Talk:Taliban

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Rfv-sense. A Taliban militia. I'm not sure what was meant here. Perhaps a Taliban militiaman? In any event, in English this borrowing of a plural form from Pashto, is often used with a singular verb. I am not sure about the plural. Are there two: Talibans and Taliban? DCDuring TALK 14:55, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

I too did not understand what was meant, and was going to rfv that. Apparently we're not alone, because some of the translations of this sense refer to both Taliban movement and to the militants of the movement (e.g. Russian). --Vahagn Petrosyan 15:04, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Talibans is seen, but uncommon. Since taliban is its own plural, it is often impossible to distinguish the singular group from a plural collective (and in some writing styles the former takes a plural verb anyway). —Michael Z. 2009-07-30 05:01 z

In US English at COCA one can find "Taliban are" and "Talibans are", as well as he is "a Taliban". "Talibans are" is decidedly less common. DCDuring TALK 11:51, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

I imagine the idea is that there's an Afghan Taliban, an Iraqi Taliban, etc. —Ruakh_TALK 18:36, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Are those both proper noun Taliban?

Surprisingly I saw "a Taliban" referring to an individual in quotes from interviews of English-speaking Afghanis. Whatever is origins and other uses, it is used as a singular noun referring to and individual in English, occasionally with an "-s" to indicate a plural, usually invariant. DCDuring TALK 21:42, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

Cited IMHO, please take a look. —Ruakh_TALK 15:57, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Looks beautiful. DCDuring TALK 16:09, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Passed, striking.​—msh210℠ 17:26, 23 December 2009 (UTC)