Devonshire :: 12. People Race. Dialects. Settlements. Population.

12. People Race. Dialects. Settlements. Population.

The earliest inhabitants of Devonshire, the people of the Palaeolithic or Early Stone Age, have left few traces beyond their weapons and implements of flint. They lived in caves or on the banks of rivers. They were hunters, and appear to have practised no craft but that of hunting, while their arts seem to have been almost if not entirely limited to the use of fire and to the making of rude instruments of stone.

But during the Neolithic Period, as the Later Stone Age is called, the district, it is believed, was invaded by an Iberian or Ivernian race from south-western Europe, a race possessing flocks and herds, with a knowledge of many arts and crafts, such as spinning and weaving, the making of pottery and of dug-out canoes, but having at first no acquaintance with the use of metal. They were of the same stock as the Silures of South Wales, and were probably dark-haired and black-eyed, round-headed and short of stature. Their descendants may, perhaps, still be seen in the county, especially on the skirts of Exmoor, and it is quite possible that their breeds of domestic animals may be represented upon Devonshire farms to-day.

The Iberians were, it is thought, conquered and driven westward by the very different Goidels or Gaels, a powerful Celtic race, tall, fair, long-headed, much further advanced in arts and crafts, and to some extent users of bronze for tools and ornaments. It is thought by some authorities that it was they who set up the stone circles, avenues, and menhirs, and who built the rude stone huts which still remain on Dartmoor. Many of the people of Scotland and Ireland are their descendants, and their language is still spoken in the Highlands and Western Isles of Scotland, in parts of Ireland, and in the Isle of Man.

The Gaels were, it is believed, succeeded and conquered in the fourth century before Christ by the Brythons, another Celtic race, who gave their name to our island. They took possession of Wales, and of Scotland as far as the Highlands, but they do not appear to have crossed into Ireland. They were, to a great extent, users of bronze, but they also worked in iron, and were the first of the Iron Age in this country. It is probable that they built most of the hill-forts of Devonshire, and that they made many of the roads, some of which were afterwards adapted and improved by the Romans.

Shortly before the landing of Julius Caesar, Britain was invaded by still another Celtic race, the Belgae from Gaul, a tall, dark-haired people, as may be gathered from the appearance of their descendants, the Walloons of LiÈge and the Ardennes.

The Roman tenure of Devonshire was of a very limited character, and can have had little effect upon the inhabitants. The Saxon occupation of the district was more of the nature of colonisation than of conquest. By the time they had crossed Somerset the Saxons were, at least nominally, Christians; and although their treatment of the original occupants was none too gentle, as, for instance, in the expulsion of the Britons from Exeter by Athelstan, it seems likely that the two races settled quietly down together, the Saxons probably becoming the land-owners, and the Celts the peasantry. It is thought that the main population of the county is Celtic, of one or other of the three waves of Celtic invasion. There are in Devonshire many Celtic place-names, especially of hills and rivers; and some of the latter, with the addition of Saxon endings, such as ham, ton, and stock, survive also in the names of towns. In some cases, curious English-looking names can be traced to Celtic words of quite another meaning. Thus, Bowerman's Nose, the name of a famous crag on Dartmoor, is probably a corruption of Veor maen, "the great stone."

The dialect of Devonshire, like the very similar speech of west Somerset, is Saxon, with strong traces of Celtic influence in its pronunciation. One of many peculiarities is the sound of the diphthongs oo and ou, which are pronounced like the French u or the German Ü. Another peculiarity is the great variety of the vowel sounds, and the indistinctness or modification of some of the consonants. Again, th and even v are often sounded like dh. It is also very characteristic to put d for th as, for instance, datch for thatch, or dishle for thistle.

There are many words in common use in Devonshire which are almost or entirely unknown elsewhere, and which may be regarded as survivals of ancient Saxon or, in some cases, British speech. Such, for example, are:—

whisht, weird, uncanny, lonely,	pluff, not well.
overlooked.	spraggetty, spotted.
cloam, earthenware.	dimpety, dusk.
clam, a foot-bridge.	chicket, cheerful.
yark, lively.	spilsky, lean.
stivery, disordered.	fess, smart.
clunk, to swallow.	plum, soft.
giglets, young men or women	scamlin, irregular.
seeking new situations.	thurdle, miserable.
havage, character.	sklum, to grasp roughly.
zamzoaky, tepid.	yaw, to bite.
coochey, clumsy.	shugg, shy.
mawn, a basket.	ippet, a lizard.
frickety, heavy, sodden.

It should be remembered that some of the forms of Devonshire dialect which strike the educated ear as ungrammatical are really survivals of pure Saxon speech, such as was in use at the courts of Alfred the Great and Athelstan. English in other parts of England has undergone great changes. In the West Country it has in some respects kept closer to the original forms.

The Norman Conquest left its mark in many places. Double names, such as Berry Pomeroy, Sampford Courtenay, and Wear Gifford, suggest the addition of a Norman family title to the existing Saxon name of a manor. It is quite possible that the common Devonshire word fay, as in Yes, fay and No, fay, is a survival of the Old French fay (for foi), "faith."

A Cockle Woman, River Exe

Huguenots and other French refugees have also at various times settled in the county, as, for instance, at Exeter, where they introduced the art of weaving tapestry, at Barnstaple, where they taught new and better methods of making cloth, and at Plymouth, where many took refuge after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. And it seems likely that Bratton Fleming and Stoke Fleming were named after Flemish immigrants, many of whom settled in Devonshire.

A Honiton Lace-Worker

The population of the Geographical County of Devonshire, according to the census of 1901, is 661,314, and there are in the county 123,608 inhabited houses. A hundred years ago the population was 340,308; it has, therefore, not quite doubled during the century. In the busier county of Kent the population has in the same time increased from 268,097 to 1,348,841. In common with all except five of the counties of England, there are in Devonshire more women than men; the excess of the female over the male population being 37,096.

The chief occupation is agriculture, which provides employment for 42,000 people, or about one-nineteenth of the inhabitants—a considerably lower proportion than in the adjoining county of Somerset. Less than 3000 men are engaged in mines and quarries; 2000 are fishermen, and lace-making occupies 350 men and 1500 women.

In common with many other parts of England the small country parishes of Devonshire are much less populous than they were. In the last fifty years there has been a decline of 17,000 in the rural population.

Devonshire is a somewhat thinly-inhabited county. There are in it a little more than 2 ½ acres to every man, woman, and child, or 254 persons to the square mile, compared with 558 to the square mile for the whole of England and Wales. Westmorland, the most sparsely-populated county, has only 82 people to the square mile, or eight acres to each inhabitant. Lancashire, on the other hand, contains more than 2300 people to the square mile, or four people to every acre; and in the county of Middlesex there are 12,669 to the square mile, which gives about twenty inhabitants to every acre of ground.

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