What makes her version a little different, however, is that she learned the language. Many people her age never did. French was a source of shame—Cajuns were often labeled stupid and backward—and parents wanted to shield their children from prejudice. That started to change during the latter half of the 20th century with the launch of efforts to improve the understanding of Cajun heritage—not to mention attract tourism.
Programs popped up to turn the tide on the diminishing use of the French language, including establishing immersion programs in schools and flying in teachers from other Francophone nations. Yet a generational divide remains. To bridge that gap, locals established a new French language and literacy school for adults in the tiny town of Arnaudville, which sits at the intersection of two bayous and two Louisiana parishes and has become the unlikely hub for the French revival.
During the pandemic, 39 residents of local nursing homes died. That could represent a significant loss of language as well. The idea, borrowed from the nearby city of Lafayette, is to gather people together to share a meal while conversing solely in French.
She and her husband would often have their accents mistaken for European. Though they occasionally heard jabs about Cajun people, she found freedom and excitement in the world open to her as a bilingual person. That linguistic history binds together these groups in a country where otherness has often proven a liability.
This is throughout the culture. I will not speak in French. To go against that at the time was to sell your family short of the American dream, and to teach your children French was to indoctrinate them in a life of toil and poverty. That experience, the Michots learned, was just a starting point, the first step on an endless journey. Ashlee Michot started searching for that pathway as a young mother. This free service was launched on the App Store on March 1, , and has already been downloaded more than 6, times.
Certain users have even suggested additional words, and others have sent in their own voice recordings. Martinville, southeast of Lafayette. However, until recently the language had all but disappeared. Long outlawed in schools and seen as outdated and vulgar, Cajun was associated with redneck culture. The French dialect, a blend of Spanish, English, Native American, and African influences, has been enjoying a new lease of life since the s.
A total of 47 students from Louisiana, Georgia, California, and North Dakota are currently enrolled in the program. The program includes language and culture classes, and a five-day immersion trip to Arnaudville , northeast of Lafayette.
Louisiana French is still a vernacular language. But it is estimated that between , and , people can speak it in Louisiana. Amanda LaFleur is a linguist and professor of French, author of a collection of Cadien expressions , co-author of a Cajun dictionary , and was the original founder of the program at Louisiana State University.
Amanda LaFleur: I chose a communicative approach. Louisiana French is a traditionally oral language, and it was therefore essential for students to be in contact with its speakers. I asked each of them to choose someone with whom they could speak Cajun French in their community, and provided them with the basic components. It originates in the language spoken by the French and Acadian people who settled in Louisiana from its early period of European colonization in the 17th century through later waves of immigration into the late 19th century.
However, even Cajun and Louisiana Creole have many lexical, phonological and syntactical elements in common. To complicate matters, different dialects of Cajun French exist in different communities in Louisiana.
Though Cajuns from different parts of the state can usually understand each other when communicating in their local variety of French, certain words, features of pronunciation or syntactical structures can sometimes lead to a bit of confusion. This might be compared to experiences that Americans have in communicating with British or Australian English speakers. In short, a precise definition of Louisiana French is not easy to pin down. The vast majority of words and structures used in Cajun French would be recognized and understood by fluent French speakers from other countries.
Where Cajun French differs from the standard, it is due to a variety of influences similar to those which have caused regional variation in other languages of the world. Evidence in extant records as well as in oral tradition in South Louisiana suggest that the Acadians were not wholeheartedly welcomed by the military districts of colonial South Louisiana. Numerous transactions in civil records point toward multiple disputes over property between Acadians, Creoles and Native Americans.
However, the cultural knowledge that Acadians, Creoles and American Indians shared and borrowed from one another were crucial in the survival and development of the colony. This intermingling between Acadians, Creoles, Native Americans, African and Afro-Caribbean slaves, Spaniards, British, and waves of subsequent immigration by Irish , Germans, and Italians, among others, comprised the basis for a new hybrid subculture in South Louisiana.
Between and , South Louisiana experienced exponential economic growth with the discovery of petroleum and natural gas reserves. Railways completed in the s finally made Southwest Louisiana accessible to the rest of the nation. In efforts to overcome communication barriers and to fully Americanize South Louisiana, laws were passed that mandated English-only public schools.
English-only laws and mandatory public schooling gradually improved communication among speakers of English and speakers of various dialects of Louisiana French, but the practice also resulted in cultural erosion and blurred distinctions among ethnicities.
Between and , usage of French or Creole was forbidden in virtually all aspects of life in South Louisiana. Reports from school children during this period expose physical, emotional and verbal abuse for the use of their ancestral language. Speaking French became synonymous to being uneducated and backwards. The English-only statutes and climate were so effective that native speakers of French and Creole became embarrassed to speak in public and at home.
By the late s, this oppressive political and cultural climate took a degree turn towards ethnic inclusiveness with the apex of the African American civil rights movement. Segregation in American schools was outlawed in , and throughout the ensuing decade all public institutions and sectors of American society were legally forced to integrate.
Discrimination in the U. Louisianians of French-speaking heritage followed suit in a less litigious way. Louisiana Governor John J.
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