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  • About These Lessons
  • The Sounds of Gothic
• Lessons
  • Unit 1
  • Unit 2
  • Unit 3
  • Unit 4
  • Unit 5
  • Unit 6
  • Unit 7
  • Unit 8
  • Unit 9
  • Unit 10
  • Unit 11
  • Unit 12
  • Unit 13
  • Unit 14
  • Unit 15
  • Unit 16
  • Unit 17
  • Unit 18
• Nouns
  • Pure A-Stems
  • Pure A-Stem Plurals
  • Masculine JA-Stems
  • Neuter JA-Stems
  • WA-Stems
  • Feminine Ō-Stems
  • JŌ-Stems; Decl. of Thousand
  • Masculine I-Stems
  • Feminine I-Stems
  • Irregular I-Stems
  • U-Stems
  • N-Stems
  • Minor Declensions
  • Personal Pronouns
  • Reflexive Pronoun
  • WH Pronouns
  • Relative Pronouns
  • Demonstrative Pronouns
  • Posessive Pronouns
  • Indefinite Pronouns
  • Negative Indef. Pronouns
  • Paradigm Tables
• Verbs
  • Present Personal Endings
  • Preterite of Strong Verbs
  • Preterite, Consonant Changes
  • Ablaut Table
  • Principal Parts of Strong Verbs
  • "To Be", Present Tense
  • "To Be", Preterite Tense
  • "To Will", Conjugation
  • Reduplicated Preterites
  • Class I Weak Verbs
  • Irregular Weak Verbs I
  • Class II Weak Verbs
  • Class III Weak Verbs
  • Class IV Weak Verbs
  • Preterite-Presents
  • Auxiliary Verbs
  • Passive Voice
  • Imperative
  • Subjunctive
  • Participles
  • Verbs Governing the Genitive
  • Verbs Governing the Dative
  • Verbs with Feeling
• Adjectives
  • Strong A-Stems
  • Strong JA-Stems
  • Strong WA-Stems
  • Strong I-Stems
  • Cardinals 1 to 10
  • Cardinals Beyond 10
  • Declension of Two and Three
  • Weak Declension
  • Gender of Groups of People
  • Ordinals
  • Comparatives
  • Superlatives
  • Adverbs
  • Adverb Compar. and Superl.
  • Participles
  • Adjectives Governing the Genitive
  • Adjectives Governing the Dative
• Misc
  • Prepositions
  • Conjunctions
  • Questions: Yes/No
  • Questions: WH
  • Cardinals 1 to 10
  • Cardinals Beyond 10
  • Months, Days of Week
  • Colors
  • Other Uses of Accusative
  • Other Uses of Genitive
  • Other Uses of Dative
  • Compound Formations
  • Prefixes
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Noun Declension Paradigms

Gothic nouns come in a confusing array of declensions, often cited in lexica with endings that do not resemble the names of the declensions, and/or are not obvious in how they are related to other declensions. This page attempts to clarify the types of nouns and how they got to be so convoluted.

The declensions in Gothic can be grouped by similarity: A and O stems; I and U stems; weak nouns; ND and R stems; consonant declension nouns. Both the A and O declensions are further divided into pure stems, JA/JO stems, WA/WO stems, and the JA and JO nouns occur as short-stem and long-stem forms. It is important to keep this general overview in mind while categorizing the array of noun morphologies into this neat framework.

1.) Overview

It is helpful to have a 20,000 foot view of Gothic noun declensions, with example nouns:

2.) A-Declension: Masculine

2.1.) Pure A-Stems

These nouns in Proto-Germanic had a nominative singular ending -az, from an earlier Indo-European *-os, which is also the root of Latin second declension nouns in -us, Greek second declension nouns in -ος, and Sanskrit masculin -ah nouns. The Germanic -az ending was reduced to -s in Gothic. Example: *dagaz (day), Gothic dags.

The vast majority of masculine nouns in -s are declined like dags.

Some a-stem nouns in -fs, such as hláifs (loaf), láufs (leaf), change the f to b before a vowel. Not only is this parallel to a similar sound change in English, but the b between vowels is pronounced /v/. Here is the declension of hláifs for example:

Note that not all a-stem nouns in -fs are declined like hláifs; wulfs isn't (its plural is wulfōs).

When the consonant of the stem is r or s, the nominative -s is lost. For example, waír (man), freihals (freedom):

2.2.) JA-Stems

Masculine ja-stems are either short-stem or long-stem, which may be distinguished by their endings, either -jis (short-stem) or -eis (long-stem) in the nom. sing. Short-stem and long-stem nouns have the same endings except for in the nom. sing. and gen. sing. For example, niþjis (kinsman) and ƕáiteis (wheat) are declined as:

2.3.) WA-Stems

The only known masculine wa-stems are þius (servant) and snáiws (snow), declined as:

3.) A Declension: Neuter

3.1.) Pure A-Stems

As in most Indo-European languages, the neuter nominative, vocative, accusative all resemble the accusative of masculine nouns in the singular, and end in -a in the plural. The noun waúrd (word) is declined as:

Here too are nouns which undergo a consonant change: in háubiþ (head), the þ changes to d before a vowel:

The same change happens in liuhaþ (light), and witōþ (law).

