Sarkese
noun

- The Norman language of Sark, a Channel Island located near the coast of Normandy, France

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WORD ORIGIN

“Sarkese”, also known as Sercquiais, lé Sèrtchais, or Sark-French), refers to the Norman French dialect historically spoken on the island of Sark in the Channel Islands.

“Sark” comes from Old Norse Serkr, the original name for the island. The “-ese” suffix is a common English ending meaning “of or pertaining to a place” (like “Chinese” or “Japanese”), so “Sarkese” literally means “of or from Sark”

The situation with Sarkese speakers is extremely precarious. A March 2025 source suggests only around 15 people are left who speak Sercquiais on Sark, though this may include those with partial knowledge rather than native fluency.

Active preservation efforts are underway, led by individuals like Martin Neudorfl, who resides in Cesky Krumlov and frequently visits Sark. He collaborates with the last three native speakers to document and safeguard the language for future generations.

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VANISHING VOICES

Every two weeks, a language dies with its last speaker, taking with it unique ways of seeing the world that can never be recovered.

This sobering reality sparked the creation of the Endangered Languages Project in 2012, when Google partnered with universities and indigenous groups to start an initiative to save world's disappearing tongues. The project launched as "a comprehensive, up-to-date source of information on the endangered languages of the world," bringing together linguists, native communities, and technology companies.

As of 2020, the project has catalogued over 3,000 endangered languages across 180 countries, revealing the staggering scope of what we're losing. Australia alone has 360 endangered languages, while the project estimates that over 40 percent of the approximately 7,000 languages worldwide are in danger of becoming extinct.

What makes the project unique is that communities can upload their own audio recordings, videos, and stories directly to the website. Aboriginal artists in Australia might upload dreamtime narratives alongside their paintings, while Inuit fishermen from Greenland share ice-fishing terminology that has no equivalent in any other language.

The project's interactive map reveals surprising patterns. Languages like Welsh and Irish sit alongside lesser-known tongues like Nubi (Kenya and Uganda) and Orok (Sakhalin Island in Russia), showing that endangerment affects both famous and forgotten languages equally. Each entry tells a story of communities struggling to pass down not just words, but entire ways of understanding life, nature, and relationships.

The race is on: will technology help us save languages faster than globalization kills them, or will we keep losing irreplaceable worldviews every fourteen days?



Helga & Paul Smith



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SYNONYMS


Channel Islands Norman (Sark variant), Lé Sèrtchais, SARKESE, Sark-French, Sark Norman, Sarkois, Sark Patois (Norman, dialect, Patois), Sercquiais

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SMUGGLE
 OWAD into a conversation today, say something like:

“Sadly, there are only three people left in the world who speak SARKESE,… and you’d have to visit the Channel Island of Sark to meet them.”

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P L E A S E   S U P P O R T   O W A D