archaischen

Archaischen is the inflected form of the German adjective archaisch, which denotes something archaic or belonging to an earlier period. It is not a standalone concept but a grammatical ending used when the adjective appears in attributive position before a noun.

In German, archaischen appears in several cases, numbers, and genders, depending on the article and the noun. With a definite article, it usually marks the weak ending in cases such as dative singular and genitive plural, and in other plural forms. Examples include dem archaischen Stil (dative singular, masculine or neuter), der archaischen Sprache (dative singular, feminine), den archaischen Stilen (dative plural), und der archaischen Formen (genitive plural). In the nominative or accusative plural with a definite article, the form can appear as die archaischen Formen.

The term is common in historical, literary, and art-historical writing, where descriptions of old-fashioned features, styles, or linguistic forms are relevant. It often co-occurs with phrases like archaische Züge, archaische Grammatik, or archaischen Dialekt, highlighting its evaluative sense as marked by the passage of time.

Etymologically, archaisch derives from the Greek archaios through Latin and later German usage, reflecting the root meaning ancient or original. The adjective remains productive in academic and descriptive German, where precise grammatical endings convey both the archaic quality and the grammatical relation to the noun.