Wadham Pigott Williams

“ In the Eastern Counties the invaders seem to have overwhelmed the natives, and destroyed or driven them further inland. Here, in Somerset, their language continued to be spoken in the time of Asser, the latter part of the 9th century; for he tells his readers what Selwood and other places with Saxon names were called by the Britons. We may infer from this mention of them that they were still dispersed over these counties, and undoubtedly they still live in our peasantry, and are traceable in the dialect. Now, is there any peculiarity in this which we may seize as diagnostic of British descent? ”

“ In a word, the peasantry of West Somerset are Saxonized Britons. Their ancestors submitted to the conquering race, or left their country and emigrated to Brittany, but were not destroyed; and in them and their kinsmen of Cornouailles in France we see the living representatives of the ancient Britons as truly as in Devonshire and Cornwall, in Cumberland, or Wales. ”

“ Nay, we find that even in a country like Italy, where the religion, language, and manners are the same, the original difference of races is observable in different parts of the peninsula after many centuries that they have been living side by side.
It seems to be a law of population that nations composed of different stocks or types can only be fused into a homogeneous whole by the absorption of one into the other—of the smaller into the greater, or of the town-dwellers into the country stock. ”

“ We freely made use of Norris, Jennings, Halliwell, or any other collector of words that we could find, omitting mere peculiarities of pronunciation, and I venture to hope it will prove that we have not overlooked much that is left of that interesting old language, which those great innovators, the Printing Press, the Railroad, and the Schoolmaster, are fast driving out of the country. ”

“ It will be urged that during the many centuries that have elapsed since the West Saxons took possession of this part of England the inhabitants must have been so mixed up together that all distinctive marks of race must long since have been p. viobliterated. But that best of teachers, experience, shows that where a conquered nation remains in greatly superior numbers to its conqueror, and there is no artificial bar to intermarriages, the latter, the conqueror, will surely be absorbed into the conquered. ”

“ The districts called by the Saxons those of the Sumorsætas, of the Thornsætas [Dorset] , and the Wiltsætas were lost to the kings of Dyvnaint at an early period; though for centuries afterwards a large British population maintained itself in those parts among the Saxon settlers, as well as among the Defnsætas, long after the Saxon conquest of Dyvnaint, who for a considerable time preserved to the natives of that shire the appellation of the Welsh kind. ”

“ In the south-west we meet with the powerful territory of Damnonia, the kingdom of Arthur, which bore also the name of ‘West-Wales.’ Damnonia at a later period was limited to Dyvnaint, or Devonshire, by the separation of Cernau or Cornwall. ”

“ This usage seems to be in accordance with the Welsh pronunciation of w in cwm.
There are other peculiarities that seem to be more or less common to all the Western Counties, and to have descended to them from that Wessex language that is commonly called Anglo-Saxon—a language in which we have a more extensive and varied literature than exists in any other Germanic idiom of so early a date, itself the purest of all German idioms. It is a mistake to suppose that it is the parent of modern English. This has been formed upon the dialect of Mercia, that of the Midland Counties ”

“ The result of this law is, that mixed nations will tend with the progress of time to revert to their original types, and either fall apart into petty groups and provincial distinctions, as in Spain, or will eliminate the weaker or less numerous race, the old or the new, as the one or the other predominates. ”

“ A hard consonant at the beginning of a word is replaced with a soft one, f for v, as in vire for fire; s with z, as in zur for sir; th with d, as in “What’s dee doing here dis time o’night?” k with g, as in gix, the hollow stalk of umbelliferous plants, for keeks. To be “as dry as a gix” is to be as dry as one of these stalks—a strong appeal for a cup of cider.
Of another peculiarity which our Western district has in common with Norway, I am uncertain whether it extends further eastward, or not ”

“ A still more striking case of the kind is that of Egypt, a country that for more than 2,000 years has been subject to foreign conquerors, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and Mamelukes, and the annual influx of many thousand negro slaves, and where, notwithstanding all this, the peasantry, as far as can be judged by a careful examination of the skull, is identical with the population of the Pharaonic period. ”

“ Capel told me that it was not unusual to find among the people of those hills a very refined cast of features and extremely beautiful children, and expressed a belief that they were the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the country, who had been dispossessed of their land in more fertile districts by conquerors of coarser breed. ”

“ Prior was read at a Conversazione of the Society at Taunton, in the winter of 1871, and as it treats the subject from a more general point of view than is usually taken of it, we print it with his permission as an introduction to our vocabulary:—
On the Somerset Dialects.
The two gentlemen who have undertaken to compile a glossary of the Somerset dialect, the Rev. W. P. Williams and Mr. W. A. Jones, have done me the honour to lend me the manuscript of their work ”

