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What is Guernésiais?

What is Guernesiais? Guernesiais used to be the primary language that was spoken on Guernsey, one of the British Channel Islands. It is also known as Dguernesiais, Guernsey French, Guernsey Norman French, and Patois, French for dialect. It is now considered to be an endangered language since less than 2% of the population of Guernsey are able to speak Guernesiais fluently, and most of these speakers are over the age of 50. The language is no longer being taught to children, and English has become the dominant language on the island. Some of the reasons for this language change are trade and tourism with Britain, and impacts from WWII, such as the evacuation of Guernsey children to Britain during the German occupation. If you'd like to learn more about the history of Guernesiais, here is a link to Julia Sallabank's BBC article.

This blog is where I will record my progress and challenges in my attempt to learn Guernesiais.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

A package from Guernsey!!

Yay!  My parcel from Guernsey has arrived :)!


So exciting to receive something from the place I've been reading so much about.  I ordered 2 small books from the La Société Guerneisiase.  Hopefully this will get my learning of Guernesiais rolling!  One book should be a small grammar and the other should be a collection of Folklore by Marie De Garis.

Oh, poop... There's been a mix up and I've received a Glossary of Guernsey Place-Names insead of Guernesiais: A Grammatical Survey.  I've sent an email asking for a digital copy.  Hopefully they will comply.

These are the books I received:


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