Sark pioneered free education in the British Isles, passing a law in 1829 decreeing that every child on the island must attend school. Chief Pleas has 12 elected Deputies today who sit with the Tenants, so that the 581 Sark residents can have 52 members of parliament. As you will have gathered from the sprinkling of words through this account, French plays an important part in Sark's communications. Official notices are still written in French, and the older Sark residents still chat to each other in Serquiaise, a dialect of Norman French, barely comprehensible to most French speakers. Time and changing life styles mean that the language is disappearing.
Local residents marry English partners and the patois is no longer spoken at home.
Everyone now speaks and understands English. The traditions of story telling and singing, recording the island's history and legends, produced a community well able to entertain itself, with concerts and plays, dancing, gardening and crafts an important part of the social life. Economy Sark was a self-contained fishing and farming community until discovered by the Victorians, who were the forerunners of today's tourists. There are cottage industries, like knitting, pottery and glass-blowing and farming and fishing still supply some island needs, but carriage rides, caf s, guest houses and h tels are important ways of earning a living. The only drawback to living in a small community is that team games pose a problem.