Neuter a-stems can end in almost any consonant: agis (fear); dius (beast); daúr (door); eisarn (iron); tagl (hair); tagr (tear); etc. Nouns of this declension which end in -s are declined one of two ways:

Some neuter nouns which were originally wa-stem (see below) have changed to retaining their -w in all numbers and cases, and are declined the same as waúrd. These include fráiw (seed), gáidw (lack, want), hláiw (grave), lēw (occasion), waúrstw (work).

3.2.) JA-Stems

Neuter ja-stems are practically always short-stem. The example of kuni (race) is declined as:

Some nouns of this declension have a hidden w before the j that changes the vowel in the NVA sing., such as gawi (region), hawi (hay), and taui (deed, work):

(hawi is declined like gawi.)

3.3.) WA-Stems

The only known neuter wa-stem nouns are triu (wood) and kniu (knee), and they are declined identically.

4.) O Declension: Feminine

4.1.) Pure O-Stems

These nouns are ultimately descended from Indo-European -ā nouns, and are equivalent to Latin -ā feminines, Greek -α/-η feminines, and Sanskrit feminines in -ā. In Germanic, the long vowel of the stem was shortened in some environments; when retained long it underwent a change in value and is attested in Gothic as -ō. Therefore these nouns in all their cases alternate between having a or ō as the vowel of the ending.

aírþa (earth) is declined like so:

A great many feminine nouns in Gothic belong to this declension and are declined like aírþa.

4.2.) JO-Stems

Short-stem jo-nouns end in -ja in the nom. sing. and are declined like aírþa. Examples include halja (hell), ludja (face), plapja (street), sunja (truth), and others.

Long-stem jo-nouns have their nom. sing. in -i. Otherwise they resemble aírþa, such as háiþi (field):

Also included in this declension are frijōndi (friend), which is the feminine of frijōnds (friend), a masculine -nd stem (see below); and the numeral þūsundi (thousand).

Long-stem jo-nouns ending in -wi change their w to u in certain cases, as mawi (maiden), þiwi (maid servant):

4.3.) WO-Stems

Nouns such as bandwa (token, sign), frijaþwa (love), nidwa (rust) are declined the same as aírþa.

5.) I Declension

5.1.) I Declension: Masculine and Feminine

These nouns ended in *-is in Proto-Indo-European, and are equivalent to Latin -is and Greek -ις nouns. In Proto-Germanic, the ending changed to -iz, and in Gothic, this was reduced to -s causing the singulars of the i-stems to resemble the pure a-stems. The masculine noun gasts (guest) and feminine dēþs (deed) are declined like so:

This declension also includes feminine abstract nouns formed from weak verbs of conjugations II and III, such as laþōns (invitation) from laþōn (to invite); bauáins (dwelling) from bauan (to inhabit); libáins (life), from liban (to live), and many others.

Masculines of this declension also include drus (fall), baúr (son, child), náus (corpse), declined like so:

Since it is impossible to tell from the singular whether a masculine noun is i-stem or a-stem, comparative linguistics are necessary to determine how such a noun declines in absence of the nom./voc. plural. Old English has cyme (coming) and dryre (fall), the y being an umlaut, a fronting of u before a j or i in the next syllable. (We'll see this happen again in the u-declension.) Because of these attested forms, we know that the Gothic equivalents qums and drus are also i-declension.

Nouns ending in a geminate -ss are feminine i-stems derived from verbal roots, such as qiss (speech) from qiþan (to say, queathe); usstass (resurrection) from us-standan (to rise up). Here is the declension of such nouns:

5.2.) Abstract Nouns Formed from Weak Verbs

Abstract nouns formed from weak verbs of conjugation I have their own special declension: they resemble the declension of dēþs, except for the nom. and gen. plurals which they borrow from the o-declension, for example láiseins (doctrine) from láisjan (to teach):

5.3.) Declension of Háims (Village)

The feminine i-stem noun háims (village) has its plurals in the o-declension:

6.) U Declension

6.1.) U Declension: Masculine and Feminine

The u-declension is the most straightforward of the Gothic declensions; masculines and feminines always end in -us in the nom. sing., and these two genders decline identically. The noun sunus (son) is masculine; handus (hand) is feminine:

There have been some instances where scribes confused the sounds of u and áu, writing one of these where the other belongs.

