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A naman cwenan йagan
Examples: masc. - guma (a man), wita (a wizard), steorra (a star), mуna
(the Moon), dйma (a judge); fem. - eorюe (Earth), heorte (a heart), sunne
(Sun); neut. - йare (an ear).

And now the last one which is interesting due to its special Germanic structure. I am speaking about the root-stems which according to Germanic laws of Ablaut, change the root vowel during the declension. In Modern
English such words still exist, and we all know them: goose - geese, tooth
- teeth, foot - feet, mouse - mice etc. At school they were a nightmare for me, now they are an Old English grammar. Besides, in Old English time they were far more numerous in the language.

Masc. Fem.

Sg.

N mann fуt (foot) tую (tooth) | hnutu (nut) bуc (book) gуs
(goose) mъs (mouse) burg (burg)

G mannes fуtes tуюes | hnute bуce gуse mъse burge

D menn fйt tйю | hnyte bйc gйs mэs byrig

A mann fуt tую | hnutu bуk gуs mъs burg

Pl.

N menn fйt tйю | hnyte bйc gйs mэs byrig

G manna fуta tуюa | hnuta bуca gуsa mъsa burga

D mannum fуtum tуюum | hnutum bуcum gуsum mъsum burgum

A menn fйt tйю | hnyte bйc gйs mэs byrig

The general rule is the so-called i-mutation, which changes the vowel.
The conversion table looks as follows and never fails - it is universally right both for verbs and nouns. The table of i-mutation changes remains above.

Examples: fem. - wнfman (a woman), бc (an oak), gбt (a goat), brуc
(breeches), wlуh (seam), dung (a dungeon), furh (a furrow), sulh (a plough), grut (gruel), lъs (a louse), юrul (a basket), йa (water), niht (a night), mж'gю (a girl), scrъd (clothes).

There are still some other types of declension, but not too important fro understanding the general image. For example, r-stems denoted the family relatives (dohtor 'a daughter', mуdor 'a mother' and several others), es-stems usually meant children and cubs (cild 'a child', cealf 'a calf'). The most intriguing question that arises from the picture of the
Old English declension is "How to define which words is which kind of stems?". I am sure you are always thinking of this question, the same as I thought myself when first studying Old English. The answer is "I don't know"; because of the loss of many endings all genders, all stems and therefore all nouns mixed in the language, and one has just to learn how to decline this or that word. This mixture was the decisive step of the following transfer of English to the analytic language - when endings are not used, people forget genders and cases. In any solid dictionary you will be given a noun with its gender and kind of stem. But in general, the declension is similar for all stems. One of the most stable differences of masculine and feminine is the -es (masc.) or -e in genitive singular of the
Strong declension.

Now I am giving another table, the general declension system of Old
English nouns. Here '-' means a zero ending.

Strong declension (a, ja, wa, у, jу, wу, i -stems).

| |Masculine |Neutral |Feminine |
| |Singular |Plural |Singular |Plural |Singular |Plural |
|Nominativ|- |-as |- |-u (-) |- |-a |
|e | | | | | | |
|Genitive |-es |-a |-es |-a |-e |-a |
|Dative |-e |-um |-e |-um |-e |-um |
|Accustive|- |-as |- |-u (-) |-e |-a |

| |Weak declension |u-stems |
| |Singular |Plural |Singular |Plural |
|Nominative |- |-an |- |-a |
|Genitive |-an |-ena |-a |-a |
|Dative |-an |-um |-a |-um |
|Accustive |-an |-an |- |-a |

The Old English Adjective.

In all historical Indo-European languages adjectives possess practically the same morphological features as the nouns, the the sequence of these two parts of speech is an ordinary thing in Indo-European.
However, the Nostratic theory (the one which unites Altaic, Uralic,
Semitic, Dravidian and Indo-European language families into one Nostratic super-family, once speaking a common Proto-Nostratic language) represented by Illych-Svitych and many other famous linguists, states that adjectives in this Proto-Nostratic tongue were morphologically closer to the verbs than to the nouns.

This theory is quite interesting, because even in Proto-Indo-European, a language which was spoken much later than Proto-Nostratic, there are some proofs of the former predicative function of the adjectives. In other families of the super-family this function is even more clear. In
Altaic languages, and also in Korean and Japanese, which are originally
Altaic, the adjective plays the part of the predicate, and in Korean, for example, the majority of adjectives are predicative. It means that though they always denote the quality of the noun, they act the same way as verbs which denote action. Adjective "red" is actually translated from Japanese as "to be red", and the sentence Bara-wa utsukusii will mean "the rose is beautiful", while bara is "a rose", -wa is the nominative marker, and utsukusii is "to be beautiful". So no verb here, and the adjective is a predicate. This structure is typical for many Altaic languages, and probably was normal for Proto-Nostratic as well.

The Proto-Indo-European language gives us some stems which are hard to denote whether they used to mean an adjective or a verb. Some later branches reflect such stems as verbs, but other made them adjectives. So it was the Proto-Indo-European epoch where adjectives as the part of speech began to transform from a verbal one to a nominal one. And all Indo-
European branches already show the close similarity of the structure of adjectives and nouns in the language. So does the Old English language, where adjective is one of the nominal parts of speech.
As well as the noun, the adjective can be declined in case, gender and number. Moreover, the instrumental case which was discussed before was preserved in adjectives much stronger than in nouns. Adjectives must follow sequence with nouns which they define - thet is why the same adjective can be masculine, neuter and feminine and therefore be declined in two different types: one for masculine and neuter, the other for feminine nouns. The declension is more or less simple, it looks much like the nominal system of declension, though there are several important differences. Interesting to know that one-syllable adjectives
("monosyllabic") have different declension than two-syllable ones
("disyllabic"). See for yourselves:

Strong Declension

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