Nouns

Case
Grammatical case is expressed by word order, logic and a topic marker when necessary. In unmarked word order, the subject precedes the verb:

uma janzu

mother cook

mother is cooking

Direct objects follow the verb:

uma janzu lanki

mother cook rice

mother is cooking rice

Indirect objects can either follow or precede the direct object:

uma janzu lanki wa

mother cook rice i

mother is cooking rice for me

uma janzu wa lanki

mother cook i rice

mother is cooking rice for me

There is no separate marking for indirect objects. The difference between direct and indirect objects is left to logic and context:

yu pau wa apa

he give i money

he gave me money

* he gave me to the money

When one of the constituents is topicalized and moved to the front of the sentence thus breaking the basic unmarked SVO-order, there is the option to mark this constituent with the markerbe which is placed directly after it:

lanki be uma janzu

rice top mother cook

it is rice mother cooked

* the rice cooked mother

apa be yu pau wa

money top he give i

it was money he gave to me

* the money gave him to me

Gender
There is no overt distinction between nouns with an intrinsic masculine or feminine load:

uba - father

uma - mother

wana - woman

bua - brother

The roots bu for "man" and  wana  for "woman" are used to make new words with this load in order to indicate the sex of a being when necessary:

ume - sheep

bume - ram

waname - ewe

These roots usually are prefixed, but sometimes they occur at the end of words too:

uva - spouse

vabu - husband

vawana - wife

Number
Number and definiteness is derived from the context or expressed with quantifiers or deictic markers:

nia

car

the/a car/cars

nia wi

car many

many cars

nia sun

car two

two cars

nia yo

car all

all cars/every car

Collective
Collective nouns are characterized by the ending in the root  nyo meaning "collection, many of". Please keep in mind this is a closed class and not a suffix which can actively be applied to nouns in order to pluralize them. Examples of words containing this root are:

unyo - people, ethnic grouping

Majaranyo - the Hungarian people

penyo - forest

jinyo - band

Some words without this root nyo have an intrinsic collective meaning and are a mass noun on their own:

aso - water

shum - grains

apa - money

Also note substances like elements in general have no separate collective form altough in many instances they do express mass nouns:

vungu - gold

ninia - helium

kwengu - silk

fangu - iron

Mass nouns too can be modified by quantifiers or other nouns in order to denote a more specific amount:

binso yem - three (glasses of) beer

seo na aso - a cup of water

simbe chu vungu - a piece of gold