Are there languages whose plural pronouns ('we', 'they', etc.) are formed from singular pronouns ('I', 'he', etc.) plus a plural marker?
For example, if English were such a language, instead of "we" we would say "Is" (the pronoun 'I' + the plural suffix -s), "hes" to mean "they", etc.
As already said, Japanese works this way:
私 + 達 = we
watashi tachi
But the same happens in Chinese as well:
我 + 们 = we
wo men
The first portion of both is the standard way to say "I" (we'll ignore other versions for the sake of this answer). The second is a plural marker.
Some varieties of English have plural personal pronouns that are composed in roughly the way you're asking.
you'all/ y'all is composed of the 2nd p. singular pronoun + plural marker all. Because there is now a separate 2nd p. plural pronoun you tends to be restricted to singular reference.
I understand the other comments as saying that Japanese tachi in watashi-tachi is a plural marker that it is also used in other circumstances as a plural marker. you'all doesn't meet that definition because it's not grammaticalised as a morphological plural marker. But it marks plurality lexically and could in the future be grammaticalised as a plural marker.
Tok Pisin is an English-based creole (more specifically: English is the lexifier language) spoken in Papua New Guinea. The morpheme pela (from English fellow) argueably works as a plural (or not-singular) marker in the pronoun system:
The Dual is marked in the following way:
This is why I said pela might be interpreted as not-singular because it's also used in the dual (and trial where it exists).
3rd person dual conforms to the system: tupela
But 3rd personal singular and plural have suppletive forms: em and ol
Again, as far as I know pela is not used as a plural marker otherwise. But the meaning of the pronouns is still compositional in that there is a person morpheme (e.g. mi), a dual morpheme (tu), and a non-singular morpheme (pela) that combine to form the various pronouns.
This regional term is predominantly used in Scotland and Ireland and throughout Australia, as well as overseas areas of previous Irish emigration e.g. some parts of the US (Boston, MA and Philadelphia, PA) and northern Nova Scotia and Lanark Ontario/Canada and South Auckland, New Zealand. It also occurs in Scouse (usually spelled "yous" as above, instead of "youse" a more American variant).
Noun. Plural form of you.
Edit: I had almost forgotten about the existence of WALS. Chapter 35 gives an overview of plurality in independent personal pronouns: Chapter Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns.
It looks like the category most relevant to your question is type 8 (person stem with a nominal plural affix). If you look at the map on WALS, you can see 19 type 8 languages listed, many of which have been mentioned here, e.g. Chinese, Japanese, Southern US English. Type 3 (person-number affixes) and type 7 (person stem with a pronominal number affix) might also be of interest to you, as they show some morphological complexity in the expression of number in the pronominal system.
Interestingly, it looks like it's far more common not to have a morphologically transparent pronominal system, like English. The morphologically transparent pronominal systems are in a small minority.
Several meso-melanesian languages have morphologically complex pronominal systems, including number marking on plural pronouns. One example:
Babatana
Kubokota, another meso-melanesian language is especially interesting, in that the plural form is suppletive, but the dual and trial forms are morphologically complex, with the plural form as a stem:
Kubokota
In Persian (a.k.a. Farsi) pronouns are built with suffixes:
man => me, maha => we
shoma => you (formal), shomaha => you all (plural formal)
an => he/she/it, anha => they
One of these languages is Thai, except it's not a suffix, but a prefix:
คุณ [kʰun] you (singular, formal) - พวกคุณ [pʰûːək kʰun] you all (plural, formal)
เธอ [tʰɤː] you (singular, informal) - พวกเธอ [pʰûːək tʰɤː] you all (plural, informal)
เขา [kʰáu] he/she - พวกเขา [pʰûːək kʰáu] they
Note, this does not apply 1st person: ผม versus เรา or พวกเรา
Another language that does this is Nhanda, a Pama-Nyungan language of Western Australia. Nhanda has a productive plural suffix '-nu', which is used to form plurals of both nouns and pronouns, as follows (only showing subject forms):
For more detail see:
Blevins, Juliette. 2001. Nhanda: an Aboriginal language of Western Australia. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.
Hungarian
ő = he/she (genderless)
ők = they (also genderless)
Note that in Hungarian, the suffix -k is generally used for plural for all words, not just in this case.
