Use of Jèrriais has been in decline over the past century, as English has increasingly become the language of education, commerce and administration on Jersey.

There are very few people who speak Jèrriais as a mother tongue and, owing to the age of the remaining speakers, their numbers decrease annually.

Victor Hugo, during his exile in Jersey, took an interest in the language and numbered some Jèrriais writers among his circle of acquaintances and supporters.

Sir Robert Pipon Marett's prestige and influence helped to reinforce the movement toward standardisation of the writing system based on French orthography, a trend which was also helped by the Norman literary revival beginning in the neighbouring Cotentin Peninsula of mainland Normandy, where writers inspired by the example of the Norman writers of Jersey and Guernsey, also began to produce literary works.

It is sometimes asked whether Jèrriais should move to a writing system based on French orthography; however, this would have implications for the continuity of the literary tradition over two centuries or more, though some features of the language's writing system, such as the digraph "th" for the typical dental fricative of Jèrriais, have evidently been borrowed from English orthography.

L'Assembliée d'Jèrriais launched a quarterly magazine in 1952, which has been published since (with the occasional hiatus, and latterly under the editorship of Le Don Balleine); a standard grammar Lé Jèrriais pour tous (by Paul Birt) appeared in 1985; cassettes, booklets and other materials have also been produced.

The Gaspesian expression "faire une runne" (to go and work outside the region) comes from the Jèrriais word "run" applied to a fishing station.

[citation needed] Famous Jèrriais speakers include Lillie Langtry and Sir John Everett Millais, the Pre-Raphaelite painter, who are reported to have spoken to each other in the language when he was painting her portrait.

The 1924 Glossaire inspired the research by Frank Le Maistre that culminated in the Dictionnaire Jersiais–Français published in 1966 to mark the 900th anniversary of the Norman Conquest of England.

The first practical English–Jèrriais dictionary was the English-Jersey Language Vocabulary (Albert Carré in collaboration with Frank Le Maistre and Philip de Veulle, 1972) which was itself based on the Dictionnaire Jersiais–Français.

The latest census figures also showed an increase in declarations of children speaking the language: the first such increase recorded in census figures (although this may be due to greater consciousness among parents rather than to language use), doubtless encouraged by the introduction of a Jèrriais teaching programme into Jersey schools.

[10] The States of Jersey fund the teaching programme in schools and provide some support in terms of signage, such as welcome signs at harbours and the airport.

In September 2005, the States approved the development of a cultural strategy, one of whose strategic objectives was as follows: Jersey almost lost its language in the 20th century.

Language brings distinctiveness, a sense of localness and a whole new set of skills all of which are important qualities in attracting the creative economy.

A boom in competing newspapers and journals throughout the 19th century provided a platform for poets and writers to publish regularly – typically, satirical comment on the week's news, elections, Jersey politicians and notables.

Following the end of Occupation, and with the re-establishment of the free press, Edward Le Brocq (1877–1964) revived a weekly column in 1946 with a letter from "Ph'lip et Merrienne", supposedly a traditional old couple who would comment on the latest news or recall times past.

He emigrated to North America after the First World War, but for almost forty years maintained a flow of articles in Jèrriais back to Jersey for publication in newspapers.

More recently, words such as boutchi (to book), partchi (to park) and tyeur (tyre) have been absorbed into the language, although current initiatives in creating neologisms for technological and social innovations prefer to avoid wholesale borrowing where possible.

The fricative developed from /r/ + front vowel, but evidently after the 16th century as this feature is unknown in the language of Sark (colonised by Jersey families).

Gemination occurs regularly in verb tenses, indicated by a consonant-apostrophe-consonant trigraph, for example: ou pâl'la (she will speak); jé c'mench'chons (we will begin); i' donn'nait (he would give).

Gerunds will also regularly contain geminate consonants, for example: faîs'sie (doing, making); chant'tie (singing); tith'thie (shooting); brîng'gie (sweeping); gângn'nie (winning).