Auregnais dialect

Auregnais, Aoeur'gnaeux or Aurignais is the Norman dialect of the Channel Island of Alderney (French: Aurigny, Auregnais: Aoeur'gny/Auregny). The dialect is now extinct.

Only a few examples of Auregnais survive in written form. It is closely related to the Guernésiais (Guernsey), Jèrriais (Jersey), Sercquiais (Sark) dialects of the neighbouring islands, as well as Continental Norman on the European mainland.

Today

One reason for the extinction of the language has been the increased movement of the population. In particular, the influx of labourers from the United Kingdom employed by the British government in the construction of the abortive harbour project and other fortifications (during the reign of Queen Victoria), as well as the stationing of a sizable British garrison among the small population, served to relegate Auregnais to a lesser status for communication. It is thought that the evacuation of nearly all indigenous Auregnais to the British mainland during World War II (the island was occupied by the Wehrmacht, and heavily fortified) was another significant blow to the spoken language. The language has suffered further losses in recent years due to an influx of people from England who have moved to the Bailiwick both for tax purposes and to fill the local skills gap.

Another reason for the deterioration in use of the language was official neglect, especially in schools, 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. However, along with the decline in Auregnais went the decline in the use of French. The latter ceased to be an official language in 1966 in Alderney. 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

The dialect is now extinct^[1] but 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 [dipõ] and [symõ] rather than the standard Parisian pronunciation.

Les Casquets

Unusually, for such a small dialect, Auregnais used to have an enclave 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

• Le Maistre, F., The Language of Auregny (1982)

External links

For a list of words relating to Auregnais, see the Auregnais language category of words in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

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

• L'Aur'gnais