Auregnais
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Auregnais (), Aoeur'gnaeux, or Aurignais was the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of
Alderney Alderney ( ; ; ) is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependencies, Crown dependency. It is long and wide. The island's area is , making it the third-largest isla ...
(, Auregnais: ''aoeur'gny'' or ''auregny''). It was closely related to the
Guernésiais Guernésiais (), also known as Guerneseyese, ''Dgèrnésiais'', Guernsey French, and Guernsey Norman French, is the variety of the Norman language spoken in Guernsey. It is sometimes known on the island simply as "patois". As one of the langues d ...
(
Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...
), Jèrriais (
Jersey Jersey ( ; ), officially the Bailiwick of Jersey, is an autonomous and self-governing island territory of the British Islands. Although as a British Crown Dependency it is not a sovereign state, it has its own distinguishing civil and gov ...
), and Sercquiais (
Sark Sark (Sercquiais: or , ) is an island in the southwestern English Channel, off the coast of Normandy, and part of the archipelago of the Channel Islands. It is a self-governing British Crown Dependencies, Crown Dependency, with its own set o ...
) dialects of the neighbouring islands, as well as continental Norman on the European mainland. The dialect became extinct in the 20th century. Only a few examples of Auregnais survived, mostly in place names in Alderney, and one audio recording is known to exist.


History

The last known native speaker of Auregnais died around 1960. Linguist Frank Le Maistre, author of the ''Dictionnaire Jersiais-Français'', recorded the only known audio samples of the language, which he published in 1982. It is likely that the last rememberer died in the early 2020s. One reason for the extinction of the language was movement of the population. In particular, the influx of labourers from the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
employed by the British government in the construction of the abortive harbour project and other fortifications (during the reign of
Queen Victoria Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in January 1901. Her reign of 63 year ...
), as well as the stationing of a sizable British garrison among the small population, served to relegate Auregnais to a lesser status for communication. The evacuation of nearly all indigenous Auregnais to the British mainland during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
(the island was occupied by the
Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the German Army (1935–1945), ''Heer'' (army), the ''Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmac ...
) was thought to be a major factor in the final loss of the spoken language. Another reason for the language's demise was official neglect, especially in the education sector, where it was not taught at all. This led to a situation in which, as was noted by the Guernsey newspaper ''Le Bailliage'' in 1880, children had ceased to speak the language among themselves – partly due to teachers discouraging its use in favour of standard French. Along with the decline in Auregnais went the decline in the use of French. French ceased to be an
official language An official language is defined by the Cambridge English Dictionary as, "the language or one of the languages that is accepted by a country's government, is taught in schools, used in the courts of law, etc." Depending on the decree, establishmen ...
in the island in 1966. The official French used in the Channel Islands (see Jersey Legal French) differs slightly from Metropolitan French and greatly from the vernacular Norman.


Surnames and place names

Traces of the language still exist in many, if not most, local placenames. Many of these have been gallicised, but some notable examples include Ortac (Or'tac), Burhou (with the '' -hou'' suffix) and the first element of the name " ''Braye'' Harbour". One or two words linger on in the local English, e.g. ''vraic'' ( seaweed fertiliser – a word common throughout the Channel Islands), and the pronunciation of certain local surnames, e.g. Dupont and Simon as and rather than the standard Parisian pronunciation.


Les Casquets

Unusually, for such a small dialect, Auregnais used to have an exclave or "colony" of speakers on Les Casquets for a number of years. Algernon Charles Swinburne based his poem "Les Casquets" on the Houguez family who actually lived on the islands for 18 years. The Houguez family came from Alderney, and the evidence points to its members being Auregnais speakers; in fact, the daughter married a man from Alderney. During this time, they were isolated and would have had few visitors, but would have spoken Auregnais most of the time.


References


Sources

* * Le Maistre, F. (1982), ''The Language of Auregny'' (cassette with accompanying 19-page booklet), St Helier, Jersey and St Anne, Alderney.


External links


vocabulary comparison examples
at L'Aur'gnais {{British Isles Alderney Norman language Extinct Romance languages Extinct languages of Europe Languages extinct in the 20th century Languages of the Channel Islands