A Conversation for Guernsey, Channel Islands, UK
Guernsey language
Researcher 193845 Started conversation May 3, 2002
The entry for Guernsey says 'Guernsey has two languages: English and Guernsiais, which is a peculiar mixture of French and English with a few odd bits of its own.'
This is quite wrong. Guernesiais is older than both French and English. It is a dialect of Norman, and when the Normans conquered England in 1066, Norman had a huge influence on English - nearly 50% of the vocabulary of English comes from Norman.
Guernsiais is now dying out because too few people in Guernsey value it.
For a truer picture of Guernesiais, I recommend the following site: http://user.itl.net/~panther/dguern.htm
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Guernsey language
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