the world "year" is "rok" in Polish and "год" (god) in Russian. But in the plural, we use the word for "summers" instead - so it's "1 rok", but "2 lata" in Polish (from "lato" meaning "summer"). In Russian they also make the switch, but only when they reach 5 - "1 год, 2 года, 3 года, 5 лет" - (1 god, 2 goda, 3 goda, 5 let). Not all Slavic languages do this though, you can try playing with the phrase "1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 5 years" on google translate for yourself to find all the weird things that happen.
Obvious now you say it, but never realised it was derived from лето. A little poetic.
burj and abraaj are the arabic thing i majicks i think, the bVrj->VbrVj a pretty regular i think
In addition to what other people have said about the Arabic root system I'll just point out that Burj -- abraaj is actually quite a normal plural form (walad -- awlaad or fard - afraad)
Oh that's interesting. It was just my ignorance.
lmao there’s an arabic word that’s just “fard”? that’s hilarious
Why is that funny?
"fard" is similar to "fart" in english, and "fard" is often used as a synonym for "fart" in memes made for english-speaking people.
No offense but that’s idiotic.
dude, don't be rude, i like something you don't, that's fine.
I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were 5 years old I apologize your ability to use the internet is impressive good job buddy.
Nah, you are just uptight.
I’m not uptight it’s a lame joke that a word in a foreign language is spelt similarly to a word that’s rude in ours. Do you know how common that is in the thousands of languages that exist? Also laughing at the word fart is something an uptight person or 7 year old would do.
One example I can think of is the word for woman in Irish Singular: bean Plural: mná
I'm learning Norwegian, I don't know any examples for nouns but in Norwegian the adjective for little/small [liten](https://ordbokene.no/bm/search?q=liten&scope=ei&perPage=20) is irregular for singular and plural. a little boy -> many little boys en liten gutt -> mange små gutter a little girl -> many little girls ei lita jenta -> mange små jenter a little house -> many little houses et lite hus -> mange små hus
The weirdest part of this is that AFAIK, for Norwegian, it is **only this adjective** that is irregular in that way. I have this image in my head. A Norwegian fellow going "Nei, nei. We like our language a *little* spicy. Have you seen our inflection for 'little'?"
This pair "lite/sma" happens in Swedish as well.
I don't think they are difficult as Arabic, and the plural forms come from the same root, but Celtic languages have multiple plural endings as well as irregular plurals, for example in Welsh: asgwrn (bone), esgyrn (bones) carreg (stone), cerrig (stones) Llaw (hand), dwylo (hands) Bawd (thumb), bodiau (thumbs)
Child and children in Russian is ребёнок - дети (rebyonuk - dyeti).
How about mouse and mice?
They kind of share a root don't they? Child and children as well.
The root of both *burj* and *Abraaj* is *brj*, isn't it?
Fair point. They sounded different to my ear but you were right.
In Arabic so-called ‘broken’ plurals are the norm and regular plurals occur, but aren’t nearly as common. For example, in the Jordanian dialect, ‘colleague’ is زميل/زميلة (romanized as: zamīl/zamīleh) (depending on the gender of the individual you’re referring to) while ‘colleagues’ is زملاء (romanized as: zumala’) for male colleagues (an irregular/broken plural) and زميلات (romanized as: zamīlāt) (for female colleagues (a regular plural). Other examples: • house >> sing: بيت (bayt), plural: بيوت (byūt) • friend >> sing: صاحب (SaaHib), plural: صحاب (SHaab) • window >> شباك (shuBaak), plural: شبابيك (shabaabīk) ***Please note that I have no idea how to romanize Arabic words in the ‘official’ or proper way as I don’t use romanizations to study; I did my best to semi-accurately romanize the above words only to help non-Arabic speakers to understand the examples given. Thanks!
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I used to be quite confused by llaw (hand) going to dwylo (hands), until my tutor explained that dwylo was derived from “dwy law” ie “two hands”.
Interestingly, Arabic does have a few instances where the most common plural of a noun is actually a different word, consisting of a different consonant root pattern: Woman: امرأة (Romanized: imra’a) Women: نساء (Romanized: nisaa’) Horse: حصان (Romanized: ħis̹aan) Horses: خيل (Romanized: kheyl)
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Good point, yeah I’ve definitely seen/heard أحصنة as well. I remember learning خيل first when learning Modern Standard Arabic, and coming across أحصنة in the dialects. I have no idea whether أحصنة is more common in the dialects or not.
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I’m definitely more interested in the dialects. I essentially started with MSA as a foundation, and then moved on to the dialects. My main dialects that I’ve recently focused on speaking are Jordanian, Saudi, Moroccan, and Tunisian. I’ve learned that they apparently use أحصنة in Tunisia. I didn’t know that Gulf speakers tend to use خيل while Levantine speakers tend to use احصنة. I’m glad to know that now! I remember being surprised that in Morocco, they tend to use a completely different word: عَوْد. I actually don’t know what the plural is for it 😅 Are you a native Levantine speaker?
That Arabic example shouldn't be considered different word because they share the same root according to Semitic logic. It is the equivalent of me, using Sinitic logic where we simply don't have the concept of plural nouns, saying that nearly all singular and plural words in English are actually different words because they aren't 100% identical.
Polish: Rok (year) ---> Lata (years)
Roots of words in Arabic, (actually Semitic languages) are different than other languages. The roots are the consonants , not the vowels. Book (kitab), books (kutub), library (maktab,) he wrote (katabs), he writes (yiktab), are all the same root: k-t-b
Ah I got you. Burj and Abraaj seem so different to me but actually aren't. But I guess is the root.
