‘This is the island’s last chance to save Guernesiais’

Education, Sport & Culture is planning a major new investment to revive the language, amid estimates that there are fewer than 10 fluent speakers of Guernesiais left who are below the age of 60.

Hazel Tomlinson is a native speaker and only learnt English at age 5 when she started school.

Later, at Ladies’ College, she noticed there was a stigma around Guernsey French and speakers were treated as inferior country cousins.

In the last few decades that has all changed and the linguistic heritage is regarded as hugely important, even though it is in decline.

Mrs Tomlinson is a passionate supporter of Guernesiais, and, along with her husband, the couple have dedicated decades to teaching and supporting it.

‘Some people think that we want to bring back Guernsey French so it becomes the main language of Guernsey, but that will never happen, but it’s a cultural thing and it should be preserved, although it should have been done 50 or 60 years ago.

‘One of the important questions is who is going to teach the teachers? There are very few around who would want to do it. People can be reticent.’

The decline of Guernesiais, like many local languages, was rapid.

Around 200 years ago historians believe there were not many people in the island who could speak English, and Guernesiais had been spoken for over 1,000 years.

The oral language was, and still is, rooted in agriculture with not a lot of vocabulary for technology or abstract thought.

With many of the fluent speakers now in their 80s and 90s, Mrs Tomlinson does not want her native language to become a museum piece.

She said the key in teaching it is to get people speaking it and not get too hung up on small errors.

‘You start with things by rote and you get them to learn vocabulary, and then gradually you begin to ask them very simple questions and they work out the answer, and then you build on that until you’ve got a conversation – and that’s what it’s all about.’

Her husband, Dr Harry Tomlinson, grew up in the north west of England, but learnt Guernsey French when he moved to the island to become a French teacher at Les Beaucamps.

Although he learnt it as an adult because of his academic interest, he observed that children usually pick it up quicker, and are therefore important in any attempt to save the language.

‘The young children are less inhibited and they will absorb things like a sponge, they don’t have a lot else to clutter their minds up because the older you get the more stuff you have to absorb.

‘They are accustomed to learning things by heart, by hearing something and repeating it.’

While Dr and Mrs Tomlinson are eager to see Guernesiais given a fighting chance of survival, they cannot help feel a little sceptical because of a lack of enthusiasm shown by the States in the past.

They acknowledge that it is hard graft to learn a language, and overcoming a lack of interest can be even harder.

Starting out with Guernesiais

Banjour

Good day / hello

Comme tchique l’affaire va?

How are you? (how are things?)

Enn amas bian merci, et dauve vous?

Very well thank you, and you?

I fait bael

(the weather) is fine. It’s lovely

Rémouque ta pauneis

Hurry up! (shake your parsnip)

Si vous pllait

Please (if you please)

À la perchoïne

Goodbye