'"The Cornish dialect, one of the three branches of the old British, bears greater aftinitv with the Breton or Armorican dialect of Brittany than it does with the Welsh, although it properly forms the link of onion between the Celtic dialect of France and that of the Cambrian hills. The nature of Its inflexions, both in letters and in tenses and cases, is, generally speaking, alike, allowance being made for dialectic variations arising from the nature of the country in which the dialect is spoken." The above quotation is from the remarkable book published by Bagster & Sons, "The Bible of every Land: A History of the Sacred Scriptures in every Language and Dialect into which Translations have been made." Preceding the above quotation, I find it stated that Dolly Pentreath, who died at Penzance in 1778, aged 102, was then said to be the only person in Cornwall who could speak the aboriginal idiom of that province of ancient Britain." This old woman died at Mousehole, and was buried in the churchyard of Paul. Over her grave Prince Lucien Bonaparte has recently placed an inscribed granite obelisk. Polwbele and some others have doubted the statement made by Dames Barrington, that Dolly was the last person who could speak Cornish. As they contend, many other men and women may, a hundred years since, have known the tongue, but no writer has produced good evidence to show that any person habitually spoke the language, which Barrington informs us was the case with Dolly Pentreath.'
Hunt 1903
