Plurals of indigenous words tend to be formed by the addition of a second vowel after the last vowel in the singular word; usually it is an i. Lone u’s are most often indicative of a singular. Compound words such as breakwater or waterfall are commonly separated by dashes, with any ending vowels dropped in both component words. The language has four distinct secondary vowels: a, e, i, and y, and one primary: u. One further note: the term arc. that follows certain words is an abbreviation for ‘archaic’, and it indicates the older and less common term for a presently-used word. More powerful or educated folk tend to use the older forms in everyday speech.