Guernesiais: The Gruffalo & The Gospel

It’s a year since modern children’s classic, The Gruffalo, was published in Guernesias as a part of language preservation and revitalisation efforts. These efforts have just received a fresh boost of funding for a revamped Guernsey Language Commission

two books in Guenesiais, the Gruffalo and the Gospel of St Matthew

Meanwhile it’s 157 years since the gospel of Matthew was published in the same language, at a time when a lot more people on the island of Guernsey spoke Guernesias. The translation was commissioned by the nephew of Napoléon Bonaparte and an initial run of 250 copies were printed. These details I learned along with other interesting bits of history from the introduction to the 2016 digital version that is available here alongside translations in 1465 languages on Bible.com and the YouVersion Bible app (digitised with the help of MissionAssist). It is also available on Google Books where it also includes a three page pronunciation guide.

Of course the existence and availability of these two books will not be enough to save what is a severely endangered language. The people of Guernsey will have to decide for themselves whether their language is something they wish to preserve and whether that preservation is about recording the last remaining speakers or in capturing the interest of a new generation of speakers. Find out more at https://learnguernsey.com/

If enough people decide they want to keep the language alive then there are lots of things that are possible. I took a free online course in language revival via the University of Adelaide a few years ago and have blogged a few thoughts of my own since.
The course started again today (Aug 29) so far 10,868 people around the world already enrolled.