Education Minister James Reed is due to address the summit
THE fate of languages such as Jèrriais, Welsh and D’Guernesiaise will take centre stage this week as Jersey hosts a British-Irish Council summit.
First ministers, chief ministers and ministers from Westminster, Jersey, Guernsey, the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland are due to spend the day on Friday discussing indigenous tongues spoken by minorities.
A spokesman for the Chief Minister’s department said that the names of those coming would not be released until later in the week because of security concerns.
The council’s work on the preservation of languages is led by Wales, where experts have been looking at the best examples of how tongues can be promoted.
Education Minister James Reed is due to address the summit on the place of Jèrriais in Jersey history. ‘I am pleased to be able to take part in this conference and look forward to speaking on how Jersey promotes its own minority language,’ he said.
Article posted on 10th November, 2009 - 2.56pm
10 Article Comments
Jèrriais is the stillborn language of the illiterate farm hands of yesterday. We need to move on!
Yes children do go to Jèrriais classes, some because it provides free after school care. I am all for culture and history but we live and word in the global economy of today. The finance industry customers of the future are more likely to speak Chinese of Hindi then Jèrriais.
We need to prepare our young for global economy not for the slang of the illiterate poor.
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We cant go back to Olde English, languages are either evolving or they are dead.
If a language is dead it becomes of historical significance but lets not teach it in schools.
By teaching a dead language you are wasting valuable resources and a skill which has no use apart from as a an interesting historical oddity.
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Re. Mark Le Seur: “We need to prepare our young for global economy not for the slang of the illiterate poor”.
What an incredible display of ludicrous snobbery! Listen, dude, our “young” are not put on this godforsaken world simply to be utilised by the Finance Industry until they are condemned as ‘deadwood’ and ‘downsized’ at the age of forty. If they want to learn Jerriaise, and there are people who wish to teach it, why shouldn’t they be free to do so? In any case, there probably won’t be a Finance Industry in the future; once Jersey has been freed from the yoke of the country previously known as Britain, there will be nothing to prevent the EU from marching in and closing down our beloved tax-evasion industry. So, stop being a boring old curmudgeon and let our ‘young’ enjoy a varied and interesting education instead of being merely trained for the financial slave workforce.
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Entirely agree with Mjolnir de Jersiaise: I went to after school classes to learn Jersiaise, and it was always really interesting but more importantly ENJOYABLE! I think its a shame that kids are not taught anything about Jersey’s history, I’ve been working on a project about it (I am an artist) and its been incredibly insightful. Why shouldn’t we get people interested in their heritage? It should be available. There is more to life than being groomed to work in an office, something I have been fighting for a while. It would be incredibly sad to loose our heritage in replacement for chrome and glass clad buildings.
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I agree it’s time to move on and not waste time and effort on a dead-end language when there are more important skills to teach our youngsters (as in the recent story titled A third of States primary leavers lack skills)
Sure it would be nice to keep it going in an ideal world but sadly there is no ideal world and we need to get our priorities right.
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With the greatest of respect to all speakers of minority languages, surely the delegates to this meeting have better things to discuss?
The British-Irish Council has proved itself to be what many of us have thought for some time: it is merely a talking shop and nothing more.
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Mjolnir de Jersiaise – Good comments. I think it is a shame to have forgotten Jerriaise and its even more of a shame that people like Mark Le Seur believe it to be the slang of the illiterate poor. This comment brings you dangerously close to having a dig at many of our older islanders!
Im only 24 and when I was in school I didnt have the option to learn Jerriaise but if I had a child in school now, I would definitely encourage him/her to learn it.
Its an important part of our heritage and not to be forgotten!
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Re: Mjolnir de Jersiaise
I fear the ‘display of ludicrous snobbery’ may be your reflection on yourself. It is hypocrisy to claim that the young of transient Finance imports have a burning wish or need to learn Jersiaise
If and when the primary school results are published I will retract in full if the high performers in the core skills of Math and English are also Jersiaise speakers.
You open your eyes and you will see that there is more to this world than just the Finance Industry and Fair Isle of Jersey.
Re: Shocked
I make no dig at the old of this island. My Grandmother a Jersey woman of the late Victorian era spoke little or no Jersiaise, it was a dead language even a centaury ago.
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Re. Mark Le Sueur: I don’t see how my “ludicrous snobbery” statement can be construed as a reflection upon myself; you were the one who described our indigenous language as “the slang of the illiterate poor” thereby insulting both Jerriaise and poor people (who might be poor due to any number of reasons – not just illiteracy). Also, why are you accusing me of hypocrisy? I never claimed that “the young of transient Finance imports have a burning wish or need to learn Jersiaise”; I couldn’t care less whether they want to learn it or not, and there is no mention, in the above article, about any plans to make Jerriaise compulsory – only about ways that it can be promoted (I take it that they mean to encourage people to choose to learn it).
Meanwhile, before the primary school results are published, I can tell you that my youngest daughter (currently in year five) is performing very well in Maths and English and also loves her Jerriaise lessons. Shall I order her to pack up her Jerriaise lessons and do a course in bookkeeping instead? (seeing as that is more relevant to the “business world”). Well, I can assure you, that ain’t gonna happen…
Finally, you said: “You open your eyes and you will see that there is more to this world than just the Finance Industry and Fair Isle of Jersey”; well, I have travelled, and worked, in various places around the globe, and have a long standing interest in the different cultures and peoples – and I am only too aware that there is more to the world than just Jersey and it’s Finance Industry. Curiously it was you who stated that “The finance industry customers of the future are more likely to speak Chinese of Hindi then Jèrriais”. That seems to imply that children’s education should be tailored to Jersey’s Finance Industry – the very point with which I am in total disagreement.
Bry: Good on ya mate! Keep up the good work.
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I would like to support the campaign to save endangered and dying languages, can I point to the contribution, made by the World Esperanto Association, to UNESCO’s campaign.
The commitment was made, by the World Esperanto Association at the United Nations’ Geneva HQ in September.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=eR7vD9kChBA&feature=related
Your readers may be interested in http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU Professor Piron was a translator with the United Nations in Geneva.
A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
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