[…] loss of what had constituted the material of a language was an appreciable element in that constant change and development which we called its growth. Even such a process of subtraction is fairly enough to be reckoned as a part of growth; just as the growth of organic beings consists in removal as well as in resupply […] the loss might consist either in the disappearance of complete words from a vocabulary, or in the disappearance of the signs of grammatical distinction.
- Whitney (1875), a pag.98