Sercquiais - Phonology

Phonology

(Note: Sercquiais not possessing a standard orthography, examples are given according to Liddicoat's Lexicon of Sark Norman French, Munich 2001)

Sercquiais does not have the voiced dental fricative which is such a distinctive characteristic of St. Ouen in Jersey where most of the colonists came from.

Palatalisation of velars /k/ and /ɡ/ is less fully developed in Sercquiais than in Jèrriais. Palatalisation in Jèrriais of /k/ to and /ɡ/ to has the equivalent in Sercquiais of /kj/ and /ɡj/. For example hiccup is hitchet in Jèrriais and hekyet in Sercquiais; war is respectively dgèrre and gyer.

Palatalisation of /tj/ in Jèrriais leads to, but in Sercquiais /t/ is generally retained: profession, trade in Sercquiais is meeti, whereas Jèrriais has palatalised to mêtchi.

is retained in Sercquiais where Jèrriais has reduced to, as in to eat: mãdji (Sercquiais) - mangi (Jèrriais).

Final consonants of masculine nouns in the singular are in free variation with null in all positions except in liaison. Final consonants are usually pronounced at ends of phrases. Final consonants are always lost in plural forms of masculine nouns. A cat may therefore be kat or ka in Sercquiais, but cats are kaa. For comparison, Jèrriais cat is usually pronounced /ka/, and the plural has the long vowel as in Sercquiais. It can also therefore be seen that length is phonemic and may denote plurality.

Sercquiais has also retained final consonants that have been entirely lost in Jèrriais, such as final /t/ in pret (meadow - pré in Jèrriais as in French).

Metathesis of /r/ is uncommon in Sercquiais, and in Jèrriais, by comparison with Dgèrnésiais.

The palatalised l, which in Jèrriais has been generally palatalised to /j/ in initial position and following a consonant, is maintained in Sercquiais.

Gemination occurs regularly in verb conjugations and gerunds, as in Jèrriais but in distinction to Dgèrnésiais.

However, Sercquiais does not geminate palatal fricatives, unlike Jèrriais: