Could our old accents bring in the tourists?

Tuesday 16 February 2016

Jersey could be the last place left on the planet where you can hear French spoken the old-fashioned way - and the last remaining home of the endangered circumflex accent!

France is getting rid of lots of its accents and making big changes to spellings that have existed for centuries to simplify the language for children starting school in September - and there's hope that the endangered French language could become a tourist draw, like the lemurs at Durrell.

The circumflex accent, the little hat, is going on the letter i and u as part of the 2,400 changes that will also see Le week-end become weekend and the spelling of onion change from oignon to ognon - changes likely to bring tears to the eyes of French traditionalists.

But the way our native language is spoken won't be changing anytime soon and local Jèrriais expert Tony Scott Warren thinks our old French sounding connections could bring in the visitors. 

He said: “In French, the circumflex shows a historic long-sound which has disappeared from modern French pronunciation.  In Jèrriais we still pronounce the long-sounds so the circumflex shows the reader the correct pronunciation. When you see a circumflex in Jèrriais, you know that the pronunciation is long!“

“I have always thought that we should make more of Jèrriais in our effort to attract tourists, as its similarities to but major differences from French can intrigue both English and French visitors.  Jèrriais is our unique selling point!”

The changes were first approved by the guardians of the French language, the Académie Française, back in 1990 and were agreed with the other French-speaking regions like Quebec and Belgium who adopted them, while the French education system dragged its heels.