Judiciary
The judiciary is the system of courts that interprets and applies the law in the name of the state. The judiciary can be thought of as the mechanism for the resolution of disputes. Under the doctrine of the separation of powers, the judiciary does not make statutory law or enforce law, but rather interprets law and applies it to the facts of each case. However, in some countries the judiciary does make common law, setting precedent for other courts to follow; this branch of the state is tasked with ensuring equal justice under law. In many jurisdictions the judicial branch has the power to change laws through the process of judicial review. Courts with judicial review power may annul the laws and rules of the state when it finds them incompatible with a higher norm, such as primary legislation, the provisions of the constitution or international law. Judges constitute a critical force for interpretation and implementation of a constitution, thus de facto in common law countries creating the body of constitutional law.
For a people to establish and keep the'Rule of Law' as the operative norm in social constructs great care must be taken in the election or appointment of unbiased and thoughtful legal scholars whose loyalty to an oath of office is without reproach. If law is to govern and find acceptance courts must exercise fidelity to justice which means affording those subject to its jurisdictional scope the greatest presumption of inherent cultural relevance within this framework. In the US during recent decades the judiciary became active in economic issues related with economic rights established by constitution because "economics may provide insight into questions that bear on the proper legal interpretation". Since many countries with transitional political and economic systems continue treating their constitutions as abstract legal documents disengaged from the economic policy of the state, practice of judicial review of economic acts of executive and legislative branches have begun to grow. In the 1980s, the Supreme Court of India for a decade had been encouraging public interest litigation on behalf of the poor and oppressed by using a broad interpretation of several articles of the Indian Constitution.
Budget of the judiciary in many transitional and developing countries is completely controlled by the executive. This undermines the separation of powers, as it creates a critical financial dependence of the judiciary; the proper national wealth distribution including the government spending on the judiciary is subject of the constitutional economics. It is important to distinguish between the two methods of corruption of the judiciary: the state, the private; the term "judiciary" is used to refer collectively to the personnel, such as judges and other adjudicators, who form the core of a judiciary, as well as the staffs who keep the system running smoothly. In some countries and jurisdictions, judiciary branch is expanded to include additional public legal professionals and institutions such as prosecutors, state lawyers, public notaries, judicial police service and legal aid officers; these institutions are sometimes governed by the same judicial administration that governs courts, in some cases the administration of the judicial branch is the administering authority for private legal professions such as lawyers and private "notary" offices.
After the French Revolution, lawmakers stopped interpretation of law by judges, the legislature was the only body permitted to interpret the law. In civil law juridictors at present, judges interpret the law to about the same extent as in common law jurisdictions – however it is different from the common law tradition which directly recognizes the limited power to make law. For instance, in France, the jurisprudence constante of the Court of Cassation or the Council of State is equivalent in practice with case law. However, the Louisiana Supreme Court notes the principal difference between the two legal doctrines: a single court decision can provide sufficient foundation for the common law doctrine of stare decisis, however, "a series of adjudicated cases, all in accord, form the basis for jurisprudence constante." Moreover, the Louisiana Court of Appeals has explicitly noted that jurisprudence constante is a secondary source of law, which cannot be authoritative and does not rise to the level of stare decisis.
In common law jurisdictions, courts interpret law. They make law based upon prior case law in areas where the legislature has not made law. For instance, the tort of negligence is not derived from statute law in most common law jurisdictions; the term common law refers to this kind of law. In civil law jurisdictions, courts interpret the law, but are prohibited from creating law, thus do not issue rulings more general than the actual case to be judged. Jurisprudence plays a similar role to case law. In the United States court system, the Supreme Court is the final authority on the interpretation of the federal Constitution and all statutes and regulations created pursuant to it, as well as the constitutionality of the various state laws. State courts, which try 98 % of litigation, may have organization.
English Channel
The English Channel called the Channel, is the body of water that separates Southern England from northern France and links the southern part of the North Sea to the Atlantic Ocean. It is the busiest shipping area in the world, it is about 560 km long and varies in width from 240 km at its widest to 33.3 km in the Strait of Dover. It is the smallest of the shallow seas around the continental shelf of Europe, covering an area of some 75,000 km2; until the 18th century, the English Channel had no fixed name either in French. It was never defined as a political border, the names were more or less descriptive, it was not considered as the property of a nation. Before the development of the modern nations, British scholars often referred to it as "Gaulish" and French scholars as "British" or "English"; the name "English Channel" has been used since the early 18th century originating from the designation Engelse Kanaal in Dutch sea maps from the 16th century onwards. In modern Dutch, however, it is known as Het Kanaal.
