Editing German language (section)

===Noun inflection===
{| class = "wikitable" style = "float: right; text-align: center"
|+ Declension of the [[Standard German]] definite article
|Case
! scope = "col" | {{abbr|Masc.|Masculine}}
! scope = "col" | {{abbr|Neu.|Neuter}}
! scope = "col" | {{abbr|Fem.|Feminine}}
! scope = "col" | Plural
|-
! scope = "row" | [[Nominative]]
| style = "background-color: lavender" | {{lang|de|der}}
| style = "background-color: paleGreen; border-style: solid solid none solid" |{{lang|de|das}}
| style = "background-color: coral; border-style: solid none none solid" | {{lang|de|die}}
| style = "background-color: coral; border-style: solid solid none none" | {{lang|de|die}}
|-
! scope = "row" | [[Dative]]
| style = "background-color: peachPuff; border-style: solid none solid solid" | {{lang|de|dem}}
| style = "background-color: peachPuff; border-style: solid solid solid none" | {{lang|de|dem}}
| style = "background-color: lavender; border-style: solid solid none solid" | {{lang|de|der}}
| style = "background-color: silver" | {{lang|de|den}}
|-
! scope = "row" | [[Genitive]]
| style = "background-color: paleTurquoise; border-style: solid none solid solid" | {{lang|de|des}}
| style = "background-color: paleTurquoise; border-style: solid solid solid none" | {{lang|de|des}}
| style = "background-color: lavender; border-style: none none solid solid" | {{lang|de|der}}
| style = "background-color: lavender; border-style: solid solid solid none" | {{lang|de|der}}
|-
! scope = "row" | [[Accusative]]
| style = "background-color: silver" | {{lang|de|den}}
| style = "background-color: paleGreen; border-style: none solid solid solid" | {{lang|de|das}}
| style = "background-color: coral; border-style: none none solid solid" | {{lang|de|die}}
| style = "background-color: coral; border-style: none solid solid none" | {{lang|de|die}}
|}
{{further|Grammatical gender in German}}
[[German nouns]] inflect by case, gender, and number:
* four [[grammatical case|cases]]: [[nominative case|nominative]], [[accusative case|accusative]], [[genitive case|genitive]], and [[dative case|dative]].
* three [[grammatical gender|genders]]: masculine, feminine, and neuter. Word endings sometimes reveal grammatical gender: for instance, nouns ending in {{lang|de|-ung}} (-ing), {{lang|de|-schaft}} (-ship), {{lang|de|-keit}} or {{lang|de|heit}} (-hood, -ness) are feminine, nouns ending in {{lang|de|-chen}} or {{lang|de|-lein}} ([[diminutive]] forms) are neuter and nouns ending in {{lang|de|-ismus}} ([[-ism]]) are masculine. Others are more variable, sometimes depending on the region in which the language is spoken. And some endings are not restricted to one gender, for example: {{lang|de|-er}} ([[agent noun|-er]]), such as {{lang|de|Feier}} (feminine), celebration, party; {{lang|de|Arbeiter}} (masculine), labourer; and {{lang|de|Gewitter}} (neuter), thunderstorm.
* two numbers: singular and plural.

This degree of inflection is considerably less than in [[Old High German]] and other old [[Indo-European languages]] such as [[Latin]], [[Ancient Greek]], and [[Sanskrit]], and it is also somewhat less than, for instance, [[Old English]], modern [[Icelandic language|Icelandic]], or Russian. The three genders have collapsed in the plural. With four cases and three genders plus plural, there are 16 permutations of case and gender/number of the article (not the nouns), but there are only six forms of the [[article (grammar)|definite article]], which together cover all 16 permutations. In nouns, inflection for case is required in the singular for strong masculine and neuter nouns only in the genitive and in the dative (only in fixed or archaic expressions), and even this is losing ground to substitutes in informal speech.{{sfn|Barbour|Stevenson|1990|pp=160–3}} Weak masculine nouns share a common case ending for genitive, dative, and accusative in the singular. Feminine nouns are not declined in the singular. The plural has an inflection for the dative. In total, seven inflectional endings (not counting plural markers) exist in German: {{lang|de|-s, -es, -n, -ns, -en, -ens, -e}}.