Editing Indonesian language (section)

=== Nouns ===
Common derivational affixes for nouns are peng-/per-/juru- (actor, instrument, or someone characterized by the root), -an (collectivity, similarity, object, place, instrument), ke-...-an (abstractions and qualities, collectivities), per-/peng-...-an (abstraction, place, goal or result).

==== Gender ====
Indonesian does not make use of [[grammatical gender]], and there are only selected words that use natural [[Grammatical gender|gender]]. For instance, the same word is used for ''he/him'' and ''she/her'' ({{lang|id|dia}} or {{lang|id|ia}}) or for ''his'' and ''her'' ({{lang|id|dia}}, {{lang|id|ia}} or {{lang|id|-nya}}). No real distinction is made between "girlfriend" and "boyfriend", both of which can be referred to as {{lang|id|pacar}} (although more colloquial terms as {{lang|id|cewek}} girl/girlfriend and {{lang|id|cowok}} boy/boyfriend can also be found). A majority of Indonesian words that refer to people generally have a form that does not distinguish between the natural genders. However, unlike English, distinction is made between older or younger.

There are some words that have gender: for instance, {{lang|id|putri}} means "daughter" while {{lang|id|putra}} means "son"; {{lang|id|pramugara}} means "male flight attendant" while {{lang|id|pramugari}} means "female flight attendant". Another example is {{lang|id|olahragawan}}, which means "sportsman", versus {{lang|id|olahragawati}}, meaning "sportswoman". Often, words like these (or certain suffixes such as "-a" and "-i" or "-wan" and "wati") are absorbed from other languages (in these cases, from [[Sanskrit]]).
In some regions of Indonesia such as Sumatra and Jakarta, {{lang|id|abang}} (a gender-specific term meaning "older brother") is commonly used as a form of address for older siblings/males, while {{lang|id|kakak}} (a non-gender specific term meaning "older sibling") is often used to mean "older sister". Similarly, more direct influences from other languages, such as Javanese and Chinese, have also seen further use of other gendered words in Indonesian. For example: {{lang|jv|Mas}} ("older brother"), {{lang|jv|Mbak}} ("older sister"), {{lang|jv|Koko}} ("older brother") and {{lang|jv|Cici}} ("older sister").

==== Number ====
Indonesian grammar does not regularly mark [[plural]]s. In Indonesian, to change a singular into a plural one either repeats the word or adds {{lang|id|para}} before it (the latter for living things only); for example, "students" can be either {{lang|id|murid-murid}} or {{lang|id|para murid}}. Plurals are rarely used in Indonesian, especially in informal parlance. Reduplication is often mentioned as the formal way to express the plural form of nouns in Indonesian; however, in informal daily discourse, speakers of Indonesian usually use other methods to indicate the concept of something being "more than one". Reduplication may also indicate the conditions of variety and diversity as well, and not simply plurality.

[[Reduplication]] is commonly used to emphasise plurality; however, reduplication has many other functions. For example, {{lang|id|orang-orang}} means "(all the) people", but {{lang|id|orang-orangan}} means "scarecrow". Similarly, while {{lang|id|hati}} means "heart" or "liver", {{lang|id|hati-hati}} is a verb meaning "to be careful". Also, not all reduplicated words are inherently plural, such as {{lang|id|orang-orangan}} "scarecrow/scarecrows", {{lang|id|biri-biri}} "a/some sheep" and {{lang|id|kupu-kupu}} "butterfly/butterflies". Some reduplication is rhyming rather than exact, as in {{lang|id|sayur-mayur}} "(all sorts of) vegetables".

Distributive affixes derive mass nouns that are effectively plural: {{lang|id|pohon}} "tree", {{lang|id|pepohonan}} "flora, trees"; {{lang|id|rumah}} "house", {{lang|id|perumahan}} "housing, houses"; {{lang|id|gunung}} "mountain", {{lang|id|pegunungan}} "mountain range, mountains".

Quantity words come before the noun: {{lang|id|seribu orang}} "a thousand people", {{lang|id|beberapa pegunungan}} "a series of mountain ranges", {{lang|id|beberapa kupu-kupu}} "some butterflies".

Plural in Indonesian serves just to explicitly mention the number of objects in sentence. For example, {{lang|id|Ani membeli satu kilo mangga}} (Ani buys one kilogram of mangoes). In this case, "mangoes", which is plural, is not said as {{lang|id|mangga-mangga}} because the plurality is implicit: the amount '''a kilogram''' means more than one mango rather than one giant mango. So, as it is logically, one does not change the singular into the plural form, because it is not necessary and considered a [[pleonasm]] (in Indonesian often called {{lang|id|pemborosan kata}}).