It has been known as the "British Channel" or the "British Sea". It was called Oceanus Britannicus by the 2nd-century geographer Ptolemy; the same name is used on an Italian map of about 1450, which gives the alternative name of canalites Anglie—possibly the first recorded use of the "Channel" designation. The Anglo-Saxon texts call it Sūð-sǣ as opposed to Norð-sǣ; the common word channel was first recorded in Middle English in the 13th century and was borrowed from Old French chanel, variant form of chenel "canal". The French name la Manche has been in use since at least the 17th century; the name is said to refer to the Channel's sleeve shape. Folk etymology has derived it from a Celtic word meaning channel, the source of the name for the Minch in Scotland, but this name was never mentioned before the 17th century, French and British sources of that time are clear about its etymology; the name in Breton means "Breton Sea", its Cornish name means "British Sea". The International Hydrographic Organization defines the limits of the English Channel as follows: The IHO defines the southwestern limit of the North Sea as "a line joining the Walde Lighthouse and Leathercoat Point".
The Walde Lighthouse is 6 km east of Calais, Leathercoat Point is at the north end of St Margaret's Bay, Kent. The Strait of Dover, at the Channel's eastern end, is its narrowest point, while its widest point lies between Lyme Bay and the Gulf of Saint Malo, near its midpoint, it is shallow, with an average depth of about 120 m at its widest part, reducing to a depth of about 45 m between Dover and Calais. Eastwards from there the adjoining North Sea reduces to about 26 m in the Broad Fourteens where it lies over the watershed of the former land bridge between East Anglia and the Low Countries, it reaches a maximum depth of 180 m in the submerged valley of Hurd's Deep, 48 km west-northwest of Guernsey. The eastern region along the French coast between Cherbourg and the mouth of the Seine river at Le Havre is referred to as the Bay of the Seine. There are several major islands in the Channel, the most notable being the Isle of Wight off the English coast, the Channel Islands, British Crown dependencies off the coast of France.
The coastline on the French shore, is indented. The Cotentin Peninsula in France juts out into the Channel, whilst on the English side there is a small parallel strait known as the Solent between the Isle of Wight and the mainland; the Celtic Sea is to the west of the Channel. The Channel acts as a funnel that amplifies the tidal range from less than a metre as observed at sea to more than 6 metres as observed in the Channel Islands, the west coast of the Cotentin Peninsula and the north coast of Brittany; the time difference of about six hours between high water at the eastern and western limits of the Channel is indicative of the tidal range being amplified further by resonance. In the UK Shipping Forecast the Channel is divided into the following areas, from the east: Dover Wight Portland Plymouth The Channel is of geologically recent origin, having been dry land for most of the Pleistocene period. Before the Devensian glaciation and Ireland were part of continental Europe, linked by an unbroken Weald-Artois Anticline, a ridge that acted as a natural dam holding back a large freshwater pro-glacial lake in the Doggerland region, now submerged under the North Sea.
During this period the North Sea and all of the British Isles were covered by ice. The lake was fed by meltwater from the Baltic and from the Caledonian and Scandinavian ice sheets that joined to the north, blocking its exit; the sea level was about 120 m lower. Between 450,000 and 180,000 years ago, at least two catastrophic glacial lake outburst floods breached the Weald–Artois anticline; the first flood would have lasted for several months, releasing as much as one million cubic metres of water per second. The flood started with large but localized waterfalls over the ridge, which excav
Crown dependencies
The Crown dependencies are three island territories off the coast of Great Britain that are self-governing possessions of the Crown: the Bailiwick of Guernsey, the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Isle of Man. They do not form part of either the British Overseas Territories. Internationally, the dependencies are considered "territories for which the United Kingdom is responsible", rather than sovereign states; as a result, they are not member states of the Commonwealth of Nations. However, they do have relationships with the Commonwealth, the European Union, other international organisations, are members of the British–Irish Council, they have their own teams in the Commonwealth Games. They are not part of the European Union; the Isle of Man is within the EU's VAT area. As the Crown dependencies are not sovereign states, the power to pass legislation affecting the islands rests with the government of the United Kingdom; however they each have their own legislative assembly, with the power to legislate on many local matters with the assent of the Crown.
