Nouns

Old English (OE) nouns are more complex in terms of their morphology than those in Present-day English (PDE), which no longer have inflections which tell us the gender and case of the noun. If you wish to translate a noun from PDE into OE, it’s not simply a case of finding out what the word is for, say, leg in OE; you also need to know whether its function in your sentence is the subject, direct object, indirect object, or a possessor, whether you’re talking about one or multiple legs, and you’ll need to know it’s gender in order to know which determiners (form of the word the - yes there’s loads of them in Old English too!) to use before it, as well as what word form to choose for any adjectives which precede it. When you search for the word leg in our translator, you’ll find the word scanca, which sounds like, and is an early form of the modern word shank, as in lamb shank, or the now archaic term shank’s pony, meaning to travel on foot. The translator will give you a table including all possible word forms for scanc, which looks like this:

This section tells you all you need to know to understand these tables (known as paradigms) in order to select the right form of each noun you want to translate into OE.

Gender

Like many languages, OE nouns have one of three genders: masculine, feminine, or neuter. The gender of a noun is important as this will determine the gender of any determiners and adjectives used to modify the noun. Think of it as though the noun is in charge of the noun phrase - it decides the gender of anything else within the noun phrase.

For example, in the sentence the husband and the wife walked into their big house, the noun husband translates to bonda, which is masculine. Therefore, the noun phrase must use the masculine determiner se for the PDE the. The noun wife translates to wīf, which is feminine and must use the feminine determiner seo. House translates to the neuter hūse, so both the possessive determiner their and adjective big must also be neuter. The whole sentence would translate to se bonda and seo wīf ēodon in heore mic̄ele hūs.

Number

Old English nouns have two numbers: singular and plural. Singular means that there is only one of the noun, whereas plural means there are multiple of the noun. The grammatical number of a noun functions in a similar way to gender; any determiners or adjectives used to modify the noun will also take the same number.

If we look at the sentence the wise king told seven secrets to his frightened daughter, we can see that there is only one king and therefore we know that noun must be singular. Using this information, we can translate the noun and its determiner the to se cyning, using the singular form. Because there are seven secrets, however, we know that this is plural, so we would need to use the plural to translate the noun phrase to seofon diernu.

Case

Old English nouns fall under four main cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, and dative. The case of a noun will change based on the noun’s role within a sentence.

You may also see the instrumental case mentioned in relation to OE grammar. This case is used for a noun used to complete an action by the subject of the sentence, however it was rare in OE and was replaced by the dative case.

The nominative case is used for the subject of a sentence – the person or the thing that is performing the action within the sentence.

For example, in the sentence the sharp sword cuts my right leg, the subject is the noun sword, so it, along with the modifying determiner and adjective, must be translated into the nominative case and is þæt sc̄earp sweord in Old English, which does not take any inflections from the root sweord.

The accusative case is used for the direct object of a sentence – the thing being directly affected by the action within the sentence.

For example, in the sentence the sharp sword cuts my right leg, we have already established that the sharp sword is performing the action and is therefore the subject. The noun leg is the direct object of the sentence as it is directly affected by the verb cuts. This means that the translation must take on the accusative form and the noun phrase would translate to mīn swīþran sc̄ancan. This takes an -n inflection on the root sc̄anca.

It is important to note that when identifying the accusative case for accurate translation of PDE to OE, it is not always the noun or noun phrase immediately following the verb that is the direct object. In the PDE sentence I handed the girl a book, it is not the girl that is directly affected by the verb but a book as this is handed to the girl. If the sentence was reconstructed as I hand a book to the girl, then we can more clearly see that the girl is the indirect object as the recipient of a book.

The dative case is used for the indirect object of a sentence – something not directly affected by the verb.

For example, in the sentence the wise king told seven secrets to his frightened daughter, the noun daughter is the indirect object. This, along with the modifying determiner and adjective, must be translated using the dative case. In OE, this would be his āclan dehter. This takes a stem change to the root dohtor.

The genitive case is used for possession – when something belongs to someone or something.

For example, in the sentence I fear for the child’s life, the noun child’s would be genitive as it is in possession of life. It would take an -es inflection on the root c̄ild and translate to c̄ildes, however it is important to note that the as the determiner before child’s is not modifying it – it is modifying the noun life.

Understanding Old English nouns

Let’s take a look at gender, count, and case together:

If we want to translate the noun phrase the lords in the PDE sentence the lords rode the horses, then we first must identify the case. As the lords have completed the action within the sentence, we know they must be the subject. This means we need to use the nominative case.

Next, we must look at the count. There are multiple lords in the sentence, therefore we have a plural count.

Finally, we’ll look at the gender. By using the Learn Old English paradigms table below, we can see that the translation of lord is dryhten, which is a masculine noun and so must use a masculine determiner.

Knowing that our translation will be a masculine, plural and nominative noun phrase, we can select þā dryhtnas as the correct OE translation.