The rainfall chart here given shows that Cornwall lies for the most
part in an area where from 40 to 60 inches are annually recorded, though
a strip of the north coast from St Ives to Padstow and again from
Boscastle to the northern limit of the county shows a fall of less than
40 inches. This is because the uplands have robbed the rainclouds of a
considerable portion of their contents, and accordingly it is on these
high moorlands that we find the greatest rainfall. Thus on the moors
between Launceston and Bodmin from 60 to 80 inches fall, and even this
latter figure is exceeded in the neighbourhood of Rough Tor and Brown
Willy.
From observations taken at the Royal Institution of Cornwall at Truro,
from 1850 to 1881 it appears that the rainiest months are November and
December, and next to them January and July; April and May are the least
rainy.
=13. People--Race, Dialect, Population.=
The original population of Cornwall would seem to have been what is now
commonly called Ivernian, the same as Iberian, the underlying race
everywhere in Western Europe from the western isles of Scotland to
Gibraltar. When the Romans invaded and conquered Spain, they found there
already in the east the Celts and in the west the Iberians, and they
designated the more or less fused population, Celtiberians. So in
Cornwall, there was this dark-haired, dusky-skinned race, and the
Brythons, Celts, of the people of the Dumnonii. There were extensive
settlements by Irish in the Land's End district, the Lizard, and along
the north coast, in 490-510, owing to the expulsion of the Ossorians and
the Bairrche from their lands in Ireland. The Saxon also crossed the
Tamar and peaceably settled in East Cornwall.
The language spoken was Brythonic, akin to, and originally identical
with Welsh and that spoken in Lower Brittany. It was distinct in some
points from the Goidelic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Highlands
of Scotland. The main difference was that the _C_ in the latter became
_P_ in the former. Thus _Ken_ or _Cen_ in such names as Kenmare and
Ciaran would in Cornish become Penmare and Piran.
In the reign of Edward I, Cornish was spoken in the south Hams of
Devonshire, but in the sixteenth century it was dying out even in West
Cornwall. Norden, writing in 1580, says: "Of late the Cornish men have
much conformed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their
English is equal to the beste, especially in the eastern partes.... In
the weste parte of the countrye, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier,
the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." At
Menheniot about 1540 the Creed and the Lord's Prayer were first taught
the people in English. In 1678, at Landewednack, the last Cornish sermon
on record was preached. In the reign of George III (1777) died Dolly
Pentreath, the last to speak the language.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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