In each case, the head of government is referred to as the Chief Minister. "The Crown" is defined differently in each Crown Dependency. In Jersey, statements in the 21st century of the constitutional position by the Law Officers of the Crown define it as the "Crown in right of Jersey", with all Crown land in the Bailiwick of Jersey belonging to the Crown in right of Jersey and not to the Crown Estate of the United Kingdom. Legislation of the Isle of Man defines the "Crown in right of the Isle of Man" as being separate from the "Crown in right of the United Kingdom". In Guernsey, legislation refers to the "Crown in right of the Bailiwick", the Law Officers of the Crown of Guernsey submitted that "The Crown in this context ordinarily means the Crown in right of the république of the Bailiwick of Guernsey" and that this comprises "the collective governmental and civic institutions, established by and under the authority of the Monarch, for the governance of these Islands, including the States of Guernsey and legislatures in the other Islands, the Royal Court and other courts, the Lieutenant Governor, Parish authorities, the Crown acting in and through the Privy Council."
This constitutional concept is worded as the "Crown in right of the Bailiwick of Guernsey". Since 1290, the Channel Islands have been governed as the Bailiwick of Jersey, comprising the island of Jersey and uninhabited islets such as the Minquiers and Écréhous the Bailiwick of Guernsey, comprising the islands of Guernsey, Alderney, Herm and Lihou; each Bailiwick is a Crown dependency and each is headed by a Bailiff, with a Lieutenant Governor representing the Crown in each Bailiwick. Each Bailiwick has its own legal and healthcare systems, its own separate immigration policies, with "local status" in one Bailiwick having no jurisdiction in the other; the two Bailiwicks exercise bilateral double taxation treaties. Since 1961, the Bailiwicks have had separate courts of appeal, but the Bailiff of each Bailiwick has been appointed to serve on the panel of appellate judges for the other Bailiwick; the Bailiwick of Guernsey comprises three separate jurisdictions: Guernsey, which includes the nearby islands of Herm and Jethou, other smaller uninhabited islands.
Sark, which includes the nearby island of Brecqhou, other smaller uninhabited islands. Alderney, including smaller surrounding uninhabited islands; the parliament of Guernsey is the States of Deliberation, the parliament of Sark is called the Chief Pleas, the parliament of Alderney is called the States of Alderney. The three parliaments together can approve joint Bailiwick-wide legislation that applies in those parts of the Bailiwick whose parliaments approve it. Guernsey issues its own coins and banknotes: Guernsey banknotes Coins of the Guernsey poundThese circulate in both Bailiwicks alongside UK coinage and English and Scottish banknotes, they are not legal tender within the UK. There are no political parties in any of the parliaments. Guernsey has its own separate international vehicle registrations, internet domain, ISO 3166-2 codes, first reserved on behalf of the Universal Postal Union and added by the International Organization for Standardization on 29 March 2006. In any case the GBG on a numberplate is only put on the number plate of a car or motorbike at the request of the vehicle owner and is not compulsory, however a motorbike/scooter can have an identical number to a car, e.g. 5432 on 2 wheels and on 4 wheels.
The Bailiwick of Jersey consists of the island of Jersey and a number of surrounding uninhabited islands. The parliament is the States of Jersey, the first known mention of, in a document of 1497; the States of Jersey Law 2005 introduced the post of Chief Minister of Jersey, abolished the Bailiff's power of dissent to a resolution of the States and the Lieutenant Governor's power of veto over a resolution of the States, established that any Order in Council or Act of the United Kingdom proposed to apply to Jersey must be referred to the States so that the States can express their views on it. Jersey issues its own coins and banknotes: Jersey banknotes Coins of the Jersey poundThese circulate in both Bailiwicks alongside UK coinage and English and Scottish banknotes, they are not legal tender within
Europe
Europe is a continent located in the Northern Hemisphere and in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west and the Mediterranean Sea to the south, it comprises the westernmost part of Eurasia. Since around 1850, Europe is most considered to be separated from Asia by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas and the waterways of the Turkish Straits. Although the term "continent" implies physical geography, the land border is somewhat arbitrary and has been redefined several times since its first conception in classical antiquity; the division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East-West cultural and ethnic differences which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The geographic border does not follow political boundaries, with Turkey and Kazakhstan being transcontinental countries. A strict application of the Caucasus Mountains boundary places two comparatively small countries and Georgia, in both continents.
Europe covers 2 % of the Earth's surface. Politically, Europe is divided into about fifty sovereign states of which the Russian Federation is the largest and most populous, spanning 39% of the continent and comprising 15% of its population. Europe had a total population of about 741 million as of 2016; the European climate is affected by warm Atlantic currents that temper winters and summers on much of the continent at latitudes along which the climate in Asia and North America is severe. Further from the sea, seasonal differences are more noticeable than close to the coast. Europe, in particular ancient Greece, was the birthplace of Western civilization; the fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD and the subsequent Migration Period marked the end of ancient history and the beginning of the Middle Ages. Renaissance humanism, exploration and science led to the modern era. Since the Age of Discovery started by Portugal and Spain, Europe played a predominant role in global affairs. Between the 16th and 20th centuries, European powers controlled at various times the Americas all of Africa and Oceania and the majority of Asia.
The Age of Enlightenment, the subsequent French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the continent culturally and economically from the end of the 17th century until the first half of the 19th century. The Industrial Revolution, which began in Great Britain at the end of the 18th century, gave rise to radical economic and social change in Western Europe and the wider world. Both world wars took place for the most part in Europe, contributing to a decline in Western European dominance in world affairs by the mid-20th century as the Soviet Union and the United States took prominence. During the Cold War, Europe was divided along the Iron Curtain between NATO in the West and the Warsaw Pact in the East, until the revolutions of 1989 and fall of the Berlin Wall. In 1949 the Council of Europe was founded, following a speech by Sir Winston Churchill, with the idea of unifying Europe to achieve common goals, it includes all European states except for Belarus and Vatican City. Further European integration by some states led to the formation of the European Union, a separate political entity that lies between a confederation and a federation.
The EU originated in Western Europe but has been expanding eastward since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. The currency of most countries of the European Union, the euro, is the most used among Europeans. In classical Greek mythology, Europa was a Phoenician princess; the word Europe is derived from her name. The name contains the elements εὐρύς, "wide, broad" and ὤψ "eye, countenance", hence their composite Eurṓpē would mean "wide-gazing" or "broad of aspect". Broad has been an epithet of Earth herself in the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European religion and the poetry devoted to it. There have been attempts to connect Eurṓpē to a Semitic term for "west", this being either Akkadian erebu meaning "to go down, set" or Phoenician'ereb "evening, west", at the origin of Arabic Maghreb and Hebrew ma'arav. Michael A. Barry, professor in Princeton University's Near Eastern Studies Department, finds the mention of the word Ereb on an Assyrian stele with the meaning of "night, sunset", in opposition to Asu " sunrise", i.e. Asia.
The same naming motive according to "cartographic convention" appears in Greek Ἀνατολή. Martin Litchfield West stated that "phonologically, the match between Europa's name and any form of the Semitic word is poor." Next to these hypotheses there is a Proto-Indo-European root *h1regʷos, meaning "darkness", which produced Greek Erebus. Most major world languages use words derived from Europa to refer to the continent. Chinese, for example, uses the word Ōuzhōu. In some Turkic languages the Persian name Frangistan is used casually in referring to much of Europe, besides official names such as Avrupa or Evropa; the prevalent definition of Europe as a geographical term has been in use since the mid-19th century. Europe is taken to be bounded by large bodies of water
Government of the United Kingdom
The Government of the United Kingdom, formally referred to as Her Majesty's Government, is the central government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. It is commonly referred to as the UK Government or the British Government; the government is led by the Prime Minister. The prime minister and the other most senior ministers belong to the supreme decision-making committee, known as the Cabinet; the government ministers all sit in Parliament, are accountable to it. The government is dependent on Parliament to make primary legislation, since the Fixed-terms Parliaments Act 2011, general elections are held every five years to elect a new House of Commons, unless there is a successful vote of no confidence in the government or a two-thirds vote for a snap election in the House of Commons, in which case an election may be held sooner. After an election, the monarch selects as prime minister the leader of the party most to command the confidence of the House of Commons by possessing a majority of MPs.
