The Guernsey Norman French translations of Thomas Martin

1953年，C.P. Le Huray在《根西学会季刊评论》（Quarterly Review of the Guernsey Society）上发表的一篇文章引起了人们的注意，其中包括他所描述的根西人托马斯·马丁（Thomas Martin）翻译成“圣马丁教区所说的诺曼法语”、“四福音书、莎士比亚戏剧和莫里哀喜剧”的练习本。第二次在印刷中提到练习本时（1981年），人们注意到，虽然法国兴业银行获得了200多本练习本，但其余的练习本已经消失，据信已经离开了根西岛。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改意见。马丁的手稿实际上是完整的——丢失的206本练习本是2003年由英国档案馆从伦敦一家拍卖行购得的。此外，就内容而言，以前的叙述也需要重新评估，因为检查发现手稿中包含圣经的完整翻译（包括伪经）和100部戏剧，其中包括莎士比亚的全部戏剧（37部）和63部来自法国作家高奈依，莫里哀和伏尔泰的作品。马丁手稿从未成为严肃学术研究的主题，这一事实可能有以下几个原因。首先，多年来，这些藏品是不完整和碎片化的。其次，托马斯·马丁几乎肯定不是根西岛的法国作家（人口普查报告分别称他为“木匠”（1861年）、“橱柜制造商”（1871年）、“木匠”（1881年、1891年）和“道路测量师”（1901年））。第三，格恩西语是一个过时的变体，在其近代史的大部分时间里，它被认为不如格恩西岛的其他语言变体（标准法语，然后从19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，甚至作为学校的学习科目，因此，在实践中，可能很少有剩下的说格恩西亚语的人能够阅读手稿。马丁的作品只以一种相对低调的方式被提及，在根西岛以外没有广泛传播的出版物中，这意味着这一大量作品在很大程度上逃过了外界的注意，然而，它对海峡岛法语的意义——更广泛地说，对法国方言的意义——是至关重要的。马丁的作品代表了海峡岛法语中最大的一支笔的散文语料库，并将现存的格内西亚作品的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格内西亚语用法的一些细节提供了真正的可能性。考虑到剩下的母语使用者的年龄，在接下来的15到20年里，格内西亚语很可能会永远消失。在最后一个以方言为母语的人去世后，《马丁手稿》将成为有关方言语音、词法和词汇的最重要的数据来源之一。据我所知，拟写的专著将是迄今为止用英语或法语对格内西雅语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.