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Concept
Jèrriais
Summary
Jèrriais (Jersiais ʒɛʁzjɛ; also known as the Jersey Language, Jersey French and Jersey Norman French in English) is a Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an island in the Channel Islands archipelago off the coast of France. Its closest relatives are the other Norman languages, such as Guernésiais, spoken in neighbouring Guernsey, and the other langues d'oïl.
Use of Jèrriais has been in decline over the past century, as English has increasingly become the language of education, commerce and administration on Jersey. There are very few people who speak Jèrriais as a mother tongue and, owing to the age of the remaining speakers, their numbers decrease annually. Despite this, efforts are being made to keep the language alive.
The language of Sark, Sercquiais, is a descendant of the Jèrriais brought by the Jersey colonists who settled Sark in the 16th century, with mutual intelligibility with the Norman language of mainland Normandy.
Jèrriais is often called "Jersey French" or "Jersey Norman French" in English (though this may give the impression that the language is a dialect of French) and jersiais or normand de Jersey in French. Jèrriais is distinct from the Jersey Legal French used for legal contracts, laws and official documents by the government and administration of Jersey. For this reason, some prefer using the term "Jersey Norman" to avoid ambiguity and to dissociate the language from standard French.
Although few now speak Jèrriais as a first language, until the 19th century, Jèrriais was used as the everyday language for the majority of the population of Jersey; even as late as the beginning of the Second World War, up to half the population could still communicate in the language. Despite this, awareness of the decline of language use became apparent in the 19th century in scholarly circles. Among foreign linguists, Louis Lucien Bonaparte visited Jersey and interested himself in the language and its literature.
Official source
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