A classifier, sometimes called a counter word, is a word or affix that is used to accompany nouns and can be considered to "classify" the noun depending on the type of its referent. Classifiers play an important role in the grammar of certain languages, especially East Asian languages, including Chinese and Japanese. In European languages classifiers are absent or marginal; an example of a word that may be considered to have the function of a classifier in English is head in phrases like "five head of cattle".