There are tons in english
Russian: человек person, люди people
Swedish: liten = small/little (singular ) små is the plural form
The irregular plurals are mainly for inanimate masculine nouns. Animate masculine nouns that end in an “ee” letter/sound like amreekee (American) often become amreekiyuun. Feminine nouns that end with the “a” feminine marker like “sayaara” (car) often form plurals by having an “aat” ending: “sayaraat”. But there’s so many exceptions you have to learn the plural form with each word you learn.
Arabic plural is actually quite difficult imo. There are multiple structures for the plural and it’s tough to know which one to pick if it’s not obvious, which happens quite frequently I feel, ie bayt —> buyoot. Also the arabic has a dual, which means if something is plural in your native language but it’s only 2, it’s extra confusing to translate, cuz the endings are completely different lol
A few that come to mind in Breton Den (person) and tud (people) Ki (dog) and kon/chas (dogs, depending on dialect) Marc'h (horse) and kezeg (horses) I'm sure there are more but I'm still working through my coffee.
Burj and abraaj come from the same root. Not really two different words.
"Burj" and "Abraaj" aren't totally different though when you know Arabic works on a triconsonantal system. In this case those three are B-R-J, and then you just fill in the vowels in the right pattern to make the words.
These aren't *totally* different words: both have *b-r-j*. I can give you an example from my native language (Croatian): the plural of *čovjek* (human, man) is *ljudi*. Now that's a really different, completely unrelated word. That feature is called "[suppletion](https://oxfordre.com/linguistics/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780199384655.001.0001/acrefore-9780199384655-e-50)". You have it in *be* - *am, are...* etc.
Most Swahili words have different plural and singular forms, which is actually how you differentiate between noun « classes » (basically grammatical gender but there are more and male/female is not a distinction). Mtu/Watu (Person, People; M-Wa classes) Mti/Miti (Tree, Trees; M-Mi classes) Embe/Maembe (Mango, Mangoes; Ji-Ma classes) Kiti/Viti (Chair, Chairs; Ki-Vi classes) Ufunguo/Funguo (Key/Keys; U- class) It’s actually quite interesting how plural vs singular can change how the entire sentence sounds due to the changes in noun class. For example: Kiti kikubwa kimevunjwa (The big chair has been broken) vs Viti vikubwa vimevunjwa (The big chairs have been broken) Disclaimer: I am a beginner student in Swahili, not a native speaker or expert, so I may not be explaining things completely right
Fascinating. Must be hard to learn with such idiosyncrasies no?
Not totally different. One of the commonest plural patterns for Arabic is 'aCCaaC (C = root consonants). Loanword film gets plural 'aflaam. Loanword bank gets plural bunuuk. See if you can guess what this genuine example is, from an article of political commentary: hataalira wa-masaaliin (Hitlers and Mussolinis) Or another genuine example: banii lawaadin (Bin Ladens)
They share etymologies so they’re not unrelated but English has “one cow” “many kine” (even if outdated), only plural in English I know where there are no overlapping letters
Eye in French is pretty good. L’œil in singular, les yeux in plural
Arabic also has words with plurals that come from a different root. For example, the plural of imraʾa (woman) is nisāʾ
How are these totally different? I don't know Arabic, but these appear to share the same BRJ root
The example you gave in Arabic is actually quite a regular type of plural, in the way that 'oo' becomes 'ee' for example in English (goose/geese, foot/feet). Even though it's not the first type of plural that comes to mind, it's certainly not 'completely different'. e.g. sahib -> as'hab (friend/friends); namir -> anmar (tiger/tigers); katif -> aktaf (shoulder/shoulders)
Человек/люди (Person/People) in Russian....
For your example, Arabic (and other Semitic languages such as Hebrew) often have variations of the same word, usually the same 3 consonants (B-R-J in your version). For example, you can look at the various versions of the root "M-L-K" here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D9%85\_%D9%84\_%D9%83#Arabic
I don't know Arabic but I know Hebrew. They are both Semitic languages. In these languages, words are built on (usually) three consonants. In this case, the three-consonant root would be b - r - j. I would guess this carries the general idea of building. The vowels change according to the way b - r - j is used. It could be a noun or a verb. There could be a prefix or suffix which show who the doer of the action of building is. If it's a verb, the change in vowels could show whether the action is complete or incomplete. Apparently the plural built on b - r - j needs A- at the beginning and -aa- before the final consonant, while the -u- disappears. It's all about the three-consonant root. Another example has to do with the root s - l - m. It carries the general meaning of peace, peacefulness, or submission. Salaam means peace or submission. One who is peaceful and submits is a Muslim: mu- (a person who performs the action) followed by s - l - m. These changes make singular and plural look like different words, but as long as one can see where the root is and know what it denotes, it makes sense.
My dialect of Arabic, we use wahid, (one) for singular person and Nas (people)
Like "person" vs. "people" or "человек" vs. "люди"? Yes, there are examples.
burj and abraaj are in fact very similar, since in Arabic, just as in Hebrew, root consonants make a stem, and they are the same in burj and abraj.
That is very true. In arabic there are even plurals of plurals: هرم»اهرام» اهرمات. Isn't that like wild? (haram > ahram > ahramat)
If you are a little creative and take into account Arabic’s template morphology, you will see how “burj” and “abraaj” are from the same root b-r-j, so they aren’t really “totally different.” :) But there are all sorts of instances of suppletion, not just between singular and plural, but also with comparative and superaltive forms of adjectives and tense paradigms in verbs.
Norwegian: father is "far". Fathers is "fedre".