They Say Guernsey-French was Never Written

Some people say Guernsey-French was never written. I think that does at least two things: it disrespects, by wilfully ignoring, the efforts of Corbet, Thomas, Métivier, De Garis, Ozanne and others - also, it helps to convince people generally that Guernsey-French isn't even a real language, which I would say it definitely is.

I think it's wrong to keep repeating the old myth that Guernsey-French has never been a written language. There are simply hundreds of thousands of words written in Guernsey-French. My bit of doggerel below is an attempt to put my response into words.

Guernsey-French was never written

Yaen, daeux, treis, quate, chinq

The tongue may have been bold

But the pen was shy

The inky bullet was never bitten

Now it's a language, we're told

Though my gran called it Patois

Cht ecriture notion won't go far

There never was a Burns for Guerns

No one wrote:

'L'soleil fait l'amour à la terre ...,

À Sâïnt la maïre est coum' èn verre,'

There wasn't no Chaucer to the Forest

No one wrote:

'A' n'creyait pouin seul'ment ès sorchiers, 

mais a s'comptait la prumière

désorchel'resse de l'île'

Guernsey-French never was real

Guerns speaks English

Just like the football team wears green

Who was Marjorie Ozanne, anyway,

And what does:

'Pour mai, j'oime a l'ecrrire'

even mean?