Les Fieillets Jèrriais
Avri 2010
Salutâtions tout l'monde. Thank you to those who attended last month's meeting, I hope you enjoyed the evening.
The news this month is detailed fully in the SJ Spring Newsletter and is a summary of the evening activities we've been doing and plan to do during the coming months. In addition, mention was made of La Fête Normande, being held at La Fontaine-le-Bourg, just north of Rouen in La Haute Normandie during the first weekend of June. The costs of travel (car & boat) and 3 nights accommodation have been obtained from Go France and Independent Travel (I Travel) and are available on request.
The main news from our point of view is that L'Office du Jèrriais have copies of the new Jersey bank notes after successfully working with all concerned to have the denominations in Jèrriais and French on the reverse sides of the £1, £5, £10, £20 and £50 very colourful notes. The launch was a great success and apparently made Sen. Ozouf very pleased. It's nearly 15 years since Angela Le Pavoux, our first Ségrétaithe, started this as one of our projects and then pursued it through Le Congrès to be brought to fruition by the persistence of L'Office du Jèrriais. We hope that ….ch'est un grand pliaîsi pouor not Duc……
On the activities front, the SJ Open Day went well and one of our other early projects…of having Jèrriais on our stamps…. which met with refusals by Postal Authorities to our initial approaches, followed up by our Chairman's examples and those of Tony Scott Warren over the years…..may finally be in the pipe-line. Geraint may have information of this at our next meeting, along with one or two requests for new words for established items.
On the pronunciation front, the best I've heard is Jiggerland no prizes I'm afraid for guessing this place, but the cringing examples continue, and even Ken Vibert's citation could have been pronounced more accurately on television.
Our next meeting will be held on Wed. April 7th at 8.00pm in the AM Room at La Société for further information, literature work and composition drafting for the next publication of Les Nouvelles Chroniques du Don Balleine, the only literary publication in Jèrriais, and maybe the only non-English language publication in the Island.
À la préchaine,
John Clarke (Président)
Ralph Nichols (Ségrétaithe)
Spring Newsletter
We have been extremely fortunate to have received a large collection of original poetry and prose donated by Laurie Huelin. The pieces, including short plays, were written for competition in Les Sethées Jèrriaises at the Eisteddfodau since about 1950. They are a wonderful example of the wealth of literature, humour and imagination that the Jersey authors possessed and were able to express in Jèrriais.
At our meetings during the next few months, we will involve reading, classifying and selecting examples with a view to publishing them as a record of what brought laughter and applause to formerly packed evenings of appreciative listeners in the Opera House.
At the same time, this exercise will allow us to study the language and improve our own ability to write short stories and record past and present events.
In June, La Fête Normande is being held at Fontaine Le Bourg just north of Rouen and following in the tradition of the above, several of us hope to attend and present a reading of our Gold Certificate Eisteddfod performance of a humorous poem by Elie, and possibly also, an original composition or two.
Other activities during our meetings will include writing short pieces on certain themes and topics, or even using ten totally unrelated words, given to us by L'Office du Jèrriais, hopefully for publication in the quarterly magazine, Les Nouvelles Chroniques du Don Balleine, Jersey's only native language publication.
We join with L'Office du Jèrriais in celebrating the use of Jèrriais along with French on the reverse of the new Jersey £1, £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes, a project started by Angela Le Pavoux as Secretary of the Section in 1995 and continued by John Denize and Le Congrès and brought to fruition by Tony Scott Warren and Geraint Jennings of L'Office du Jèrriais. Don't forget to buy a first issue pack!
The next step for all concerned is to continue persuading the Postal Authorities to include our language on the Jersey stamps.
Thank you to all those who attended the SJ Open Day and expressed interest in the wonderfully colourful and simple language booklets and posters compiled and presented by L'Office du Jèrriais, further information about which can be obtained from La Société's Office.
We meet at 8.00pm on the first Wednesday of every month at La Société with beginners always welcome, and further information can be obtained from Ralph Nichols 862756 (Ségrétaithe), John Clarke 873556 (Président) or the SJ Office 758314.
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