Nouns come in three grammatical genders: masculine, feminine and neuter; 5 cases: nominative, accusative, genitive, dative and instrumental; and 2 numbers: singular and plural. For agreement purposes with certain pronouns, nouns can also be animate or inanimate. People and animals are animate, with things and concepts being inanimate. For these pronouns, animate and inanimate nouns have different stems. In addition to the cases detailed below, there is a vocative, formed with the particle u followed by the nominative form of the noun.  Nouns form their plural by final vowel apophony (alternation), from a historic plural marker *-i. Case is marked by a final suffix.

Noun gender by ending

Gender	Endings
neuter	-i, -e, -o, –C*
masculine	-u, -e, -o, –C*
feminine	-a, -e, -o, –C*

Noun gender by ending

Gender	Endings
neuter	-i, -e, -o, -C*
masculine	-u, -e, -o, -C
feminine	-a, -e, -o, -C

*-C being any consonant

Noun stems singular and plural forms

singular	plural
-a	-e
-e*	-i
-i	-ai
-o	-i
-u	-oi

*e-stem nouns sometimes end in a consonant in the nominative singular

Case suffixes

nominative	–
accusative	-s
dative	-m
genitive	-v
instrumental	-d

zifa (f.) – door

Case	Singular	Plural
nominative	zifa	zife
accusative	zifas	zifes
dative	zifam	zifem
genitive	zifav	zifev
instrumental	zifad	zifed

Natural gender

For human beings, sentient creatures and larger mammals, grammatical gender typically aligns with natural gender. There are several patterns for indicating gender. Here is an example: nyaf/nyafog/nyafich cat, male cat, female cat. For gender variable nouns of all types, the citation form is the neuter singular nominative form.

neuter	masculine	feminine
-i	-u	-a
–	-og	-ich