Under the uncodified British constitution, executive authority lies with the monarch, although this authority is exercised only by, or on the advice of, the prime minister and the cabinet. The Cabinet members advise the monarch as members of the Privy Council. In most cases they exercise power directly as leaders of the Government Departments, though some Cabinet positions are sinecures to a greater or lesser degree; the current prime minister is Theresa May, who took office on 13 July 2016. She is the leader of the Conservative Party, which won a majority of seats in the House of Commons in the general election on 7 May 2015, when David Cameron was the party leader. Prior to this and the Conservatives led a coalition from 2010 to 2015 with the Liberal Democrats, in which Cameron was prime minister; the Government is referred to with the metonym Westminster, due to that being where many of the offices of the government are situated by members in the Government of Scotland, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland Executive in order to differentiate it from their own.
A key principle of the British Constitution is. This is called responsible government; the United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy in which the reigning monarch does not make any open political decisions. All political decisions are taken by Parliament; this constitutional state of affairs is the result of a long history of constraining and reducing the political power of the monarch, beginning with Magna Carta in 1215. Parliament is split into the House of Commons; the House of Commons is the more powerful. The House of Lords is the upper house and although it can vote to amend proposed laws, the House of Commons can vote to overrule its amendments. Although the House of Lords can introduce bills, most important laws are introduced in the House of Commons – and most of those are introduced by the government, which schedules the vast majority of parliamentary time in the Commons. Parliamentary time is essential for bills to be passed into law, because they must pass through a number of readings before becoming law.
Prior to introducing a bill, the government may run a public consultation to solicit feedback from the public and businesses, may have introduced and discussed the policy in the Queen's Speech, or in an election manifesto or party platform. Ministers of the Crown are responsible to the House. For most senior ministers this is the elected House of Commons rather than the House of Lords. There have been some recent exceptions to this: for example, cabinet ministers Lord Mandelson and Lord Adonis sat in the Lords and were responsible to that House during the government of Gordon Brown. Since the start of Edward VII's reign in 1901, the prime minister has always been an elected member of Parliament and therefore directly accountable to the House of Commons. A similar convention applies to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, it would be politically unacceptable for the budget speech to be given in the Lords, with MPs unable to directly question the Chancellor now that the Lords have limited powers in relation to money bills.
The last Chancellor of the Exchequer to be a member of the House of Lords was Lord Denman, who served as interim Chancellor of the Exchequer for one month in 1834. Under the British system, the government is required by convention and for practical reasons to maintain the confidence of the House of Commons, it requires the support of the House of Commons for the maintenance of supply and to pass primary legislation. By convention, if a government loses the confidence of the House of Commons it must either resign or a General Election is held; the support of the Lords, while useful to the government in getting its legislation passed without delay, is not vital. A government is not required to resign if it loses the confidence of the Lords and is defeated in key votes in that House; the House of Commons is thus the Responsible house. The prime minister is held to account during Prime Minister's Questions which provides an opportunity for MPs from all parties to question the PM on any subject
Alderney
Alderney is the northernmost of the inhabited Channel Islands. It is part of the Bailiwick of a British Crown dependency, it is 1 1⁄2 miles wide. The area is 3 square miles, making it the third-largest island of the Channel Islands, the second largest in the Bailiwick, it is around 10 miles from the west of La Hague on the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy, in France, 20 miles from the north-east of Guernsey and 60 miles from the south coast of Great Britain. It is the closest of the Channel Islands to the United Kingdom, it is separated from Cap de la Hague by the dangerous Alderney Race. As of April 2013, the island had a population of 1,903. Formally, they are known from the Latin Riduna; the only parish of Alderney is the parish of St Anne. The main town, St Anne known as La Ville, is referred to as "St Anne's" by visitors and incomers, but by locals; the town's "High Street", which had a small handful of shops, is now entirely residential, forming a T-junction with Victoria Street at its highest point.