Gothic offers a glimpse into an earlier stage of Germanic by not having any trace of umlaut: the English nouns foot and tooth undergo a vowel alteration in the plural, becoming feet, teeth due to an earlier stage of the English language having a y sound in the plural ending, which was lost before the modern language developed. Other Germanic languages also show this umlaut, even languages which retain endings on the nouns, but not Gothic - the equivalent nouns fōtus, tunþus have nom. pl. fōtjus, tunþjus.

6.2.) U Declension: Neuter

Attested neuter u-stems are few and far between, but a paradigm for faíhu (cattle, wealth) has been reconstructed as:

No plural forms are known. Declined like faíhu are gáiru (goad) and leiþu (strong drink).

7.) Weak Declension

7.1.) Weak Declension: Masculine

Weak nouns are also called n-stem nouns because they have an -n in the stem which, this being Gothic, doesn't occur in the dictionary form. The noun hana (rooster) is actually related to the English word hen; the early Germanic noun occurred in both genders, but English kept only the feminine while Gothic kept the masculine (or possibly both). The declension of manna (man) is similar to that of hana, but with some of the forms simplified:

Masculine nouns ending in -a generally belong to this declension, and are almost always declined like hana. Some of them reduced the gen. and dat. pl.: aba (man) has gen. pl. abnē, dat. pl. abnam; aúhsa (ox) has gen. pl. aúhsnē. Probably this happened first in the genitive plural by contracting the middle syllable to zero, and then extended to the dative plural by analogy, if so, then it might be that aba, aúhsa each exhibit all of these contracted forms.

7.2.) Weak Declension: Feminine

These nouns have one of two long vowels in all their endings: ō or ei. An example of the former is tuggō (tongue); the latter, áiþei (mother):

A large number of nouns are declined like tuggō. Nouns declined like áiþei are mostly formed from adjectives, such as diupei (depth) from diups (deep).

7.3.) Weak Declension: Neuter

Neuter nouns ending in -ō belong to the weak declension. Among these are áugō (eye), áusō (ear), haírtō (heart), þaírkō (hole), and others. Here's the declension of áugō:

Diminutives fall into this declension as well: barnilō (small child) is the diminutive of barn (child, bairn), a neuter pure a-stem noun, by addition of the -ilō suffix. Also attested is kaúrnō, a grain of corn; the pure a-stem neuter kaúrn is a mass noun that refers to either a quantity of cereal, or a crop of it growing in a field.

Irregularly, the noun watō (water) has dat. pl. watnam, and namō (name) NVA pl. namna. It is conceivable that here too, like the masculines described above, trisyllabic forms were reduced to two syllables, i.e. *watanē -> *watnē and then watnam, *watna, *namnam, namna by analogy.

8.) ND Declension

These nouns descend from earlier participle forms ending in -ns. In the Germanic languages, this ending changed in certain ways, becoming -nds in Gothic. The declension of frijōnds (friend) is as follows:

Most of the endings resemble the masculine a-stems, except for the dat. sing. and NVA pl. Most likely all of the nouns in this declension are masculines; see the long jo-stem nouns for the declension of the feminine frijōndi.

9.) R Declension

Kinship terms in Indo-European languages often descend from preforms formed with the special *-tēr suffix. In Germanic languages, the *t derived to þ (th) except in consonant clusters, which we see today in English in father, mother, brother; but daughter, sister. However, these nouns were diminishing in usage at the time Wulfila wrote his manuscripts, with fadar (father) occurring only once and *mōdar (mother) not at all. The surviving r-stem nouns are swistar (sister), brōþar (brother), daúhtar (daughter), and are declined as:

The kinship terms which have replaced fadar and *mōdar are the weak nouns atta, áiþei.

10.) Consonant Stems

10.1.) Masculine

Not many masculine nouns or forms thereof are attested for this declension. What little we do have comes from mēnōþs (month), reiks (ruler), weitwōds (witness), and consists of:

Evidence from other Germanic languages would suggest accusative plurals *mēnōþuns, *reikuns, *weitwōduns, assuming the acc. pl. forms are not identical to the nom. pl. forms, as they are in feminines of this declension (below).

10.2.) Feminine

Feminine consonant stem nouns are a bit better attested, as in baúrgs (city) and nahts (night):

In particular, nahts is unique in having assimilated the same dat. pl. as dags by analogy. All other feminine consonant stem nouns decline like baúrgs. Two other nouns, dulþs (feast) and waíhts (thing) may be declined either as consonant stems or as i-declension feminines. It would seem from comparative linguistics that the former was originally an i-stem and the latter a consonant stem, but that the two declensions had begun to merge.

10.3.) Neuter

Only one neuter consonant stem noun is known, and only in the singular: fōn (fire).

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