68 CORNWALL End district, the Lizard, and along the north coast, in 490 510, owing to the expulsion of the Ossorians and the Bairrche from their lands in Ireland. The Saxon also crossed the Tamar and peaceably settled in East Cornwall. The language spoken was Brythonic, akin to, and originally identical with Welsh and that spoken in Lower Brittany. It was distinct in some points from the Goidelic of Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Highlands of Scotland. The main difference was that the C in the latter became P in the former. Thus Ken or Cen in such names as Kenmare and Ciaran would in Cornish become Penmare and Pi ran. In the reign of Edward I, Cornish was spoken in the south Hams of Devonshire, but in the sixteenth century it was dying out even in West Cornwall. Norden, writing in 1580, says : "Of late the Cornish men have much con- formed themselves to the use of the English tongue, and their English is equal to the beste, especially in the eastern partes In the weste parte of the countrye, in the hun- dreds of Penwith and Kirrier, the Cornishe tongue is most in use amongste the inhabitants." At Menheniot about 1540 the Creed and the Lord's Prayer were first taught the people in English. In 1678, at Landewednack, the last Cornish sermon on record was preached. In the reign of George III (1777) died Dolly Pentreath, the last to speak the language. Two modern Cornish dialects exist. That in the east very naturally is assimilated to the Devonshire ; but in the west it has formed itself in comparatively recent times. The more common prefixes of names of places are:
