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Concept
Guernésiais
Summary
Guernésiais (ɡɛʁnezjɛ) , also known as Dgèrnésiais, Guernsey French, and Guernsey Norman French, is the variety of the Norman language spoken in Guernsey. It is sometimes known on the island simply as "patois". As one of the langues d'oïl, it has its roots in Latin, but has had strong influence from both Old Norse and English at different points in its history.
There is mutual intelligibility (with some difficulty) with Jèrriais speakers from Jersey and Continental Norman speakers from Normandy. Guernésiais most closely resembles the Norman dialect of Cotentinais spoken in La Hague in the Cotentin Peninsula of France.
Guernésiais has been influenced less by Standard French than Jèrriais, but conversely more so by English. New words have been imported for modern phenomena: e.g. le bike and le gas-cooker.
There is a rich tradition of poetry in the Guernsey language. Guernsey songs were inspired by the sea, by colourful figures of speech, by traditional folk-lore, as well as by the natural environment of the island. The island's greatest poet was George Métivier (1790–1881), a contemporary of Victor Hugo, who influenced and inspired local poets to print and publish their traditional poetry. Métivier blended local place-names, bird and animal names, traditional sayings and orally transmitted fragments of medieval poetry to create his Rimes Guernesiaises (1831). Denys Corbet (1826–1910) was considered the "Last Poet" of Guernsey French and published many poems in his day in his native tongue, both in the island newspaper and privately.
The most recent dictionary of Guernésiais, Dictiounnaire Angllais-guernesiais by Marie de Garis, was published in 1967 and revised in 1982.
Guernsey was a part of Normandy until the latter was conquered by French kings; a form of the Norman language developed in the Channel Islands and survived for hundreds of years. Guernésiais is considered to be one of the langues d'oïl, which includes French and its closest relatives.
Official source
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