The town area features an unevenly cobbled main street: Victoria Street. There is a primary school, a secondary school, a post office, hotels, as well as restaurants and shops. Other settlements include Braye, Longis, Mannez, La Banque, Newtown. Alderney shares its prehistory with the other islands in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, becoming an island in the Neolithic period as the waters of the Channel rose. Rich in dolmens, like the other Channel Islands, Alderney with its heritage of megaliths has suffered through the large-scale military constructions of the 19th century and by the Germans during the World War II occupation, who left the remains at Les Pourciaux unrecognisable as dolmens. A cist survives near Fort Tourgis, Longis Common has remains of an Iron Age site. There are traces of Roman occupation including a fort, built in the late 300s, at 49°43′09″N 2°10′36″W above the island's only natural harbour; the etymology of the island's name is obscure. It is known in Latin as Riduna but as with the names of all the Channel Islands in the Roman period there is a degree of confusion.
Riduna may be the original name of Tatihou, while Alderney is conjectured to be identified with Sarnia. Alderney/Aurigny is variously supposed to be Celtic name, it may be a corruption of Adreni or Alrene, derived from an Old Norse word meaning "island near the coast". Alternatively it may derive from three Norse elements: - ey. Alderney may be mentioned in Paul the Deacon's Historia Langobardorum as'Evodia' in which he discussed a certain dangerous whirlpool; the name'Evodia' may in turn originate from the seven'Haemodae' of uncertain identification in Pliny the Elder's Natural History (IV 16 or Pomponius Mela's Chronographia. Along with the other Channel Islands, Alderney was annexed by the Duchy of Normandy in 933. In 1042 William the Bastard, Duke of Normandy granted Alderney to the Abbey of Mont Saint-Michel. In 1057 the bishop of Coutances took back control of the island. After 1204, when mainland Normandy was incorporated into the kingdom of France, Alderney remained loyal to the English monarch in his dignity of Duke of Normandy.
Henry VIII of England undertook fortification works, but these ceased in 1554. Essex Castle perpetuates the name of the Earl of Essex, who purchased the governorship of Alderney in 1591. Prior to the Earl's execution for treason in 1601, he leased the island to William Chamberlain, Alderney remained in the hands of the Chamberlain family until 1643. From 1612, a Judge was appointed to assist the Governor's administration of Alderney, along with the Jurats; the function of the Judge was similar to that of the Bailiffs of Guernsey and Jersey, continued until 1949. During the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, Alderney was held by a Parliamentary garrison under Nicholas Ling, Lieutenant-Governor. Ling built Government House; the de Carterets of Jersey acquired the governorship passing it to Sir Edmund Andros of Guernsey, from whom the Guernsey family of Le Mesurier inherited it, thus establishing a hereditary line of governors that lasted until 1825. Henry Le Mesurier prospered through privateering, moved the harbour from Longis to Braye, building a jetty there in 1736.
Warehouses and dwellings were built at Braye, the export of cattle generated wealth for the economy. The Court House was built in 1770 and a school in 1790. A Methodist chapel was constructed in 1790, following John Wesley's visit in 1787. A telegraph tower was constructed above La Foulère in 1811, enabling signals to be relayed visually to Le Mât in Sark and on to Guernsey – early warning of attack during the Napoleonic Wars was of strategic importance. With the end of those wars privateering was ended and smuggling suppressed, leading to economic difficulties; the last of the hereditary Governors, John Le Mesurier, resigned his patent to the Crown in 1825, since authority has been exercised by the States of Alderney, as amended by the constitutional settlement of 1948. The British Government decided to undertake massive fortifications in the 19th century and t
Guernésiais
Guernésiais known as Dgèrnésiais, Guernsey French, Guernsey Norman French, is the variety of the Norman language spoken in Guernsey. It is sometimes known on the island as "patois"; as one of the langues d'oïl, it has its roots in Latin, but has had strong influence from both Old Norse and English at different points in its history. There is mutual intelligibility with Jèrriais speakers from Jersey and Continental Norman speakers from Normandy. Guernésiais most resembles the Norman dialect of Cotentinais spoken at la Hague in the Cotentin Peninsula. Guernésiais has been influenced less by Standard French than Jèrriais, but conversely has been influenced to a greater extent by English. New words have been imported for modern phenomena: e.g. "le bike" or "le gas-cooker". There is a rich tradition of poetry in the Guernsey language. Guernsey songs were inspired by the sea, by colourful figures of speech, by traditional folk-lore, as well as by the natural environment of the island; the island's greatest poet was George Métivier, a contemporary of Victor Hugo, who influenced and inspired local poets to print and publish their traditional poetry.
