Categories for this year’s competition, which was held at Beau Sejour on Saturday, included creative writing, Bible reading, Shakespeare in Guernesiais, poetry and prose and a music section filled with a variety of traditional songs.
‘It’s a rare opportunity to hear the language spoken,’ said section coordinator, Joy Liggett,
Mrs Liggett said it was ‘unusual’ to see seven new entries this year, which made up a third of the total competitors.
‘It’s marvellous, I’m absolutely thrilled,’ she said.
‘It fills us with hope for the language.’
One of the new competitors was Emily Linane, who won the vocal music item. She has been learning the language for the past six months.
‘It was a lovely experience and it was nice to be a part of a whole room full of Guernsey French speakers,’ she said.
‘It’s very scary singing in front of them in their language, though.’
Miss Linane won the award for her solo, but she also sang a traditional song about ‘a little shoemaker’ in costume, along with Christine Snell in the local choir La Guaine Du Vouest.
Mrs Snell’s father started the choir in the ‘60s.
‘It’s encouraging that new people have joined the choir over the last 15 months,’ she said.
‘It’s our heritage, it’s something that’s unique to Guernsey and we must value what we’ve got because it’s different and if it goes, it’s gone.’
Mrs Snell said the choir was ‘enthusiastic to keep the language going’ and welcomed anyone to join.
Adjudicating for the second time at the Eisteddfod was Mari Jones – a professor of French linguistics and language change from the University of Cambridge.
‘I was greatly impressed by the very high standards and the number of competitors, it was a real competition,’ she said.
‘There were some exceptional pieces and we saw some new literary creations in Guernesiais.
‘Many people think it isn’t a written language but today there were new compositions, people were writing their own poems and pieces.
‘So we weren’t just celebrating the poems that were part of Guernsey’s literary heritage – we were celebrating the new material that’s been written and it was a joy.’
Awards were presented by Lt-Governor Richard Cripwell.
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.