Page:Cornwall (Salmon).djvu/67

LANGUAGE AND DIALECT In the weste parte of the country e, in the hundreds of Penwith and Kirrier, the Cornishe tounge is most in use amongste the inhabitants." The Reformation had brought an English liturgy and an English Bible — so distasteful at first to the Cornish that this was one motive of their religious insurrection in 1549. "We will have our old service," said they ; " we utterly refuse this new English." But no Cornishman took the trouble to translate liturgy or Scriptures into the Cornish tongue, and the English was certainly not more foreign to them than the Latin had been. For this reason, therefore, we must regard the introduction of English to the churches as a benefit ; it removed a foreign dead language, not " understanded of the people," and it made them familiar with a speech which was eventually to unify a vast empire. But we must nevertheless regret the decease of the vernacular. There was no reason why the Cornish should not have become bi- lingual, to their great mental advantage. The death of a language does not take place suddenly. At Menheniot, about the year i 540, the Creed and Paternoster were first taught to the folk in English ; at St. Feock, a century later, the vicar still administered the Sacrament in Cornish, for the benefit of the older people. In 1678, at Landewednack, the last Cornish sermon on record was preached. Still the tongue lingered around Land's End, and its last fluent speaker, Dolly Pentreath, lived till 1777. The similarity of Cornish to Breton is D 49