The Guernsey Norman French translations of Thomas Martin

1953年，C. P. Le Huray在“Quarterly Review of the根西岛Society”上发表的一篇文章引起了人们对一个主要练习本的注意，其中包含了他所描述的根西岛托马斯·马丁翻译成“圣马丁教区所说的诺曼法语”的"四福音书、莎士比亚戏剧和莫里哀喜剧“。第二次出版时（1981年），有人指出，尽管其中200多本已被格恩西岛学会获得，但其余的收藏品已经消失，据信是出自根西岛。我最近在根西岛档案馆进行的研究使我对这些说法提出了一些修订。马丁的手稿实际上是完整的--失踪的206本练习本是档案馆2003年从伦敦一家拍卖行买来的。此外，就内容而言，以前的帐户也需要重新评估，为审查已透露手稿包含一个完整的翻译圣经（包括伪经）和100部戏剧，包括莎士比亚戏剧全集（37个剧本）和63个剧本来自法国作家科尔内耶的作品，事实上，马丁手稿从来没有形成严肃的学术研究的主题，这可能是由于一些原因。首先，多年来，收藏不完整，支离破碎。其次，几乎可以肯定的是，托马斯·马丁并不是一位知名的根西岛法国作家（人口普查报告分别称他为“细木工”（1861年）、“橱柜匠”（1871年）、“木匠”（1881年、1891年），后来又称他为“道路测量员”（1901年））。第三，根西岛语是一种逐渐过时的语言变体，在其近代历史的大部分时间里，根西岛语被认为不如根西岛的其他语言变体（标准法语，然后从世纪开始，英语）。事实上，由于这种方言从未被用于官方职能，包括作为教育媒介，甚至是学校的学习科目，因此，在实际中，马丁的工作只在相对低调的方式和出版物中被提及，而不是在根西岛以外广泛流传，这意味着大量的工作在很大程度上逃过了外界的注意，但它的重要性海峡群岛法语-更广泛地说，为法国方言学-是至关重要的。马丁的作品代表了海峡群岛法语中最大的单笔散文语料库，并将现存的盖尔尼西亚作品语料库扩展了数百倍。语料库的广泛性意味着它为第一次记录和编纂盖尔尼西亚用法的某些细节提供了真实的可能性。考虑到其剩余的母语使用者的年龄，在未来的15到20年内，盖尔内西亚语很可能会作为一种日常语言永远消失。在最后一位母语使用者去世后，《马丁·曼尼托》将成为关于方言语音、形态句法和词汇的最重要的数据来源之一。据我所知，拟议中的专著将是迄今为止用英语或法语对盖尔尼西亚著作的任何方面进行的唯一语言学分析。

In 1953, an article by C.P. Le Huray in the "Quarterly Review of the Guernsey Society" drew attention to a major corpus of exercise books containing what he described as the Guernseyman Thomas Martin's translations into 'Norman French, as spoken in the parish of St. Martin', of 'the four gospels, the plays of Shakespeare and the Comedies of Moliere'. The next time the exercise-books were mentioned in print (1981) it was noted that, although over 200 of these had been obtainedby the Societe Guernesiaise, the remainder of the collection had disappeared and was believed to be out of Guernsey.Recent research I have undertaken in the Archives of Guernsey has led me to propose some revisions to these claims. The Martin manuscripts are in fact complete- the missing 206 exercise books were acquired by the Archives from a London auction house in 2003. Moreover, as far as the contents are concerned, previous accounts also need to be reassessed, for examination has revealed the manuscripts to contain a complete translation of the Bible (including the Apocrypha) and 100 plays, including the complete plays of Shakespeare (37 plays) and 63 plays from the work of the French authors Corneille, Moliere and Voltaire.The fact that the Martin manuscripts have never formed the subject of serious academic study is probably due to a number of reasons. First, for many years, the collection was incomplete and fragmented. Second, Thomas Martin was almost certainly not an established Guernsey French writer (Census reports refer to him as, respectively, 'joiner' (1861), 'cabinet maker' (1871), 'carpenter' (1881, 1891) and then 'road surveyor' (1901)). Third, Guernesiais is an obsolescent variety which, for most of its recent history, has been considered as inferior to one of Guernsey's other linguistic varieties (Standard French and then, from the 19th century onwards, English). Indeed, since the dialect has never been used for official functions, including as the medium of education or even a subject of study at school, it is likely that few of the remaining speakers of Guernsiais would, in practice, be able to read the manuscripts.The fact that Martin's work has only ever been mentioned in a relatively low key fashion and in publications not widely circulated outside Guernsey has meant that this substantial body of work has largely escaped the notice of the outside world, and yet its significance for Channel Island French - and, more widely, for French dialectology- is paramount. Martin's work represents the largest corpus of prose from one pen in Channel Island French and extends the corpus of extant Guernesiais writings several hundred-fold. The extensive nature of the corpus means that it affords real possibilities for some details of Guernesiais usage to be documented and codified for the first time. Given the age of its remaining native speakers, it is likely that Guernesiais will disappear forever as an everyday language within the next fifteen to twenty years. After the death of the last native speaker, the Martin Manuscripts will represent one of the most important sources of data available on the phonetics, morphosyntax and lexis of the dialect.To the best of my knowledge, the proposed monograph would represent the only linguistic analysis of any aspect of Guernesiais writings existing to date in English or in French.