Sercquiais also known as Sarkese or Sark-French is the Norman dialect of the ChannelIsland of Sark. In the island it is sometimes known, slightly disparagingly, as the "patois", a French term meaning "regional language". Sarkese is in fact a descendant of the 16th centuryJèrriais used by the original colonists, 40 families mostly from Saint Ouen, Jersey who settled the then uninhabited island, although influenced in the interim by Guernésiais. It is still spoken by older inhabitants of the island. Although the lexis is heavily anglicised, the phonology retains features lost in Jèrriais since the 16th century. Most of the local placenames are in Sarkese. In former times, there may have been two subdialects of Sercquiais. It is also closely related to the Auregnais dialect, as well as Continental Norman.
Written Sercquiais
Relatively little Sercquiais has been transcribed, and as there is no widely accepted form, it has received a certain amount of stigma as a result. A ruler of Sark, Sibyl Hathaway, who was a speaker herself, claimed that it could "never be written down", and this myth has continued in the years since then. The earliest published text in Sercquiais so far identified is the Parable of the Sower from the Gospel of Matthew. Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte, linguist, visited the Channel Islandsin September 1862 in order to transcribe samples of the insular language varieties, which he subsequently published in 1863: Which in the NIV is translated as:
Phonology
Sercquiais does not have the voiced dental fricative which is such a distinctive characteristic of St. Ouen in Jersey where most of the colonists came from. palatalisation of velars and is less fully developed in Sercquiais than in Jèrriais. Palatalisation in Jèrriais of to and to has the equivalent in Sercquiais of and. For example, hiccup is hitchet in Jèrriais and hekyet in Sercquiais; war is respectively dgèrre and gyer. Palatalisation of in Jèrriais leads to, but in Sercquiais is generally retained: profession, trade in Sercquiais is meeti, whereas Jèrriais has palatalised to mêtchi. is retained in Sercquiais where Jèrriais has reduced to, as in to eat: mãdji – mangi. Final consonants of masculine nouns in the singular are in free variation with null in all positions except in liaison. Final consonants are usually pronounced at ends of phrases. Final consonants are always lost in plural forms of masculine nouns. A cat may therefore be kat or ka in Sercquiais, but cats are kaa. For comparison, Jèrriais cat is usually pronounced, and the plural has the long vowel as in Sercquiais. It can also therefore be seen that length is phonemic and may denote plurality. Sercquiais has also retained final consonants that have been entirely lost in Jèrriais, such as final in pret. Metathesis of is uncommon in Sercquiais, and in Jèrriais, by comparison with Guernésiais. The palatalised l, which in Jèrriais has been generally palatalised to in initial position and following a consonant, is maintained in Sercquiais. Gemination occurs regularly in verb conjugations and gerunds, as in Jèrriais but in distinction to Guernésiais. However, Sercquiais does not geminate palatal fricatives, unlike Jèrriais:
Conjugation of verbs
The St. Ouennais origins of Sercquiais can be seen in the 2nd and 3rd person plural forms of the preterite. Sercquiais uses an ending -dr which is typical of the St. Ouennais dialect of Jèrriais, but generally not used elsewhere in Jersey.
