L’s Aventuthes d’Alice en Emervil’lie

From the title, can you guess which classic book has been translated into Jerriais by St Helier born linguist and writer Geraint Jennings? Jerriais, although not widely spoken, is an official dialect of Jersey, in the Channel Islands. Jennings has been an advocate for preserving the language, compiling and publishing a collection of Jerriais texts online at Les Pages Jerriaises.

Mr Jennings has been working on the book for 13 years, and instead of doing a literal translation, he has instead adapted it to make parts of the original storyline relate more to Jersey and its history. Jennings is also a teacher of the language, and feels that it is important to have a work of fiction that children are already familiar with to help them learn.

You can hear an excerpt of the book, read by Mr Jennings, here.

Source: BBC News