Channel Island English refers to

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 ...

English,

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 ...

English, and

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 ...

English and similar dialects of English found in the other

Channel Islands The Channel Islands are an archipelago in the English Channel, off the French coast of Normandy. They are divided into two Crown Dependencies: the Jersey, Bailiwick of Jersey, which is the largest of the islands; and the Bailiwick of Guernsey, ...

Variations

Alderney English

Alderney English is the variety of English spoken by some residents of

. It is questionable whether this is a separate dialect: due to Alderney's small size and high rate of immigration and emigration, particularly to/from nearby Guernsey and the UK, a high proportion of the population speaks the English of their place of origin, while many people who have been educated in Guernsey in their youth have acquired a way of speaking that is close to Guernsey English. Thus Alderney English currently corresponds quite closely to

standard English In an English-speaking country, Standard English (SE) is the variety of English that has undergone codification to the point of being socially perceived as the standard language, associated with formal schooling, language assessment, and off ...

, with a tendency towards mild archaism due to the population demographic in which the over-50s are the largest group. Its distinguishing feature is a small but significant number of

loan words A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

from

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 ...

(the variety of Norman spoken on the neighbouring island of

), Legal French (which was the language of legislation before the Second World War) and a very much smaller number of words that have come down from Auregnais (now a dead language, it is no longer certain whether there are any rememberers still alive). An example of a word used in Alderney that appears neither in standard English nor in Guernsey English is "Impôt" (meaning 'rubbish tip/recycling centre' and not 'tax/imposition' as elsewhere). In addition there is an idiosyncratic pronunciation of certain local surnames, "Dupont" as and "Simon" as , rather than the standard Parisian pronunciation. Any remainder of the historic influence of Auregnais on Alderney English is very hard to discern, since

and Auregnais differed only slightly.

Guernsey English

Guernsey English is the dialect of English spoken in

, distinguished by having considerable influence from

, the variety of Norman indigenous to Guernsey. The dialect contains terms such as ''buncho'' (from Dgèrnésiais: ''bond d'tchu'') for the English "somersault"; "it picks" instead of "it stings", from the Guernsey equivalent of the French "ça pique"; "chirry" for "goodbye"; and "Budlo Night" instead of Bonfire Night on 5 November. Often Guernsey people will add the word " Eh" to the end of a sentence, inferring a general agreement that something is held to be true or correct. It can also be used in the context of asking a question or seeking reassurance that what was said is correct if it is believed to be a contentious issue.

Jersey English

Jersey English is a

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

of English spoken in

, the accent of which has been likened to that of

South African English South African English (SAfE, SAfEn, SAE, en-ZA) is the List of dialects of English, set of English language dialects native to South Africans. History British Empire, British settlers first arrived in the South African region in 1795, ...

.'Guernsey Accent'
'' Guernsey Press and Star'', April 6, 2015 It is influenced by the use of

Jèrriais ( ; also known as the Jersey language, Jersey French and Jersey Norman French in English) is a Romance languages, Romance language and the traditional language of the Jersey people. It is a form of the Norman language spoken in Jersey, an isla ...

and

Jersey Legal French Jersey Legal French, also known as Jersey French (), was the official dialect of French used administratively in Jersey. Since the anglicisation of the island, it survives as a written language for some laws, contracts, and other documents. ...

Influence of Jersey Legal French on Jersey English

Jersey English has imported a number of Jersey Legal French titles and terminology. Many of these, in turn, derive from Jèrriais. The following are examples likely to be encountered in daily life and in news reports in Jersey:

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

*H-drops and intrusive H leading to sentences like: “My mother was very hill and I was the heldest, and I stayed to 'elp my mother.” *Ing as or *R tends to be uvular in the island of Sark, and trilled throughout the archipelago. *Medial yod often appears after an initial voiced consonant such as * and are dental and unaspirated. *Interference from the Norman Languages caused their intonation and word stress to be different sometimes, like edu'cated, Liver'pool and rail'way.

Morphosyntax

*The Norman Influence is more clearly demonstrable in Channel Island English

morphosyntax In linguistics, morphology is the study of words, including the principles by which they are formed, and how they relate to one another within a language. Most approaches to morphology investigate the structure of words in terms of morphemes, wh ...

than in its

phonology Phonology (formerly also phonemics or phonematics: "phonemics ''n.'' 'obsolescent''1. Any procedure for identifying the phonemes of a language from a corpus of data. 2. (formerly also phonematics) A former synonym for phonology, often pre ...

. Examples of structures used by people in the Channel Islands are: *“There's ten years I am a farmer” for “I've been a farmer for ten years.” *“Me, I don't want to go” or “I don't want to go, me.” *“That's the one, eh?” Eh for “isn't it?”, “aren't they?”, “don't you think?”, or else. *“There's two castles there” for “There are two castles there.” *“... and the teacher, she was angry, eh.” (use of emphatic personal pronoun.)

References

External links

Guernesiais today
{{English dialects by continent Dialects of English Culture of Guernsey Culture of Jersey Languages of the Channel Islands