Last native speaker: Dolly Pentreat (? – 1777), England

Cornish was once common among the local population of Cornwall, located on a peninsula in the southwest of Great Britain. By the time the Romans ruled the island, the Celts lived here. The local population spoke a Celtic language, the last monolingual speaker of which was Dolly Pentreat. Cornish and spanish translator was formally recognized by the Queen in 2002 and since the early 20th century, attempts have been made to bring back the language through bilingual Britons. The difference between them and Dolly Pentreat is that they are bilingual – Cornish and English, both of which have been learned since childhood, while Dolly learned English as an adult. It is believed that her last words were: “I don’t want to speak English!”. She was a peculiar character for her time – people describe her as a person who often uses swear words and constantly smokes a pipe, some even think of her as a witch. In particular, there was information about the curse that Dolly adored kronnekyn hager du, which people were especially afraid of. Some scholars say that Dolly Pentreat is not the last representative of this language and insist that, in fact, the Cornish language never completely disappeared from the face of the Earth.