‘Islanders were bullied for speaking the Guernsey language’

A documentary maker said schoolchildren on the island were bullied by teachers in the past for speaking Guernsey’s native language.

Theo Cross, who grew up in the island, said he had spoken to Guernésiais speakers who had been put off the language as part of his new film.

Mr Cross said the language – which is a dialect of Norman French – had been “repressed” on the island before its occupation during World War Two.

He said people he interviewed told him they had been pressured to learn English and “bullied [by teachers] to such an extreme point that they decided never to pass on the language to their children”.

Mr Cross is collaborating with Matt Graysmith, who was born in Staffordshire and moved to Guernsey as a teenager, on an art documentary filmed in Guernésiais which explores the island’s language and folklore.

He said the language was “beautiful” as it “really encourages details about the landscape and the culture”.

“But also because very few people now in Guernsey have actually heard it or know what it sounds like,” Mr Cross said.

The pair, who both now live in the UK, are back on the island until early September to do more filming.

Mr Cross said they we hoping to speak to Guernésiais speakers in the next few weeks, including those who used to speak it and are re-learning it.

Mr Cross added: “I think we realised that actually we’ve been – as an island, but also us as artists, as writers – been neglecting Guernésiais.”

Guernésiais is also known informally as Guernsey French or Patois by islanders.

Mr Cross said the film explored what the language meant to native speakers, the way they lived and why it fell out of use.

As well as exploring the language, the filmmakers were looking to explore and “reanimate or contemporize Guernsey folklore”, he said.

“There’s the ancient folklore, the old folklore, but there’s folklore that we continue to be added to, to build upon.”