The basic case has only the third person obeying this rule, the other two are exceptions. However, in other cases, most (or all, I didn't really count) obey this rule, with minor variations, but still ending in "k":
nekem -> nekünk (for me -> for us)
neked -> nektek (for you, singular -> for you, plural)
neki -> nekik (for him/her -> for them)
velem -> velünk (with me -> with us)
veled -> veletek (with you, singular -> with you, plural)
vele -> velük (with him/her -> with them)
Other examples, listing only one person, (but all persons have this rule)
tőlem -> tőlünk (from me -> from us)
enyém -> mienk (mine -> ours) derived from (én=me, mi=we)
etc.
You don't need to go around the world to find examples. In Portuguese and French, all plural personal pronouns end in "s". Check below:
English French Portuguese
I je eu
you tu tu
he il ele
she elle ela
it - -
we nous nós
you vous vós
they (masc) ils eles
they (fem) elles elas
Notice for "il/ele" and "elle/ela" the plurals are precisely what you were looking for. Plus, they're formed as in English (they're all related languages, so it's no big deal). Interesting that when I saw your question I thought "well, that's interesting", until I tested if it worked in Portuguese: then the answer was obvious.
As these answers have shown, this is far from uncommon, even appearing in English non-standard forms. I guess if you knew some other languages it would help, don't you think?
I noticed no one directly answered your question, and although it is clear what all of us mean, I always like a direct answer: yes, there are such languages.
Quechua has completely regular plural second- and third-person pronouns:
3sg: pay
1pl excl.: ñoqayku
cf.:
“men”: runakuna
“woman”: warmi
The plural suffix -kuna is not mandatory if context suffices.
My first language, Tamil, has the "gal" suffix in its formal form, and the "ga" or "nga" suffix in the colloquial form.
Me - Naan
Us - Naangal (formal)/Naanga (colloquial)
You - Nee
You (plural) - Neengal (formal)/Neenga (colloquial)
He/She (polite) - Avar (formal)
They (polite) - Avargal (formal)
It - Adhu
They (neuter) - Adhugal (formal - rare)/Adhunga (colloquial)
He (impolite) - Avan
They (masculine, impolite) - Avanuga (colloquial only)
She (impolite) - Aval
They (feminine, impolite) - Avaluga (colloquial only)
The same suffixes apply for nouns also, though I just realized the curious fact that most of the time we leave out the plural marker in colloquial Tamil. 10 naay irundhadhu (10 dog was there) is at least as frequently used as 10 naaynga irundhadhu (10 dogs were there). Optional grammatical number!
Vehicle - Vandi
Vehicles - Vandigal (formal)/Vandinga (colloquial)
Dog - Naay
Dogs - Naaygal (formal)/Naaynga (colloquial)
In standard Arabic,
Spanish:
ella (she) => ellas (they)
Finnish:
tämä (this evident) => nämä (these evident)
tuo (that evident) => nuo (those evident)
se (that, non-evident) => ne (those, non-evident)
The marker N is said by Michael Fortescue to be the remnant of common Nostratic plural -n, present in modern Semito-Hamitic and Germanic languages (and also in a rare form of plural in Komi: pi => pian (son => sons). Cf. also Komi pi with English boy, Finnish poika, Swedish pojke, all the three being of presumably unknown etymology).
Wikipedia suggests that Japanese is such a language. For example the pronoun watashi "I" becomes watashi-tachi "we"
Aymara
naya -naka we (exclusive)
juma -naka you (pl.)
jupa -naka they
jiwasa -naka we (inclusive, more than 2)
Nayanaka is obligatorily contracted to nänaka though.
Correction to the Tamil:
avai (அவை) is the plural of athu used in formal speech and in writing, not athugaL.
The plural of both avan and avaL is avanga in every speech community I have ever heard (and is also used to refer respectfully to individuals). I would not be so bold as to say Avaluga is never used but I would need more details before I accept it as an attested variation.
In Turkish, -ler and -lar are the plural suffixes. Both have the exact same meaning and function; the one whose voice is most fitting comes at the end of the word.
| Normal Form | Polite Form
-----------------------------------------------------
I | Ben | Biz
You (sig.) | Sen | Siz
He, She, It | O | Onlar⁽¹⁾
We | Biz | Bizler⁽²⁾
You (pul.) | Siz | Sizler⁽²⁾
They | Onlar⁽¹⁾ | Onlar⁽¹⁾
⁽¹⁾ Onlar is the plural form of o, made by adding the plural suffix -lar. The auxiliary letter n between is just for making it read easier; It would had been difficult to read if it was written as olar.
⁽²⁾ These are made by simply adding the plural suffix -ler.
