Thursday 8 August 2013

2013: Aurig'nais - the Alderney language

Sark Folk Festival 2013 04The St Anne's School Summer term newsletter contains a report on the Alderney language revival project we've been able to help with:

During activities week, Mrs Pond taught a short course in Aurig’nais (the old Alderney Patois). She has been working with Royston Raymond, who has luckily retained some of the old phrases and stories that he remembers his grand-parents saying. Although Royston has never been a fluent speaker of Aurig’nais, he was a French teacher at the school and realised the importance of trying to preserve as much of this now extinct language that he can. Mrs Pond has made various recordings of Royston and with some research at the museum and a lot of help from Geraint Jennings of the Office du Jerriais in Jersey, has put together some basics of the language. The students can now greet each other in Aurig’nais, introduce themselves and count to 100. She is hoping that some time in the future she will have the opportunity to cascade it to the junior school. If anyone has any knowledge of Aurig’nais Mrs Pond would be very interested to hear from them, as this is an ongoing project. Tenki et addi ! (Thank you and goodbye).

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