English is the official language of Guernsey while the administrative language is French. Guernsey people speak a dialect of French called Guernésiais which has a small variation from Standard French. It is interesting to note that less than 300 years ago very few people spoke English in Guernsey. The dominant language then was French. Guernsey has an English dialect called Guernsey English. Guernsey English has a few words that are not found in Standard English.
English is the most spoken language in Guernsey. According to statistics provided by doctor Mari Jones, and Wikipedia, a combination of all the minority languages only account for about 4% of the population. This means that more than 90% of the population speaks English.
Some phrases in Guernésiais are quite similar to modern-day French, including "baon-jour" for hello and "bouan gniet" for "goodnight".
Several dialects of Norman are spoken in Guernsey. Historically the language was widespread but today many terms in the language have been formatted to the standard French or Law Norman. Dgèrnésiais is a dialect spoken by the older people in Guernsey. About 2% of the population speak the language while 15% of the population claim to understand. The other language is Sercquiais a dialect of Jèrriais which is common in Jersey. This language is almost extinct with only about 15 speakers remaining. Auregnais was also spoken as supported by records. Around 2% of the population speaks Portuguese.
This page was last modified on May 1st, 2018
More on Graphicmaps
Published on 2019-11-06
What is a Trade Embargo?
Published on 2019-11-04
Which Two Countries Used to Have the Same Flag?
Published on 2019-09-16
What Is the Only Two-Sided State Flag?
Published on 2019-09-16
Which Country Flag Looks Like the Texas Flag?
Published on 2019-08-29
Flags That Resemble the US Flag
Published on 2019-08-20