The enemies sometimes appear for the most unsuspected places. That is what the German soldiers who occupied the Canal Islandson the Canal de la Mancha. The campaign promised them happy and in fact it extended for several years, but shortly after putting the first foot on the island of Jersey the Nazi officers realized that they would have to deal with an unexpected enemy: a language that they did not understand their interpreters.
And that was a luck for the locals.
In a place on the Channel of La Mancha … It is found Jerseythe largest of the islands of the Canal, an archipelago located very close to the French coast but is administratively linked to London. In fact they are considered British crown dependenciesautonomous, self -governor territories and that strictly are not part of the United Kingdom, but they are linked to their crown. It is estimated that in 2001 a few resided in the archipelago 150,000 people distributed in Two dancers: Guersey’s and Jersey, where they live more than 100,000.
An island, its own language. Jersey not only stands out for his geography, status and history. It also does it at the linguistic level: on the island you speak English, French … and The sweater (Jèrriais), a tongue related to The Normand and, They claim The island authorities, have a rich history of more than a thousand years. His first written record dates in fact the 12th century, with The poet Waceand on the island presume of its literary legacy of the late eighteenth century. The sweater He caught his attention Even from the prestigious French writer Víctor Hugo, who rescued one of his words, Pieuvre (octopus) in your novel ‘The sea workers’of 1866.
“A Language of Peasants”. The history of the Jersejés is not exactly simple. Despite his age and the enormous roots he has had on the island, there was a time in which he considered a vulgar and stigmatized language, which has irremediably marked his base of speakers. “In 40 and 50 if you went to school the Jerseyés was prohibited. It was considered a language of peasants, spoken only by poor people. That was the attitude of all teachers, even those who spoke Jerseyes,” He recounts To the BBC François Le Maistre, a almost 90 -year -old man who explains that in his home, as a child, only the island language was used.
… And a weapon in front of the Nazis. Interestingly and despite his stigmatization, the sweater played a relevant role during World War II. The Canal Islands hold the sad honor of being the only “British” islands that endured the occupation of German troops during World War II. The Nazis came to Jersey between June and July 1940 (with The battle of England as a backdrop) and remained in the archipelago until May 1945.
The authorities evacuated 30,000 people From the Canal Islands before the arrival of the Germans, but even so when Führer’s troops landed in Jersey they met thousands of locals (the archipelago added in total 104,000 residents) With a disturbing peculiarity, especially for the Nazis: they spoke a seemingly unintelligible language, even for the Francophone Germans. Not even the collaborative interpreters understood at all.
What devils are they saying? “The articles in Jerseyes published at the beginning of the occupation managed to transmit messages of resistance”, Point out to the BBC Geraint Jennings chain, linguist and expert in the island language. “The texts openly said that it was better to speak Jerseés so that ‘certain people’ could not understand it, that is, the Germans! Of course they soon realized and took drastic measures with censorship, but the sweater continued to be used as a secret language to transmit messages during the rest of the contest.”
In the island’s passive resistance strategy, that language related to Normando became a valuable piece. Its complexity, even for the ears of the German soldiers who spoke French or the collaborative performers, made the Jerseés a key tool to exchange information, draw clandestine plans or even, remember The English chain, mock of the Nazis.
“Everyone spoke”. “During those years everyone spoke Jerseyes simply because, unfortunately of the Germans, it was not possible for them to understand our language,” remember I maistre. Perhaps it sounds strange, but it is that within the jersey itself different dialect varieties of the language were used: despite the fact that the island is small, a good part of the islanders were related to their own communities, which favored surprising wealth of expressions, words and even accents, distinctive marks of groups of speakers.
On other channel islands, such as Guerneey, Sark and Alderney They also had their own languages, some already disappeared. A dream for linguists, a nightmare for German soldiers who walked through Jersey.
A tongue in retreat. That does not mean that the sweater was immune to war. His starting point was already delicate. Although in the 30s the mother tongue of most people born on the island remained, it was minorized and stigmatized. To that was added “the great social rupture” that, Jennings lamentscaused the German occupation: families evacuated to England with their children ended up adopting English as the main language, the same that happened to the islanders who enrolled in the Armed Forces and then returned home.
This rupture is added that tourism and the island’s financial sector, key pieces in its economy, They contributed to boost English as a communication vehicle.
And what is the situation now? Complicated. There are reasons for optimism, but also for concern. In recent years the language has managed to claim, with institutions expressly dedicated to its promotion and greater sensitivity on the part of local institutions. In February 2019 in fact the island authorities They declared it COOFICIAL LANGUAGE IN THE ASSEMBLY WITH ENGLISH AND FRENCH. Who today lands at the island’s airfield is also with a message that welcomes him in the language: “Seyiz Les Beinv’nus à Jerri”.
That is the positive part. The refusal is that the current health of the sweater is far away (very far) from the one in the 1930s, when it was the cradle language of most of its population. There are studies that estimate that in 2002 just 15% of islanders They understood some words of language. Others raise that data 30%. The BBC chain assures that there are only 500 native speakers capable of expressing fluently in the tongue that took the Germans out of their boxes.
Images | Mike Beales (Flickr) 1 and 2
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