[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.