THE widely held belief that Guernsey French, or d’Guernesiais, is a poor relation of standard French is flawed in many ways, but it can be proved only by looking back through history and at its origin.

We often call it ‘Guernsey patois’, but philologists will probably argue that is a derogatory term for a language – a patois is more of a dialect.

The word is likely to have come from the old French, patoier, ‘to handle clumsily’, and is often steeped in class issues and reserved for the vernacular of commoners and the uncouth. So to anyone speaking d’Guernesiais, ‘patois’ may be a touch on the rude side.

Wind the clock back 2,500 years to the Roman Empire…

The Latin language had a huge impact on European society but it was the more vulgar form spoken by travelling soldiers that established itself as the dominant language of western Europe.

By the ninth century in France, the mixture of Celtic, Roman and Frankish had combined to produce a language that would become the ‘French tongue’ and Latin gradually faded.

The French language split into two distinct regions: the Langue d’Oc of southern France and the Langue d’Oil of the north, which in turn was divided into five distinct regions – Burgundiy, Picardy, Wallon, Normandy and Ile de France.

It was about the same time that the ‘Northmen’ or Normans began their forays into northern France and their success was rewarded when in 912AD King Rollo married the daughter of French king Charles the Simple.

The dowry was the Duchy of Normandy and the Normans settled in France, gave up their Scandinavian tongue and adopted, with many modifications, the language of the native population.

It became enriched with Nordic phrases, which are still in everyday use in Guernsey, such as vraic, dehus and mielles.

It is this Norman language that William the Conqueror took to England in 1066 and there it became the language of the ruling classes until the loss of mainland Normandy to the French in 1204.

The Norman language was then split into Anglo-Norman and Franco-Norman – it is from the latter that the differing languages of the Channel Islands are derived.

In England, the native Anglo-Saxon reasserted itself, but not without Norman influence and words such as chair, curtain, garden and castle all have their roots in Norman. Guernsey French words tchaire, courtaenne, gardin and chatel bear more than a passing resemblance to the originals.

The branch of the Langue d’Oil, termed Ile de France, was declared in 1515 to be the official language of France by King Francis I.

This Parisian version would eventually become the standard French we know today.

Only in the Channel Islands does this ancient Norman French version of the Langue d’Oil exist with any real enthusiasm and even so Jersey’s Jersiais is more influenced by French, while d’Guernesiais is more anglicised.