which is derived from the first declension of Anglo-Saxon nouns, not as is often asserted, from the Norman-French usage.  In other words, all plurals have been assimilated to this the commonest model; just as in French they have been assimilated to the final s of the third declension in Latin.  A few plurals of the other types still survive, such as men, geese, mice, sheep, deer, oxen, children and (dialectically) peasen.  To make up for this loss of inflexions, the language now employs a larger number of particles, and to some extent, of auxiliaries.  Instead of wines, we now say of a friend; instead of wine, we now say to a friend; and instead of winum, we now say to friends.  English, in short, has almost ceased to be inflexional and has become analytic.

As regards matter or vocabulary, the language has lost in certain directions, and gained in others.  It has lost many old Teutonic roots, such as wig, war; rice, kingdom; tungol, light; with their derivatives, wigend, warrior; rixian, to rule; tungol-witega, astrologer; and so forth.  The relative number of such losses to the survivals may be roughly gauged from the passages quoted above.  On the other hand, the language has gained by the incorporation of many Romance words, shortly after the Norman Conquest, such as place, voice, judge, war, and royal.  Some of these have entirely superseded native old English words.  Thus the Norman-French uncle, aunt, cousin, nephew, and niece, have wholly ousted their Anglo-Saxon equivalents.  In other instances the Romance words have enriched the language with symbols for really new ideas.  This is still more strikingly the case with the direct importations from the classical Greek and Latin which began at the period of the Renaissance.  Such words usually refer either to abstract conceptions for which the English language had no suitable expression, or to the accurate terminology of the advanced sciences.  In every-day conversation our vocabulary is almost entirely English; in speaking or writing upon philosophical or scientific subjects it is largely intermixed with Romance and Graeco-Latin elements.  On the whole, though it is to be regretted that many strong, vigorous or poetical old Teutonic roots should have been allowed to fall into disuse, it may safely be asserted that our gains have far more than outbalanced our losses in this respect.

It must never be forgotten, however, that the whole framework of our language still remains, in every case, purely English—­that is to say, Anglo-Saxon or Low Dutch—­however many foreign elements may happen to enter into its vocabulary.  We can frame many sentences without using one word of Romance or classical origin:  we cannot frame a single sentence without using words of English origin.