Sercquiais Totally Explained

Everything about Sercquiais totally explained

also known as Sarkese or Sark-French is the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Sark. In the island it's sometimes known, slightly disparagingly, as the "patois", a French term meaning "regional language".
Sarkese is in fact a descendant of the 16th century Jèrriais used by the original colonists, 40 families mostly from Saint Ouen, Jersey, 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. In former times, there may have been two subdialects of Sercquais. (External Link

) 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.
It is also closely related to the extinct Auregnais (Alderney) dialect, as well as Continental Norman.

Written Sercquiais

Relatively little Sercquiais has been transcribed, and as there's no widely accepted form, it has received a certain amount of stigma as a result. Dame Sibyl Hathaway, who was a speaker herself, claimed that it could "never be written down", and this myth has continued in the years since then.
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:
ť (S. Makyu. Chap. XIII. 3-9)

ť ("A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky places, where it didn't have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they'd no root. Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop — a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. He who has ears, let him hear." Gospel of St Matthew, NIV)

Phonology

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

Sercquiais doesn't have the voiced dental fricative which is such a distinctive characteristic of St. Ouen in Jersey where most of the colonists came from.

Sercquiais	Jèrriais	English
		to read
		courage
		to iron

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 in Jèrriais and in Sercquiais; war is respectively and .
   Palatalisation of /tj/ in Jèrriais leads to [tʃ], but in Sercquiais /t/ is generally retained: profession, trade in Sercquiais is, whereas Jèrriais has palatalised to .
   [dʒ] is retained in Sercquiais where Jèrriais has reduced to [ʒ], as in to eat: (Sercquiais) - (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 or in Sercquiais, but cats are . 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.
   Sercquiais has also retained final consonants that have been entirely lost in Jèrriais, such as final /t/ in (meadow - in Jèrriais as in French). Metathesis of /r/ is uncommon in Sercquiais, and in Jèrriais, by comparison with Dgèrnésiais.

Sercquiais	Jèrriais	Dgèrnésiais	English
			cross
			Wednesday

The palatalised l, which in Jèrriais has been generally palatalised to /j/ in initial position and following a consonant, is maintained in Sercquiais.

Sercquiais	Jèrriais (li representing /j/)	English
		shoe polish (blacking)
		patch
		to place
		roof

Gemination occurs regularly in verb conjugations and gerunds, as in Jèrriais but in distinction to Dgèrnésiais.

Sercquiais	Jèrriais	Dgèrnésiais	English
			masonry
			I'll ask

However, Sercquiais doesn't geminate palatal fricatives, unlike Jèrriais:

Sercquiais	Jèrriais	English
		brewery
		armful
		to eat
		eating

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).

Sercquiais	Jèrriais (St. Ouennais)	standard Jèrriais	English
			they wanted
			you spoke
			they were
			you took

Further Information

Get more info on 'Sercquiais'.

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