The Gothic language uses a system of four grammatical cases:

• nominative
• accusative
• genitive
• dative

For people with English mother language this might need some explanation.

What other European languages have a similar case system?

Gothic inherited its case system from its parent language (Proto-Germanic) and its grandparent language (Proto-Indo-European). All daughter languages of Proto-Indo-European initially shared the case system. Latin has it, Greek has it, Sanskrit has it. Some of the descendants have over time given up or at least reduced the case system.

The original Proto-Indo-European language even had some more cases. Latin has one more: the ablative case. Greek and German also have four, just like Gothic.

What is the purpose of grammatical cases?

Grammatical cases serve as a marker for the structure of the sentence. First of all they mark the subject and the object of the sentence, wherever in the sentence they might hide. So in a case using language you can theoretically (and sometimes practically) exchange the sequence of subject and object.

Let us have a look at the example of a man and a dog.

A dog bites a man.

So who is biting whom? In English this is decided strictly by the word order: the subject comes first (a dog), then we have the verb (bites), the object (a man) comes last

In German the usual sequence is

Ein Hund beißt einen Mann.

You can see the case marker in “ein” and “einen” both are “a” in English, but “ein” is the form for the subject and “einen” is the form for the object. So we can also say

Einen Mann beißt der Hund.

We have switched the sequence of the words, but in German the subject and the object are still reliably marked.

What is the purpose of the nominative case?

The nominative case marks the subject of the sentence. So when we look at the Gothic word “guma” (man) then the nominative form “guma” not only states that we are talking about a man (as opposed to a dog).

“Guma” directly states that we are talking about a man as the perpetrator in the sentence. Please keep this role (perpetrator) in mind, take it to heart. And whenever you encounter a word in its nominative case, remember we are talking about a perpetrator.

What is the purpose of the accusative case?

The accusative case marks the victim of the sentence. So when we encounter the word “guman” we know that we are talking about a man. But we also know that we are talking about the victim of some sort.

Please keep this role (victim) in mind. Take it to heart. And whenever you encounter a word in its accusative case, remember that we are talking about a victim.

What is the purpose of the dative case?

The dative case marks a noun as the receiver of something. So when we encounter the word “gumin” then we know that we are talking about a man. But we also know that we are talking about a man as receiver of something. The giver will be a noun in the nominative case. The victim, whatever is given, e.g. the book will be a noun in its accusative case. The receiver however will be in the dative case.

English no longer has the dative case. Instead English can use the preposition “to”.

The man gave the book to the woman.

English can also refrain from marking the receiver at all:

The man gave the woman the book.

In this case it is just a convention that all speakers of the English language share: the woman is the receiver and the book is the thing that is handed over. It is perfectly clear from the word order. And this word order needs to be followed.

A case oriented language however can simply exchange the direct and the indirect objects (as these are called in English). They are reliably marked by the case endings.

What is the purpose of the genitive case?

The genitive case marks a noun as the owner of something. So when we encounter the word “gumins” then we know that we are talking about a man. But we also know that we are talking about a man as owner of something else.

This something else can be in any other case, depending on its role of perpetrator, victim or receiver in the sentence. Any noun can be decorated with a piece of information about its owner.

Of all the different cases this one case, the genitive case, might be easy to understand to a speaker of the English language, because English also has it:

the man’s dog

Learning the cases

Just like in Latin or Greek, when it comes to cases, there is a certain zoo of word forms that one should learn. Some patterns are very frequent. Others are relatively rare.

These patterns come in the form of declension tables. And the better you know these, the easier the language becomes. This applies to Gothic just the same way as it applies to Latin, Greek or Russian. So my advice is to spend some time to learn at least the most frequent tables. Time spent here is time well spent.

The good news is that the Wiktionary (a dictionary companion to the Wikipedia) has extensive lists of these declension tables. Just look up a Gothic word in the Wiktionary and you will find a complete table for all cases in Latin and in Gothic script.

The example from above, guma (“man”) can be found here.

So if you want to practice one word or the other you can just look all forms up in the Web.

What is the sequence of the grammatical cases?

If you want to list all possible declension forms of a Gothic noun it might come in handy to stick to a certain order. For Gothic the mostly used order is:

• nominative
• accusative
• genitive
• dative

This is also the sequence that is mostly used for Latin and Greek in English textbooks. (Latin even adds a fifth case: the ablative, after the other four.)

In some books, however, you might find another sequence: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative. So if you change books you might want to check how the declension tables are sorted.

What parts of speech are subject to declension?

The obvious candidate for declension in Gothic are nouns. But you can also find other parts of speech (i.e. kinds of words) that need to be declined:

• adjectives
• participles
• pronouns

When it comes to verbs, these also have a certain zoo of forms, but in that case the grammatical term is not declension but “conjugation”. Both words mean something similar, both mean some sort of bending.

So remember: nous are declined, but verbs are conjugated.

Image source: image by Uwe Baumann from Pixabay