Sercquiais also known as Sarkese or Sark-French is the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Sark. On the island, it is sometimes known, slightly disparagingly as the "patois", a French term meaning "dialect". Flag of Sark The location of the Channel Islands in Europe An aerial view of Sark Sark (French: Sercq; Sercquiais: Sèr) is a small island in the English Channel. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families Most languages are known to belong to language families. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ... The Italic subfamily is a member of the Centum branch of the Indo-European language family. ... The Romance languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, comprise all languages that descended from Latin, the language of the Roman Empire. ... Italo-Western is the largest sub-group of Romance languages. ... Gallo-Romance languages Gallo-Italian languages Lombard Piedmontese Emilian-Romagnol Venetian Ligurian Gallo-Rhaetian languages Oïl languages(including French) Burgundian Champenois Franc-Comtois French Gallo Lorrain Norman Anglo-Norman Channel Island Norman Auregnais Dgèrnésiais Jèrriais Sercquiais Picard Poitevin-Saintongeais Walloon Rhaetian languages Friulian Ladin Romansh *Franco... The Gallo-Romance branch of Romance languages includes French, Oïl languages, Catalan, and Occitan, among other languages. ... The langue doïl language family in linguistics comprises Romance languages originating in territories now occupied by northern France, part of Belgium and the Channel Islands. ... Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is in process of development as an international standard for language codes. ... For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words see here. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word φωνή, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of sounds and the human voice. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... This chart shows concisely the most common way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is applied to represent the English language. ... The English language is a West Germanic language that originates in England. ... Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. ... This article is about the British dependencies, for the islands off Southern California, please see Channel Islands of California. ... Flag of Sark The location of the Channel Islands in Europe An aerial view of Sark Sark (French: Sercq; Sercquiais: Sèr) is a small island in the English Channel. ... Patois, although without a formal definition in linguistics, can be used to describe a language considered as nonstandard. ... A dialect (from the Greek word διάλεκτος, dialektos) is a variety of a language used by people from a particular geographic area. ...

Sarkese is in fact a descendant of the 16th century Jèrriais used by the original colonists, 40 families from Saint Ouen, Jersey,^[1] who settled the then uninhabited island, although influenced in the interim by Dgèrnésiais (Guernsey dialect). 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. (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Jèrriais is the form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, in the Channel Islands. ... Ruins of Grosnez Castle Saint Ouen (Jèrriais: St Ouën) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey in the Channel Islands. ... Dgèrnésiais, also known as Guernésiais, Guernsey French, Guernsey Norman French, is the variety of Norman language spoken in Guernsey. ... This page is a candidate to be moved to Wiktionary. ... Phonology (Greek phonÄ“ = voice/sound and logos = word/speech), is a subfield of linguistics which studies the sound system of a specific language (or languages). ...

It has suffered greatly in recent years due to a large influx of tax exiles from England who have moved to the island, as well as official neglect. Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: God Save the King/Queen Capital London (de facto) Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2006 est. ...

It is also closely related to the extinct Auregnais (Alderney) dialect, as well as Continental Norman. Auregnais or Aurignais was the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Alderney (French:Aurigny, Auregnais:Aoeurgny/Auregny). ... Capital St Anne Status Part of Guernsey, Crown dependency of the UK Official language(s) English Head of Government Sir Norman Browse Population 2,400 Currency Pound sterling (GBP). ...

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. Dame Sybil Hathaway, who was a speaker herself, claimed that it could "never be written down", and this myth has continued in the years since then. Sybil Mary Hathaway (13 January 1884 - 14 July 1974) was Dame of Sark from 1927 to 1940 and again from 1945 to 1974 (Dame is the title of a female holder of a Seigneurie). ...

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 Islands in September 1862 in order to transcribe samples of the insular language varieties, which he subsequently published in 1863. // A parable is a brief, succinct story, in prose or verse, that illustrates a moral or religious lesson. ... The Gospel of Matthew (literally, according to Matthew; Greek, Κατά Μαθθαίον or Κατά Ματθαίον) is one of the four Gospel accounts of the New Testament. ... Louis Lucien Bonaparte (January 4, 1813 - November 3, 1891) was the third son of Napoleons second surviving brother, Lucien Bonaparte. ... 1862 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1863 (MDCCCLXIII) is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar). ...

Phonology

(Note: Sercquiais not possessing a standard orthography, examples are given according to Liddicoat's Lexicon of Sark Norman French, Munich 2001)

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. The orthography of a language is the set of symbols (glyphs and diacritics) used to write a language, as well as the set of rules describing how to write these glyphs, including spelling, punctuation, and capitalization. ... The voiced dental non-sibilant fricative is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ... Ruins of Grosnez Castle Saint Ouen (Jèrriais: St Ouën) is one of the twelve parishes of Jersey in the Channel Islands. ...

Palatalisation of velars /k/ and /g/ is less fully developed in Sercquiais than in Jèrriais. Palatalisation in Jèrriais of /k/ to [tʃ] and /g/ to [dʒ] has the equivalent in Sercquiais of /kj/ and /gj/. For example hiccup is hitchet in Jèrriais and hekyet in Sercquiais; war is respectively dgèrre and gyer. Palatalization means pronouncing a sound nearer to the hard palate, making it more like a palatal consonant; this is towards the front of the mouth for a velar or uvular consonant, but towards the back of the mouth for a front (e. ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ...

Palatalisation of /tj/ in Jèrriais leads to [tʃ], but in Sercquiais /t/ is generally retained: profession, trade in Sercquiais is meeti, whereas Jèrriais has palatalised to mêtchi.

[dʒ] is retained in Sercquiais where Jèrriais has reduced to [ʒ], as in to eat: mãdji (Sercquiais) - mangi (Jèrriais).

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 /ka/, and the plural has the long vowel as in Sercquiais. It can also therefore be seen that length is phonemic and may denote plurality. Note: This page contains IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ...

Sercquiais has also retained final consonants that have been entirely lost in Jèrriais, such as final /t/ in pret (meadow - pré in Jèrriais as in French).

Metathesis of /r/ is uncommon in Sercquiais, and in Jèrriais, by comparison with Dgèrnésiais. Metathesis is a sound change that alters the order of phonemes in a word. ...

The palatalised l, which in Jèrriais has been generally palatalised to /j/ 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 Dgèrnésiais. Listen to this article · (info) This audio file was created from the revision dated 2005-07-20, and does not reflect subsequent edits to the article. ... In linguistics, a gerund is a kind of verbal noun that exists in some languages. ...

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 (nor nowadays by younger speakers in St. Ouen). The preterite (also praeterite, in American English also preterit, or past historic) is the grammatical tense expressing actions which took place in the past. ...

See also

Norman language (including Sercquiais) edition of Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

• Norman language

Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1058x1058, 477 KB) aa Wikipedia logo, version 1058px square, no text Wikipedia logo by Nohat (concept by Paullusmagnus); compare Wikipedia File links The following pages link to this file: Arabic language Talk:Anarcho-capitalism Talk:Algorithm Talk:Anno Domini Talk:The... Wikipedia - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... Norman is a Romance language and one of the Oïl languages. ...

References

• Lexicon of Sark Norman French, Anthony J. Liddicoat, Munich 2001
• A Grammar of the Norman French of the Channel Islands, Anthony Liddicoat, Berlin 1994
• ↑  Société Jersiaise

External links

• Lé Sèrtchais (including comparative glossary)
• Jèrriais and Sercquiais today by Dr Mari C. Jones - from the BBC