Jèrriais
| Jèrriais | |
|---|---|
| Native to | Jersey and Sark |
|
Native speakers
|
1,900 (2011 census) 2,800 L2 speakers of Jersey and Guernsey |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 |
|
| Glottolog | jerr1238 |
| Linguasphere | 51-AAA-hc |
Jèrriais is the form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, one of the Channel Islands off the coast of France. It has been in decline over the past century as English has increasingly become the language of education, commerce and administration. 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.
A similar language, Guernésiais, is spoken in neighbouring Guernsey; the language of Sark, Sercquiais, is a descendant of the Jèrriais brought by the Jersey colonists who settled Sark in the 16th century; and there is 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.
The latest figures come from the Jersey Annual Social Survey issued on 5 December 2012. The survey of 4200 households took place in June 2012 and resulted in 2400 returns. It showed that 18% of the population could speak some Jèrriais words and phrases with more than 7% of those over 65 being fluent or able to speak a lot of Jèrriais. Two-thirds of adults said that they could not understand spoken Jèrriais, but more than a quarter are able to understand some, and 5% can usually or fully understand someone speaking Jèrriais. 4% of people said that they could write some Jèrriais, although under 1% could write fluently. Just under a third (32%) said that they could understand something written in Jèrriais.
These figures update those of the census (2001) which showed that approximately 3% of the island's population speak Jèrriais in their personal interactions, although research suggests that up to 15% of the population have some understanding of the language. The latest census figures also showed an increase in declarations of children speaking the language: the first such increase recorded in census figures (although this may be due to greater consciousness among parents than to language use), doubtless encouraged by the introduction of a Jèrriais teaching programme into Jersey schools.
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