Fishy tale Challenge to legend of 'last true Cornish speaker'

The legend that Cornish vanished as a living language with the death of the fish seller Dolly Pentreath in the late 18th century is being challenged by a leading expert on the Celtic culture of the far south-west of Britain.

- Steven Morris

Pentreath, from the port village of Mousehole on the Cornish south coast, died in 1777 aged 85 and the narrative developed that she was the last true speaker of Kernewek.

But Kensa Broadhurst, of the Institute of Cornish Studies at the University of Exeter, has written a book which argues that the language clung on through the 19th century, spoken by some working-class people, academics and others who saw value in preserving it.

Broadhurst said Cornish should be classified as having been critically endangered rather than extinct. "The story of the Cornish language is one of resilience, not disappearance," she said.

Broadhurst, a bard of the Cornish Gorsedh, which promotes Cornish Celtic culture, said Cornish was widely spoken in medieval times.