December 26th Dolly Pentreath (Death)
     

 

 

 

No Cornish Almanack could be complete without mention of, the Paul – born, Dolly Pentreath (1692 – 1777) who died on this day in 1777.

She is regarded as the last monoglotic speaker of the Cornish language as her native language was Cornish and she knew only a few phrases of English and she is often recorded as the last speaker of Cornish. That is not correct since there were other, later, speakers of Cornish but they also spoke English or Breton.

Pentreath, portrayed left by John Opie RA (May 16th) came to fame following a tour of Cornwall by the antiquarian, Daines Barrington (1768) who decided to seek out a speaker of Cornish. He wrote about Pentreath in a letter to the Journal of the Society of Antiquaries in London.  He claimed, he encountered her, by chance, in Mousehole, where he heard her speak in a ‘in a language which sounded very like Welsh’.  

That there were other Cornish speakers is indisputable but they could also speak another language. Baines reported this in another letter to the same society (1779).  The painting of Pentreath, above right, painted by the unrelated Richard Thomas Pentreath (1806 – 1869), is now on display at Lanhydrock House and a monument in her honour was erected in Paul Churhyard in 1860 and unveiled by Bonaparte’s nephew, Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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