Documentation of Guernesiais, the indigenous language of Guernsey, Channel Islands
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| Language | Guernesiais |
| Depositor | Jan Marquis (Yan), Julia Sallabank |
| Affiliation | |
| Location | Channel Islands |
| Collection ID | 0116 |
| Grant ID | SG0021 |
| Funding Body | ELDP |
| Collection Status | Collection online |
| Landing Page Handle | http://hdl.handle.net/2196/55fb227a-7f71-4e27-a6ee-a34a2ec8a912 |
Summary of the collection
The initial collection consists of three recordings of conversations with native speakers of Guernesiais, made as part of a training field trip in 2009 with MA students from the SOAS MA in Language Documentation and Description and transcribed by Yan Marquis.
The second collection consists of 53 recordings with 41 consultants, recorded and transcribed by Yan Marquis in 2013 with funding from the Guernsey Language Commission and Guernsey Museums Service. 10% of these recordings have been transcribed.
Learners and teachers of Guernesiais, interested family and community members, and language researchers will find in this collection a rich source of recordings of Guernesiais as spoken by native speakers in the 21st century.
Group represented
Guernsey
Language information
Guernesiais / Dgernesiais / Gierrnesiei / Giérnesiei / Gernesiés/ Guernsey Norman French. Also known as ‘Guernsey French’ and ‘Guernsey Patois’.
Language family: Indo-European – Romance – Langue d’Oïl – Norman
Collection contents
The recordings consist of WAV files transcribed using ELAN, and cover various topics such as: the German occupation of Guernsey during the Second World War, evacuation and liberation, a comment on some local news stories, Giernesiei, its decline and future, traditional industries, indoor tomato cultivation, stonemasonry, fishing (fish, shellfish and crustacea (preparing and cooking)), farming (animals & vegetables), types of weather, gardening, running a small bakery and bread delivery round etc. Details of consultants, conversation topics and stimuli such as pictures used in the recordings and PDF files of transcriptions are also included in the collection.
Acknowledgement and citation
From material collected by Julia Sallabank, Yan Marquis and students from the SOAS MA in Language Documentation and Description in March-April 2009, transcribed by Yan Marquis. With thanks to Peter Brehaut for providing the photos of Guernsey past.
To refer to any data from the collection, please cite as follows:
Marquis, Jan & Julia Sallabank. 2012. Documentation of Guernesiais, the indigenous language of Guernsey, Channel Islands. Endangered Languages Archive. Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/2196/00-0000-0000-000E-2CDA-A. Accessed on [insert date here].
