A New Source of Eighteenth-Century Devonshire Dialect Literature: Evidence From ‘A Dialogue About The Hairy Man’ (C.1785)

René Tissens

doi:10.18172/jes.6691

Authors

René Tissens Universidad de Salamanca https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6140-5149

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18172/jes.6691

Keywords:

Devonshire, diachrony, dialect, linguistics, morphology, phonology

Abstract

This paper analyses the language employed in ‘A Dialogue about the Hairy Man’, an anonymous obscure text published in a newspaper in 1785, as a new source of dialectal information in Devonshire. In doing so, it seeks to contribute to the ongoing research on the analysis of dialect writing in the literature of the eighteenth century. Thus, I examine and quantify all respellings that could point at non-standard language developments in terms of phonology, while also identifying morphological and lexical items that could have been documented at later dates before the consideration of this text. I expect to provide an early exposition of dialectal forms inscribed in the linguistic repertoire of Devonshire during a period where information is scarce and fragmentary. The fact that the forms documented by antiquarians during the nineteenth century are already found here could broaden our knowledge with regards to their history and resilience throughout time.

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