George Métivier

Métivier blended together local place-names, bird and animal names, traditional sayings and orally transmitted fragments of medieval poetry to create themes.

As a young man, Métivier had studied in England and Scotland for a career in medicine, but had abandoned the idea of becoming a doctor to devote himself to linguistics and literature.

George Métivier corresponded publicly in verse form with Robert Pipon Marett ("Laelius"), the Jèrriais poet.

The first to produce a dictionary of the Norman language in the Channel Islands, Métivier's Dictionnaire Franco-Normand (1870) established the first standard orthography of Guernésiais - later modified and modernised.

Most literature was published in the large number of competing newspapers, which also circulated in the neighbouring Cotentin peninsula, sparking a literary renaissance on the Norman mainland.