h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I came across the following recently

In 1865 Isaac Taylor wrote the book "Words and Places" (2nd Edition, MacMillan) that

"in the remote parts of Devon the ancient Cymric speech feebly lingered on till the reign of Elizabeth"...

Yet another reference to the survival of Celtic speech ...

He also goes on to provide the following analysis of placenames

Devon Cymric 32%, Saxon 65%, Norse 3%
Cornwall Cymric 80%, Saxon 80%, Norse 0%
Suffolk Cymric 2%, Saxon 90%, Norse 0%
Surrey Cymric 8%, Saxon 91%, Norse 1%

Thanks for posting that Ozzie Exile, I'd often read the claim that Cornish lived on in parts of Devon until the reign of Elizabeth, but did not know where it was taken from.

Mr Taylor's book is available as a free Google ebook, so I've just been having a look at it. The piece that caught my attention was this...

"The final overthrow of the Britons by Athelston in the year 936 was at a place called Bolleit in Cornwall".

Now, I've read a great deal of speculation on that subject, but certainly haven't seen Bolleit mentioned before. I wonder where he got that from.

Ozzie exile,

I think the Cornwall placename analysis should be Saxon 20%. Otherwise the percentages don’t add up. However, these analyses bring up an interesting point. Padel, in his “A popular Dictionary of Cornish Place-Names”, shows only 43% of Cornish names being Brythonic in origin. This can be explained by the fact that his book contains only major placenames, whereas the vast majority of Cornish names are of minor places, and these are predominantly Brythonic in origin.

Similarly the Place-Names of Devon (1931-2) is only a survey of major names, and the conclusion drawn from this is that the names are predominantly Old English in origin, and that the most common placename element in Devon is ‘ton’. However, a search through the OS maps of Devon clearly reveals that the most common element is in fact ‘combe/coombe’, but that this element occurs most frequently in minor placenames.

Padel claims that ‘combe’ names occurring in Cornwall are names borrowed into English from the Cornish ‘comm’, because compound names containing ‘combe’ are very common in Devon. This is poor analysis, because if he had examined the Devon ‘combe’ names included in the Domesday Book, he would have discovered that the vast majority appeared in simplex form in 1086AD, just as they do in Brittany, and nobody could claim that the Breton ‘combe’ names were Old English borrowed names. Padel also assumes that by the time the Devon ‘combe’ names were formulated, the population of Devon was predominantly Saxon. This can be shown to be a totally inaccurate assumption, from the various population genetics surveys, which clearly show that the population of Devon is predominantly Celtic/Brythonic in origin, just like the population of Cornwall.

There is even evidence from Devon placenames that Brythonic speech lingered on well past the Norman Conquest. For instance, both Ponsworthy and Ponsford contain the Middle Cornish term ‘pons’, meaning ‘bridge. It is interesting to note that in the Domesday Book (1086), the Old Cornish form ‘pont’ was used for what is now Ponsford. The transition from Old Cornish to Middle Cornish occurred at the end of the 12th Century, which would indicate that Brythonic speech was still in use at this time. Also, there was a (now lost) name ‘Odencolc’ near Thurlstone, which is Brythonic, meaning ‘lime kiln’. As lime kilns did not come into use in Devon until the 14th/15th centuries, the name would indicate Brythonic usage at this time.

Also the frequent mention of "Walensis" in 'Crown Pleas of the Devon Eyre (1238)', referring to Brythonic speakers, would indicate Brythonic survival at least until this time.

PennRecca,

The actions of Athelstan in both Devon and Cornwall have been greatly extrapolated/exaggerated by subsequent authors. For instance, Athelstan’s law code (of 936AD), in which he decreed that “wrongdoers should be driven out of their homes, unless they refrained from wrongdoing”, was first extrapolated by William of Malmesbury (two centuries later) to mean that the Britons were expelled from Exeter, and later still by Cornish nationalists, to mean that all Britons were driven out of Devon.

Similarly, the bit about Athelstan finally overthrowing the Britons at Bolleit should be taken with some caution. Bolleit was at what is now St Buryan, near Lands End. It may be historically correct, but it certainly didn’t indicate the expulsion of the British population from either Cornwall or Devon, judging by the evidence from modern population genetics.

The following link is to a blog which investigates some possible British place names in Devon

http://uriconium.blogspot.com.au/2010_11_01_archive.html

The blog is by Chris Jenkins, and I give warning that it is heavy going.

Although I find some of Chris' hypothesis rather fanciful, there are some interesting suggestions - such as the twitchens found early in this blog. Another thread discusses the British element -ituna and the suggestion that not every 'ton' is of Anglo Saxon origin, and I was also interested to come across the placename Chinemetona (now Kilmington).

I do not know the voracity of Chris' sources, but at the very least there may be some elements here to mull over.