Conference held to encourage more speakers of Jersey's native language

Hear some of the event speakers - Dr Eowyn Crisfield, Ben Spink and Jean Le Maistre - talk about Jèrriais.

An event has been held to "revitalise, protect and enable" the use of Jèrriais - Jersey's native language.

Hautlieu School in St Helier hosted the conference this week and celebrated the fact that the number of children learning Jèrriais has risen since it became an optional subject in some schools.

Dr Eowyn Crisfield, from Oxford Brookes University, said that the inclusion of the language alongside French and Spanish "has given schools the license to say 'Why not Jèrriais?' rather than 'Why Jèrriais?'".

The head of the Jèrriais Speaking Service, Ben Spink, agreed: "A couple of years ago we were teaching about 200 children ... very recently we've taken that number to 3000".

However, there are currently more people learning the language than there are speakers.

Ben emphasised the importance of more speakers saying: "It is a part of our identity, culture and history ... it is in our DNA.

"We'd love to see Jèrriais on the curriculum", Spink added, "we are not trying to impose that on people anytime soon, but we need to bring people with us.

"We're here to revitalise, protect and enable minority languages."

Native Jèrriais speaker and former Jersey States Senator, Jean Le Maistre, said:

"It's not easy to get people to understand the worth of what we are doing. But actually, at the heart of a community is the culture and the history.

"That is all wrapped up in language. When people understand that - they embrace it".

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