Old English/Nouns

Introduction: Introduction - Grammar - Orthography
Parts of speech: Nouns - Verbs - Pronouns - Adjectives - Adverbs - Participle - Gerund - Conjunctions - Prepositions

Nouns in Old English

Nouns are words which indicate a person, place, animal, or thing. In Old English they have 3 genders (masculine, neuter, feminine), 2 numbers (singular, plural), and 5 cases (nominative, genitive, dative, instrumental, accusative). In this language, nouns inflect to show their function within the sentence, how many, and how the adjectives and articles (the/that) inflect to agree with the noun.

Noun Declensions

Nouns are divided into two categories of declension in Old English, the so called Strong and Weak nouns. There are other minor declensions, as well, but most nouns fall into these two classifications.

Strong Nouns

The strong noun paradigm declines for case, gender and singular/plural.

	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	--	-as	--	-u / --	-u / --	-a, -e
Genitive	-es	-a	-es	-a	-e	-a
Dative	-e	-um	-e	-um	-e	-um
Accusative	--	-as	--	-u / --	-e	-a, -e

In the Nominative Plural and Accusative Plural of the Strong Neuter declension a -u follows only after short syllables (1 short vowel and 1 consonant) while neuters with long syllables (short vowel and 2 consonants or long vowel and one consonant) have no ending. This is also the case of singular Feminine Nominative nouns.

Example declensions of stān 'stone', scip 'ship' (short neuter), þing 'thing' (long neuter), ġiefu 'gift' (short feminine), and sorg 'sorrow' (long feminine).

	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	stān	stānas	scip / þing	scipu / þing	ġiefu / sorg	ġiefa / sorga, -e
Genitive	stānes	stāna	scipes / þinges	scipa / þinga	ġiefe / sorge	ġiefa / sorga
Dative	stāne	stānum	scipe / þinge	scipum / þingum	ġiefe / sorge	ġiefum / sorgum
Accusative	stān	stānas	scip / þing	scipu / þing	ġiefe / sorge	ġiefa / sorga, -e

Weak Declension

The weak paradigm is more simplified and has less variation between the genders and cases.

	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	-a	-an	-e	-an	-e	-an
Genitive	-an	-ena, -a	-an	-ena, -a	-an	-ena, -a
Dative	-an	-um	-an	-um	-an	-um
Accusative	-an	-an	-e	-an	-an	-an

Example declension of nama 'name', ēage 'eye', and tunge 'tongue'

	Masculine		Neuter		Feminine
	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural	Singular	Plural
Nominative	nama	naman	ēage	ēagan	tunge	tungan
Genitive	naman	namena, -a	ēagan	ēagena, -a	tungan	tungena, -a
Dative	naman	namum	ēagan	ēagum	tungan	tungum
Accusative	naman	naman	ēage	ēagan	tungan	tungan