16. =CHANGES IN ENGLISH.=--Let us take a passage from the Saxon translation of the Old Testament--and it is the oldest English version we have--and notice what differences there are between this English and the English of the present day. This translation was made by Abbot Ælfric, who lived and wrote late in the tenth century. He translated into English the five books of Moses--commonly called the Pentateuch--Joshua, Judges, and part of the book of Job. Let us see how he writes (Genesis, ix. 1): God blet[~t]sode God blessed Noe and his suna Noah and his sons and cväd hem tô: and quoth to them: Veahxađ Wax (ye) and beođ gemenigfilde and be manifolded and âfyllađ and fill þâ eorđan! the earth! Now every word in the above verse is modern English; but every word has been changed--with the exception of _God_, _his_, and _and_. All the other words have changed enormously in the course of the eight centuries since the verse was written. The words have changed; and the grammar has changed. The word _bletsian_ has become _bless_. The grammar of the verbs has changed enormously. For example, the imperative ending _ath_ in _Veahxath_ and _âfyllath_ has quite fallen away. It existed, in the form of _eth_, down to the time of Chaucer, who writes _Standeth up!_ in addressing several persons.--Next, we ought to notice that _all_ the words are pure English. The modern version which we still use, and which was published in 1611, has been obliged to use Latin and French words. It says--and the words in italics are all foreign words: ‘Be _fruitful_, and _multiply_ and _replenish_ the earth’! That is, it employs three Latin words in the most important parts of the sentence. 17. =LOSS AND GAIN.=--But, while the English language has, in the course of centuries, lost almost all its inflections, it has been all that time gaining new words, and at the same time gaining new powers of expression. In fact, the history of our language is a history of both loss and gain. It has lost _inflections_ and gained new _words_. An inflected language is generally called a =Synthetic Language=, because it expresses changes of relations by the _adding-on_ (_synthesis_) of something to the end of the word. A language which expresses relations by little words like prepositions is called an =analytic language=. We may therefore say that: =English was in its earlier forms a synthetic language; but it is now an analytic language.= So much for the form or grammar of it. But, on the other hand, if we look at the matter or words or vocabulary of it, we shall find that: =English was originally a pure or unmixed language; but is now an extremely composite one.=