No, wait, you're right. Third declension. Episemata in Gk.

And, in Latin, episemae.

In South African English rendered stuffs/shtuffs or or a local Afrikaans variant "goeters" (thingies)

I always thought that the plural was epismata, but that is my anglo-cino-afro-English biases coming through :)

The correct plural should be is that of the language of origin.
It is either episemata or episemae.
If it is indeed Greek, then the former.

No, the correct plural is the plural in the language you are speaking. The plural of troika in English is troikas, notwithstanding that in Russian it is тро́йки ("troiki").

As it happens the plural of episema in Latin is episemata (it is a 3rd-declension noun, gen. episematis, much like dogma). The same is true in Greek. Since English tends to allow (but not demand) Latinate plurals (data, appendices, alumnae, octopi) and some Greek plurals (phenomena, stomata), we are left with two options for the plural: episemas, following standard construction of plurals; and episemata, respecting the original language(s).

Thingies, I tells y'all.

Mark -

I am impressed with and thankful for your linguistic scholarship, but not your assertions as to the non-use of foreign plurals and such in English. The correct plural remains that of the word's original tongue. Concerning your example, troika, the only person who would paste an English plural onto it instead of saying troiki would be one who knew no better. Phenomenon-phenomena is another good example, and there are any number of others that one could put forth. If I am writing about a certain Buxtehude praeludium and include more than one in my writing I write praeludia, not 'praeludiums'. This is true of all usage of foreign words in an English context. Notwithstanding that there are foreign words here and there that have become so common in English usage, have in fact become English words (such as 'opera-operas' - and you may argue that troika is one of these), that this rule may not apply to them - at least not colloquially. Otherwise, if I don't know the correct plural of a given foreign word it behooves me not to use that word, that verbum or those verba. We do not speak of Schubert 'lieds', but of Schubert lieder. Nor do we ply the river Loire to see 'chateaus', but chateaux.

Episemata it is!

Perhaps a good rule of thumb would be that if a word of foreign origin is so common in English usage that it no longer requires italics then we may paste an 's' onto it.
So (in borderline cases) - choose either episemata or episemas.

That's the Wise Guyz to you.

And the plural of beef is beeves.

...and the plural of grief is grieves (not to be confused with greaves).

I did once have a singer refer to them as "emphysemas."

Just to stoke the fires a bit more, readers might consider that the word "episema" comes directly from the singular Greek επισημαινω or simply ἐπίσημον - from ἐπί (epí, “above”) + σῆμα (sêma, “sign”). This suggests to me that what got called "episema" (in chant notation) is, in fact, the plural of what is usually called "episemon" - much as "opera" is the plural of "opus" - and is already a plural that in modern vernacular is construed as singular.

Liddell and Scott have ἐπίσημα, -ατος and ἐπίσημον, -ου, both neuter, with similar meanings (what we should call an "icon" or "logo", or "device" in the sense of a mark). The same construction as ἐπισημαίνω (to mark, indicate, be a symptom) but as nouns.

So I don't think the Latin word is a plural turned to a singular, I think the singular ἐπίσημα was borrowed directly. Although the plural ἐπίσημα is said to mean "hieroglyphics" in one 3rd century BC (Egyptian) manuscript. Perhaps that's it!

There are lots of examples of borrowed words for which we in English don't use the native plural. for lots of good reasons. But I like the plural gong-gong, great example, thanks @Ruchard Mix.

Richard -

I would have to know the sense in which you intended gong-gong - or, more precisely, your inflections!
My internet search yielded the following sets of meanings for this (these) Chinese word(s), each accomplished by different inflections -

Gong gong =
1. public, common, communal
2. husband's father, grandfather, eunuch
3. god of water, river god (who caused the great flood by angrily banging his head against a wall in an argument with another god).

Am I missing something?

post deleted.

Perhaps apocryphal, the weak part of the story being the single slice on the first try: in Java one hears late at night "tea!", the second syllable of something you might recognize from an Indian restaurant menu, roti. In rice-eating Java bread is enough of a novelty to be associated with cake, hence a dessert or, as you will discover when the hawker stops, ice cream.

For what it's worth, I Just noticed that the Liber uses episema as the plural at the bottom of p. xxv, V, 1.

Why can't it be episema? After all, the plural of sheep is sheep, the plural of fish is fish, etc., etc.

speaking of sheep, maybe this issue is just a little fuzzy.

St Matthew (this is Douay Rheims):
And Jesus said to them: How many loaves have you?
But they said: Seven, and a few little fishes.

The gradual was teeming with episema of many varieties.
The manuscript was swarming with episema.

Well, I'd say there are two properly so called.

Plus the use of a horizontal episema on the clivis, which is controversial enough to qualify as a separate use.

Plus the tie-over-a-bar-line, which could well be called an episema in the sense "above-sign", although it must have a proper name, which I do not know.

thanks MJO.

For a second there I was wondering if someone was going to mention a diagonal episema introduced after 1965. whew!

What is the plural of emoji?
What is/are emoji?

The plural of emoji could perhaps be: emojima?

No no, it's emojimata.

Actually I had thought that the Emoji were probably a tribe of people living on some remote Japanese island where they adhered to ancient ways of life.

You know, we can thank Solesmes that we're able to have the stupendously digressing discussion in the first place. :D

They're all good - episematous, episematic, episematical...
in other words, 'long and drawn out' -

as in 'his explanation was tedious and episematic'.
or 'her paper was well-written, if somewhat episematous'.
or 'Guizot's history of France compared to more modern approaches to historiography can only be described as turgid and episematical'.
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Mme - I see no connexion betwixt 'ancient ways' and 'Solesmes notation'.
Perhaps you jest?
St Gall is certainly ancient.
Solesmes??? Hardly!