“ The characteristic feature of their dialect, and the remark p. xapplies of course equally to the Devonian which is identical with it, is the sound of the French u or the German u given to the oo and ou, a sound that only after long practice can be imitated by natives of the more eastern counties. Thus a “roof” is a rüf, “through” is thrü, and “would” is wüd. ”

“ Gimmaces (g hard) s. a criminal is said to be hung in gimmaces, when he is hung in chains
Glare v. to glaze earthenware. Also s. ex. The roads are all a glare of ice
Glassen adj. made of glass
Glou, Glouie v. to stare
Glou-beäson s. a glow-worm, a bold impudent fellow
Glutch, Glutchy v. to swallow s. the act of swallowing, Glutcher s. the throat
Gold s. sweet willow; Myrica gale, abundant in the moors of Somerset, in the herbalists called Gaule
Go-lie v. spoken of corn falling after rain ”

“ Heeler s. one who hides or covers. Proverb: The heeler is as bad as the stealer
Heft s. and v. weight, to lift up, from v. to heave
Hegler, or Higler s. an egg or fowl collector and dealer
Hellier s. a tiler, one who covers
Hel’m s. haulm of wheat, beans, peas, potatoes (A S healm)
Hem pron. he or him, ex. If hem had hat hem as hem hat hem, hem ’oud a kill’d hem or hem ’oud a kill’d hem
Hen v. ”

“ In the selection of words for their vocabulary I trust that these gentlemen will follow the example of Mr. Cecil Smith in his admirable work on “The Birds of Somersetshire”—not to admit one of which he had not positive proof that it had been shot in this county. Every one p. xiishould be taken down from the lips of a native, and such as cannot be identified should be sternly rejected. The task that they have undertaken is a laborious one ”

“ I cannot conclude these remarks without adverting to a rich and hitherto quite unexplored mine of antiquities—the names of our fields. There is reason to believe that our country roads were traced out, and the boundaries and names of our fields assigned to them, when these were first reclaimed from the primeval forest, and that they are replete with notices of ancient men and manners that deserve and will well repay our careful study.
* * * * *
Since the above has been in type I have had the satisfaction of learning from Mr. ”

“ Kecker, Kyecker-pipe, Kyecker, Kyeck-horn, the wind-pipe, a pervious pipe, from kike to look through
Keeve, or Kive s. a large tub used in brewing or cider making v. to put the wort or cider in a keeve to ferment
Keep s. a large basket
Keffel s. a bad, worn-out horse (Welsh, Keffyl)
Kern v. to coagulate as milk; also applied to fruit and wheat becoming visible after the blossoming
Kex, Kexy s. dry, pervious stalks, as of cow-parsley and hemlock Kexies, see Kecker
Kid s. a pod To Kiddy v. ex. They do kiddy, but they don’t villy
p. 21Kilter s. money
Kircher s. ”

“ Hank s. dealings with
Happer v. to crackle, rattle like hail
Hard adj. full grown, as hard stock, or sheep; a Hardboy a boy of about 13 years old
Harr s. the part of a gate which holds the hinges, ex. ”

“ Bird-battin v. taking birds at night with a net attached to two poles. Shaks. bat-fowling
Bird’s-meat, Bird’s-pears s. hips and haws
Bisgee, (g hard) , (Fr. besaigue. Lat bis-acuta) s. a mooting or rooting axe, sharp at both ends and cutting different ways
Bis’t v. Art thou? (Germ. bist du)
Bit s. the lower end of a poker v. to put a new end to a poker
Bivver v. to shake or tremble, ex. ”

“ Mace s. pl. acorns, mast
p. 23Macky-moon s. a man who plays the fool
Maethe (th soft) sweet as meathe (Welsh Medd, mead)
Maggems, Maay-geams s. May games, larking
Magne adj. great
Make-wise v. to pretend
Manchet s. a kind of cake eaten hot
Mandy adj. and v. haughty, domineering Commandy
Mang v. to mix
Mang-hangle adj. and s. mixed-up in a confused mass
Math s. a litter of pigs
Maules s. measles
May-bug s. cockchafer
Mawkin (maäking) an oven swab; scare-crow; a bundle of rags
Mawn s. a basket (A S mand)
Maze-house s. madhouse
Mazy adj. mad, ex. I be mooast maazed ”

“ Terrible adv. intensitive, ex. Terrible good
p. 38Thic, Thicky, Thicky-there, Thickumy, Thickumy-there pron. that (Chaucer thilk)
Thiller s. the shaft horse
Thill-harness opposed to trace harness
Tho adv. then, ex. I couldn’t go tho, but I went afterwards
Thong v. to stretch out into viscous threads or filaments
Thongy adj. viscid, ropy
Thornen adj. ”