Evening star., 1901-09-21
CORNISH A DEAD LANGUAGE.
Last Spoken by Dolly Pentreath q
Century. and a Quarter Ago.

Last Spoken by Dolly Pentreath a
Century and a Quarter Ago.
From the Boston Pilot
Recent discussion of the position occupied
by the Irish language reminds us that.
though there Is happily no fear OF Irish
becoming extinct. kindred Celtic Ian
guage has died out. Cornish is as dead as
Queen Anne. Not quite so dead. perhaps,
for it survived little later than that much
quoted lady. There have been six Celtic
languages that have come into Immediate
contact with modern times. These are
Welsh. Cornish and Breton. which may be
grouped together as Cymric or Brythonic;
Irish. Scotch, Gaelic and Manx, which are
Goidhelic. Breton Is struggling bravely
against the French. Whatever may be
said Of the Scotch Gaelic and Manx, Welsh
and Irish may yet resist the supremacy of
the English. But poor Cornish is altogeth-
er a thing of the past. 1t only survives In
few relics and in place names. 1t is not
even a dead language in the same sense
as Greek or Latin; 1t died without leaving
seeds for any possible resurrection. Slow
and sure was the mode of its extinction.
When the reformation came an English
Bible and an English service book struck
the death blow. The share which the Corn
ish took In the western rebellion was In
some sort last struggle of racial impulse
Certain of us understand no English" ex-
claimed the stout Cornshman; give us
back our dear old service in Latin. We ut
terly refuse this new English. Probably
they had understood Latin no better; but
they had instructive feeling that this
new English must do away with their
loved national speech. Unhappily none of
them loved the old speech we'll enough to
to translate the Bible or the liturgy into
Cornish. The English Bible killed the Corn
lsh tongue, but 1T did not convert the Corn
ish to Angelicanism. They became Noncon-
formists and finally MethOdists
Every one who knows anything of Corn
wall knows that the credit of having last
spoken Cornish is given to Dolly Pentreath
who was buried at Paul. near Mousehoie
In 1I1o. But she could not have been the
last person to understand Cornish; other
wise 1t Is certain that the following epitaph
could not have been written over her re-
mains:
Goth Doll Pentreath caus ha deau:
Marrow ha Kledys ed Paul plea:
Ma ed an egiOz. gan popel bras,
Bes ed egloz hay Goth Dolly Is.
Which signifies Old Doll Pentreath one
hundred and two. dead and buried in Paul
Parish. Not in the church with great
people but In the church yard old Dolly
lies" 1t is easy to recognize two words
here, "egloz" and 'popel' people), as gen.
uine Latin: Just as We similarly find an
Infusion Of Latin In present-day Welsh
But traditional knowledge Of Cornish.
fast becoming corrupt. fingered after Dol
lys death: 1t is even said that only ten
years ago there was living at Zennor near
St. Ives, an old man who knew a good
many Cornish words which he had learned
from his father. These words seem to
have been chiefly the names of places
1T Is only about two centuries since the
clergy of some Cornish parishes, particu-
larry toward Lands End, used to preach
to their people In the old tongue.
For a parallel to Cornish we NAV now go
to Brittany and hear the peasantry talk
ing. 1t has been said. rather doubtfulIy.
that these peasants. when they come over
with onions. can go into the cottages of
Welsh folk and converse This sort of
thing would have been far more possible in
Cornwall few centuries since; the Bret
ons and Cornish are very much Of one race.
ana tneir speech shared the kinship There
Is still Cornish dialect, which differs from
Devonian. and which contains a few old
Celtic words; but on the whole the words
or west country speech are old Saxon-it
Celtic. - y