43. =ENGLISH WORDS LOST.=--The copious introduction of Norman-French, Latin, and Greek terms into our language, had the effect of pushing a great number of purely English words _out_ of our speech, or at least of making them less frequent in use. Thus we used to say _fore-elders_, but this word has had its place taken by _ancestors_; _fairhood_ has been pushed out by _beauty_; and _wonstead_ by _residence_. In the same way, _forewit_ has given place to _caution_; _licherest_[13] to _cemetery_; _inwit_ to _conscience_; _bookhoard_ to _library_; and _hindersome_ to _obstructive_. In fact, it is often easier for us to understand foreign words than those of our own native home-grown speech. The title of an old book written in the thirteenth century is the _Ayenbite[14] of Inwyt_--a title which is to us much more intelligible in its Franco-Latin translation of _Remorse of Conscience_. Mr Barnes, the Dorsetshire poet, has tried to re-introduce the genuine homely English way of speaking and writing; and to banish Latin terms. Thus, in his _Grammar_ or ‘Book of Speech-Craft,’ he calls _singular_, _onely_; _plural_, _somely_; and he calls _degrees of comparison_, _pitches of suchness_. The difficulty he has to contend with is, that this home English is less intelligible to our modern ears than the foreign Latin. Thus the following sentence looks like a word-puzzle: ‘These pitch-marks off mark sundry things by their sundry suchnesses, as, “The _taller_ or _less tall_ man of the two is my friend.”’ And he also says--what is a useful warning for us: ‘Speech was shapen of the breath-sounds of speakers, for the ears of hearers; and not from speech-tokens (letters) in books, for men’s eyes.’ CHAPTER II. =The History of the Grammar of English.= 1. =AN INFLECTED LANGUAGE.=--When, in the fifth century, our English speech was brought over from the Continent, it was a highly inflected or =Synthetic= language; and it remained in this condition for several centuries. The coming of the Danes had the effect of beginning the dropping off of inflections. The coming of the Normans extended very much and hastened this process, which has gone on with considerable rapidity down to the present day. We may put the general fact in this way: The English Language was a =Synthetic Language= down to about the year 1100; since that time, it has been becoming more and more of an =Analytic Language=. 2. =THE GRAMMAR OF NOUNS.=--In the very oldest English--or, as it is commonly called, _Anglo-Saxon_--nouns were declined in different ways, and had several declensions, just as German and Latin have. Each of these declensions had four cases. Nowadays we have only one declension and only one inflection for the cases of nouns. That one inflection is =’s= for the possessive case. The following is an example of an old declension: Declension of =EAGE=, the eye.