. The
use of the _patois_ has decreased naturally in modern times. Modern
French is the official language, used in the courts and states, and
English is taught in the parochial schools, and is familiar practically
to all. The several islands have each its own dialect, differing from
that of the others in vocabulary and idiom; differences are also
observable in different localities within the same island, as between
the north and the south of Guernsey. None of the dialects has received
much literary cultivation, though Jersey is proud of being the
birthplace of one of the principal Norman poets, Wace, who flourished in
the 12th century.

_History_.--The original ethnology and pre-Christian history of the
Channel Islands are largely matters of conjecture and debate. Of early
inhabitants abundant proof is afforded by the numerous megalithic
monuments--cromlechs, kistvaens and maenhirs--still extant. But little
trace has been left of Roman occupation, and such remains as have been
discovered are mainly of the portable description that affords little
proof of actual settlement, though there may have been an unimportant
garrison here. The constant recurrence of the names of saints in the
place-names of the islands, and the fact that pre-Christian names do not
occur, leads to the inference that before Christianity was introduced
the population was very scanty. It may be considered to have consisted
originally of Bretons (Celts), and to have received successively a
slight admixture of Romans and Legionaries, Saxons and perhaps Jutes and
Vandals. Christianity may have been introduced in the 5th century.
Guernsey is said to have been visited in the 6th century by St Sampson
of Dol (whose name is given to a small town and harbour in the island),
St Marcou or Marculfus and St Magloire, a friend and fellow-evangelist
of St Sampson, who founded monasteries at Sark and at Jersey, and died
in Jersey in 575. Another evangelist of this period was St Helerius,
whose name is borne by the chief town of Jersey, St Helier. In his life
it is stated that the population of the island when he reached it was
only 30. In 933 the islands were made over to William, duke of Normandy
(d. 943), and after the Norman conquest of England their allegiance
shifted between the English crown and the Norman coronet according to
the vicissitudes of war and policy. During the purely Norman period they
had been enriched with numerous ecclesiastical buildings, some