Métivier blended local place-names and animal names, traditional sayings and orally transmitted fragments of medieval poetry to create his Rimes Guernesiaises. Denys Corbet was considered the "Last Poet" of Guernsey French and published many poems in his day in his native tongue in the island newspaper and privately. Wrote Métivier, Que l'lingo seit bouan ou mauvais / J'pâlron coum'nou pâlait autefais; the most recent dictionary of Guernésiais, Dictiounnaire Angllais-guernesiais. Société guernesiaise. 1967. was written by Marie de Garis. In 1999, de Garis was appointed to the Order of the British Empire for her work; the 2001 census showed that 1327 or 2% of the population speak the language fluently while 3% understand the language. However most of these, 70% or 934 of the 1327 fluent speakers, are over 64 years old. Among the young only 0.1% or one in a thousand are fluent speakers. However, 14% of the population claim some understanding of the language. L'Assembllaïe d'Guernesiais, an association for speakers of the language founded in 1957, has published a periodical.
Les Ravigoteurs, another association, has published a cassette for children. Forest School hosts an annual speaking contest of the island's primary school children; the annual Eisteddfod provides an opportunity for performances in the language, radio and newspaper outlets furnish regular media output. There is some teaching of the language in voluntary classes in schools in Guernsey. Evening classes are available, as of 2013. Lunchtime classes are offered at the Guernsey Museum, as of 2013. Along with Jèrriais, Scottish Gaelic, Welsh and Scots, Guernésiais is recognised as a regional language by the British and Irish governments within the framework of the British–Irish Council. BBC Radio Guernsey and the Guernsey Press both feature occasional lessons, the latter with sometimes misleading phonetics. A Guernésiais language development officer was appointed. There is little broadcasting in the language, with ITV Channel Television more or less ignoring the language, only the occasional short feature on BBC Radio Guernsey for learners.
The creation of a Guernsey Language Commission was announced on 7 February 2013 as an initiative by government to preserve the linguistic culture. The Commission has operated since Liberation Day, 9 May 2013. Guernsey poet George Métivier – nicknamed the Guernsey Burns, was the first to produce a dictionary of the Norman language in the Channel Islands, the Dictionnaire Franco-Normand; this established the first standard orthography – modified and modernised. Among his poetical works are Rimes Guernesiaises published in 1831. Prince Louis Lucien Bonaparte published the Gospel of Matthew by George Métivier in Dgèrnésiais in London in 1863 as part of his philological research. Like Métivier, Tam Lenfestey published poetry in book form. Denys Corbet described himself as the Draïn Rimeux. Corbet is best known for his poems the epic L'Touar de Guernesy, a picaresque tour of the parishes of Guernsey; as editor of the French-language newspaper Le Bailliage, he wrote feuilletons in Dgèrnésiais under the pen name Badlagoule.
In 2009 the island held a special exhibition in the Forest Parish on Corbet and his work acknowledging the centenary of his death and unveiling a contemporary portrait painting of the artist by Christian Corbet a cousin to Denys Corbet. Thomas Martin translated into Guernésiais the Bible, the plays of William Shakespeare, twelve plays by Pierre Corneille, three plays by Thomas Corneille, twenty seven plays by Molière, twenty plays by Voltaire and The Spanish Student by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Thomas Henry Mahy wrote Dires et Pensées du Courtil Poussin, a regular column in La Gazette Officielle de Guernesey, from 1916. A collection was published in booklet form in 1922, he was still publishing occasional pieces of prose by the start of the 1930s. Thomas Alfred Grut published Des lures guernesiaises in 1927, once again a collection of newspaper columns, he translated some of the Jèrriais stories of Philippe Le Sueur Mourant into Dgèrnésiais. Marjorie Ozanne wrote stories, published in the Guernsey Evening Press between 1949 and 1965.
Some earlier pieces
Guernsey
Alderney
Sark
Countries, territories and dependencies of the United Kingdom