184 OUR INSULAR DIALECT. 



In 876 the Normans commenced their piratical incursions, 

 continually devastating it, till, in A.D. 912, their chief, Rollo, 

 succeeded in getting it ceded to him by Charles the Simple, 

 whose daughter, Gillon, he married. 



It continued a duchy till William the Conqueror (so 

 called) invaded England in A.D. 1066, when it became a 

 province of England till, in A.D. 1204, Phillip II. of 

 France reconquered it, with the exception of the Channel 

 Islands, which remained loyal to the British Crown. 



Geographically we are, undoubtedly, French, being al- 

 most wholly inside of a straight line from Cape La Hague to 

 Cape Ushant, and consequently in the Gulf of Avranche ; 

 yet we are politically and practically English, and Her 

 Majesty Queen Victoria's most loyal subjects, rejecting 

 scornfully any insinuation of being French. 



We enjoy a constitution of our own, not quite perfect 

 perhaps, but certainly not as faulty as self-styled Uitlanders 

 pronounce it and would have us believe it to be. 



Of our dialect or patois we have no occasion to be 

 ashamed, for we can trace it to a noble family of great age ; 

 it has been preserved to us for some hundreds of years in 

 almost its original form, being one of the principal Romance 

 languages. It is rather surprising that it should have been 

 so preserved, seeing the many vicissitudes to which it has been 

 subjected, and yet it may be that these very changes have 

 contributed to its preservation. 



When I say our dialect, do not suppose that I mean the 

 jargon we hear on the east coast or the neighbourhood of 

 the town, but that which is spoken by the islanders living in 

 the interior or recesses of the island, who seldom, if ever, 

 visit the haunts of advanced civilisation and have not had the 

 benefits of high-class education. 



It is under such circumstances that ancient languages are 

 preserved in their purity, e.g., Gaelic, Welsh, Breton and 

 Basque. 



