The Channel Islands form a small archipelago lying at the entrance to the gulf of St Malo, some 80 miles off the southern coast of England. The eight islands, in descending order of size, are Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark, Herm, Jethou, Lihou and Brecqhou (see Figure 21.1). A variety of Romance has been spoken on the islands for over two thousand years and, despite the fact that the archipelago has been united politically with Great Britain since 1204, until relatively recently the majority of the inhabitants were francophone. Although the dialect of Alderney became extinct in the 1950s, before any systematic analysis could be undertaken, the surviving dialects of the Channel Islands all contain what Joret (1883) considered to be the defining features of Norman (see also Lepelley 1999) and, according to Fleury (1886:4), they show greatest linguistic affinity with the varieties of mainland Norman spoken in and around La Hague.

Despite the large number of features that they undoubtedly share, it would, however, be mistaken to consider the varieties spoken in the Norman zone – or even on the Channel Islands – as homogeneous. Even though Sark Norman French (Sercquiais) developed from a western form of Jersey Norman French (Jèrriais) after the island was colonised from Jersey in 1565 (Spence 1993:53), there is no longer any striking resemblance between these two varieties (Brasseur 1978b:302) and, although it is claimed that the inhabitants of Sark understand the variety spoken in the west of Jersey, speakers of Jèrriais do not understand Sercquiais very well (Brasseur 1977:100).