This linguistic shift (dative forms replacing nominative) is common among Irish nouns of the fifth declension.

The second person sense is always capitalized ('Sie') in writing, as well as its accusative and dative forms, to avoid any ambiguity.

The dative form of a verb infinitive (which acts like a noun in Oromo) indicates purpose.

The only difference in masculine and feminine nouns of this declension is the dative singular forms.

They are originally the accusative and dative or ablative forms of a verbal noun in the fourth declension, respectively.

Unlike the nouns, pronouns have an additional object form, derived from the old dative form.

Some words in Munster Irish also have a separate dative form:

The dative proclitic form precedes the verb, as in:

Personal reflexive pronouns have accusative and dative forms.

In Munster dialects a dative form persisted, though this has been largely discarded by younger speakers.