Last speaker of the Cornish language

Identifying the last native speaker of the Cornish language was a subject of academic interest in the 18th and 19th centuries, and continues to be a subject of interest today. The traditional view that Dolly Pentreath (1692–1777) was the last native speaker of the language has been challenged by records of other candidates for the last native speaker, and additionally there are records of others who had knowledge of the language at a later date, while not being native speakers.

Finding the last speaker of the language is complicated by the lack of audio recordings or transcriptions owing to the date of the language extinction. It is very difficult to know, without such evidence, whether those reported as speaking Cornish into the 19th century were able to speak the language fluently, or even whether they were speaking it at all. A substratum of Cornish vocabulary persisted in Cornish English, and in some cases those identified as Cornish speakers may have been speaking English with heavy Cornish influence.

Nevertheless the difficulty of identifying the last speaker has not prevented academics spending considerable effort on the topic.