Note 15 — Chapter IV · OF TINTAGEL

The Cornish language was spoken until 1768. In that year Daines Barrington met the old fish-wife Dolly Pentreath, whose name has become memorable as that of the last person to speak Cornish. The last sermon in Cornish was preached in 1678 in Landewednack Church. The slackening of the Saxon advance at the Tamar enabled the Cornish to preserve their tongue, closely allied to that of Wales and Brittany, and described as “naughty Englysshe” in the reign of the eighth Henry.