While category of number exists in majority of languages of the Earth, it is not native to Black Speech. It's believed by some linguists that it was absent in Black Speech. This opinion is based upon using the word “Nazgûl” as both singular and plural noun in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Also orcs in LOTR's chapters like “The Choices of Master Samwise” refer Sauron as “they”, “…even the Top Ones can…” (emphasis with capital letters hints us that it is not just some high commandment, but may also include Nazgûl on the other hand). The other reason is the popular belief that Sauron suppressed individuality and forbade to use the word “I” or even any other singular pronoun. This resembles dystopian novel "We" (1921) by Yevgeny Zamyatin. However from LOTR it's clear that Sauron failed in organizing orcs who regularly quarrel with each other and put their personal wishes above the order (i.e. scene of Merry and Pippin escaping orcish capture), so it's assumed that orcish dialects have category of number.

Nouns, adjectives and pro-forms do not have category of number in Nûrlâm or have general number to be more precise. By default they are translated as plural, so there is no distinction in countable and uncountable nouns. Therefore exact numbers (like in ash nazg) and quantifier words (i.e. equivalents of English some, few, many) are used more often than in typical European languages. Personal pronouns however have distinct singular and plural forms. In Nûrlâm information about number of subject and of object if it is a clitic pronoun is carried by verbs. Suffix -â is added to the verb if subject is a singular noun, and -û if subject is a plural noun.

• Cruel orc kills a child = Urukbol dogâ ash khind (singular subject, singular object);
• Cruel orcs have killed a child = Urukbol doguzû ash khind (plural subject, singular object);
• Cruel orcs kill (some) children = Urukbol dogû (mûd) khind (plural subject, plural object);
• Cruel orcs have killed them = Urukbol doguzûtul (plural subject, plural pronominal object);
• They have killed a child = Takdoguz ash khind (plural pronominal subject, singular object);
• He have killed them = Tadoguzul (both subject and object are personal pronouns, not recommended).

In Orcish dialects (like Shadowlandian) unanimated nouns have singular and plural form, animated nouns have one form for both (which is often ignored in colloquial speech where there is no distinction in animacy). But Adjectives have plural form despite animacy of connected noun. Pronouns have plural form. Verbs in Shadowlandian have special 3rd person plural suffix -ut. Plural suffix is the same for nouns, pronouns and adjectives. In Shadowlandian and Horngoth it's -u and -i in Svartiska and MERP. Nûrlâm suggests using -û (taken from rare Svartiska variant) to avoid confusion with preposition meaning “to”. This suffix initially marked 3rd person verbs when subject was a noun in Standard Nûrlâm. If word ends with a vowel than plural suffix is -z in all dialects. In Colloquial speech 3rd person endings of verb are often missed by a mistake (in contrast to Standard Nûrlâm where it's crucial for knowing a grammatical number of subject), and they are not essential anymore when subject has it's own plural marker. Examples:

• Cruel orc kills a child = Bol uruk dog(â) khind (singular subject, singular object)
• Cruel orcs have killed a child = Bolû urukû doguz(û) khind = (plural subject, singular object);
• Cruel orcs kill (some) children = Urukbolû dog khindû (plural subject, plural object);
• Cruel orcs have killed them = Urukbol doguzûtul (plural subject, plural pronominal object);
• They have killed a child = Ulû doguz khind (plural pronominal subject, singular object);
• He have killed them = Ta doguz ul (both subject and object are personal pronouns).

Some dialects consider suffixes -ûk (all) or -hai (folk, people) as collective plural. Nûrlâm treats them literally and without any special grammatical meaning. Words with such suffixes are considered plural:

• Humans left their cities = Tark-hai rangû goi takob = Tark-hai rang ulubû goiz¹⁾

Many Indo-European languages have special words regarding two people, objects and even two complex sentences, like English “both”, “either”, “neither” and others. This reflects existence of dual number in Proto-Indo-European language. As Nûrlâm lacked grammatical category of number and Colloquial speech also never developed dual number, such words (belonging to pro-forms and conjunctions) do not have direct equivalents. Most of them listed in Conjunctions article.