Old English to Modern English Translator
Old English is a precursor of the Modern English language. Spoken between the 5th and 12th century in areas of what is now England and southern Scotland.
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Old English Grammar

When reading the comments people make about this site probably the most common is that some users have no understanding of Old English Grammar and the most common question is, for nouns, what does Nominative, Accusative, Genitive and Dative mean?

The following is an attempt to explain in simple terms what these words mean. There are many books written on this subject and they provide a much greater depth of accuracy and understanding than I can here. The book I am working through, A Guide to Old English is thought by many to be the classic work on the subject. Click on the link in the left column to take a look.
Having said that, here goes:

Nouns.

Nouns are things - like King, sword and horse. In modern English we usually only change (inflect) the endings of nouns to indicate possession and for the plural case. EG.

The King's crown ( 's indicates possession)

The Kings came to London (s on the end implies plural - IE many kings)

In Old English there are four cases for nouns and these occur for both singular and plural. In simplistic terms:

Nominative: The nominative case is used for the subject of a sentence.
Accusative: The accusative case is used for the object of the sentence.
Genitive: The genitive case is used to indicate possession.
Dative: The dative case is used for the indirect object of the sentence.

So - to examine these concepts for the noun 'king' or Old English cyning

cyning Strong Masculine Noun

king ruler

cyning

Singular

Plural

Nominative

(the/that se) cyning

(the/those þá) cyningas

Accusative

(the/that þone) cyning

(the/those þá) cyningas

Genitive

(the/that þæs) cyninges

(the/those þára) cyninga

Dative

(the/that þæm) cyninge

(the/those þæm) cyningum

The King killed the slave. King is the subject of the sentence - therefore nominative case and would be translated cyning.
The slave killed the King. King is the object of the sentence - therefore accusative case and would be translated cyning. (Note for the noun 'King' - there is no difference in the inflections for Nominative or Accusative).
The King's crown was red. King is in a possessive sense and therefore genitive case and would be translated cyninges.
The slave rode his horse with the King. King is the indirect object of the sentence - therefore dative case and would be translated cyninge

There are many ways in which the nouns change their endings (inflect) for each of these cases and it is beyond the scope of this page to explain them all. Trying to encapsulate them in a computer program was hard - trying to explain them would be even harder!

Also note that the Old English equivalents to the words we use for the / that also inflect.

 

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