Guernsey French

A letter from Quebec, 1817

25th August 2016
'Report from the missions: a letter from Monsieur de Putron, to the Editor. Quebec, January 1, 1817.' From the Magasin Méthodiste, 1818, p. 91, addressed to Jean de Queteville, Methodist pioneer and founder and editor of the magazine. Guernsey began very early to export French-speaking missionaries all over the world; poor Jean de Putron, however, felt let down by his Guernsey accent and inferior French, as spoken in Guernsey.

Guernsey patois and its preservation, 1905

7th July 2016
The introduction to 'The Guernsey dialect and its plant names,' by E D Marquand, Associate of the Linnean Society of London, and Membre Correspondant de la Société des Sciences Naturelles et Mathématiques de Cherbourg. 'The old Norman language which is still spoken in the Channel Islands deserves more study than it has yet received, because in all its main features it is the same that was used by the cultured classes of England as far back as eight centuries ago.' From the Transactions of the Guernsey Society of Natural History and Local Research, V (1905-1908), pp. 32 ff. The illustration is of the Haye du Puits, Castel, by Celia Montgomery, c. 1832.

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