OUK INSULAR DIALECT. 



BY MR. J. LE M. BOUGOURD. 



Being proud of my native isle, and of much that belongs to 

 it, I often feel sorry that our good old local tongue is practi- 

 cally dying out, offering but little, if any, resistance to the 

 inroads of the English language. 



The patriotic interest in it (our native tongue) is not 

 great, excepting among a few, of whom some are strangers, 

 for example, Mr. J. L. Pitts, F.S.A., who has taken as 

 much interest in it as if he were an islander ; an American 

 professor and a young gentleman who, about ten years ago, 

 spent considerable time in the island studying and investi- 

 gating it. In England and elsewhere societies exist for 

 the study of old dialects, and oius is a very interesting one, 

 for it belongs to a family which possesses unusual peculiari- 

 ties, from a philological and literary point of view. 



At first some difficulty is experienced in studying these 

 dialects from the varied spelling to be met with, for up to the 

 10th century no rules for spelling existed, each writer adopt- 

 ing the method best suited to the locality in which he resided, 

 the spelling being practically phonetic. 



Anyone with a fair knowledge of Parisian French will, 

 with practice, soon not only read but understand the old forms, 

 and in following the Romance writers, will observe the gradual 

 change, till we arrive at what we now call classical French, 

 which is only a modified and embellished dialect of the same 

 language or root as Norman. That is the langue (Toil. 



We Channel Islanders inherit rather peculiar character- 

 istics, these islands being relics of the ancient Duchy of 

 Normandy, which was part of Neustria, and which, in 

 A.D. 511, was given to Clotaire by his father, Clovis, but 

 was again united to France by Charles the Bald. 



