The paper discusses the decline and survival of the Cornish language, which died out in the early Modern period but has ongoing revival efforts. The language shift from a Brittonic Celtic language to Old English took place rapidly in much of England, with very few Brittonic words entering Old English. The paper highlights the neglect of the Cornish language in English literature due to it being written in Cornish, a language outside the boundaries of English literature. The author suggests that archaeology, linguistics, and genetics do not necessarily produce equivalent pasts, as the entities they deal with (archaeological cultures, linguistic speech communities, genetic populations) are not always equivalent. The author's interest in the social history of language stems from their association with archaeologists and linguists in Pacific archaeology, as well as their interest in the decline of the Cornish language.