Les principales caractéristiques phonétiques des parlers normands de Jersey, Sercq, Guernesey et Magneville (canton de Bricquebec, Manche).

Variation and Change in Sark Norman French1

“…However, after the first French War of Religion broke out in 1562, St. Ouen parish was felt to be especially vulnerable to attack from the French via Sark and this led to the decision to have Sark settled by Jerseymen. Although De Carteret and his tenants would have spoken a variety of Jèrriais, over the subsequent centuries, the speech of Jersey and Sark diverged greatly (Brasseur 1978b: 302). 7 Hence, for all it is claimed that the Sercquais understand the Jèrriais of St. Ouen, speakers of Jèrriais do not understand Sercquais very well (Brasseur 1977: 100).…”

“…In contemporary Sercquais, the west‐French monophthong – clearly attested in the ALF – is retained in all the above words (Table 5). The presence of [ɛj]/ [ej] diphthongs, also recorded in the ALF poire form, is likely to be the result of a secondary development, namely the diphthongisation of [ɛ] to [wɛ] after a labial consonant (Brasseur 1978b: 286). 11 In Sercquais, open vowels tend to be more open than in other varieties of insular Norman (and French).…”

“…11 In Sercquais, open vowels tend to be more open than in other varieties of insular Norman (and French). This often occurs when [ɛ] is in a closed final syllable, such as in froid (Brasseur 1978b: 290). When in an open final syllable, [ɛ] may open and centralise to .…”

“…The variation that exists in the realisation of /r/ on Sark may also be seen clearly in my data. Generally realised as an apical trill in insular Norman (although in some parts of Jersey, intervocalic /r/ undergoes assibilation to ; Spence 1957b), it is realised by some speakers of Sercquais as a uvular fricative (Brasseur 1978b: 280), a phoneme that may also be transferred into their English (Jones 2010: 44). As Liddicoat notes (1994: 445), the co‐existence of these two forms in Sercquais is difficult to explain.…”

“…Although Auregnais died in an almost undocumented state, 3 Sercquais will leave behind a somewhat more complete linguistic record. No writings, literary or otherwise, exist in this variety of insular Norman, but the grammar of Sercquais and some aspects of its phonology have been set down by linguists (Liddicoat 1989a, b, 1991, 1994), including within a pan‐Norman comparative framework (Brasseur 1978a, b) and a word list has been compiled (Liddicoat 2001). However, unlike Jèrriais and Guernésiais, no orthographic system has been elaborated for Sercquais 4 .…”