JERSEY should adopt Jèrriais as an ‘official minority language’ and Education should do more to revive it, according to the Constable of St Helier.
Simon Crowcroft has lodged an amendment to the Strategic Plan calling for the department to look into the feasibility of making ‘Jersey French’ an official minority language, and work with the Société Jersiaise, Le Don Balleine and L’Assembliée d’Jèrriais in promoting its teaching, use and preservation. Under the amendment, Jèrriais wouid be given increased protection through the European Charter for regional and minority languages. And Mr Crowcroft says that if Education Minister Mike Vibert can find £250,000 out of his budget at short notice to fund top-up fees, then he should be able to find money to preserve the Island’s language by cutting administrative costs. In the report accompanying his proposal, he said: ‘While the Cultural Strategy suggests that the States will give high priority to the protection and promotion of our indigenous language, the draft Strategic Plan of the Coundil of Ministers does not reflect this. ‘The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that this vitai part of our cultural heritage is given the importance that it deserves and requires, and the resources that would be devoted to it in, for example, the Isle of Man, where approximately five times more funding is provided than is the case in Jersey at present.’ ... JEP May 2006
(JEP = Jersey Evening Post)
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