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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.

My links

This will be where I will list any web links I may mention in my posts :)


BBC Guernésiais: Learn a bit of Guernsey French
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guernsey/content/articles/2005/01/24/guernsey_french_learn_feature.shtml


La Société Guernesiaise
http://www.societe.org.gg/ 

BBC Article on Guernesiais Today and The History of Guernesiais - Julia Sallabank
http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/multilingual/guernesiais.shtml 


Dictionnaire Franco-Normand (1870) - Georges Métivier
http://books.google.ca/books?id=z8tDAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Guernésiais Facebook Group
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=18592704080

History of the Guernsey Flag
http://www.bbc.co.uk/guernsey/content/articles/2004/07/21/guernsey_flag_feature.shtml

The Priaulx Library - Guernsey Archives
http://www.priaulxlibrary.co.uk/

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