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Preserving Louisiana French | ||
Tags: United States | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| njblue Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5325 days ago 9 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 9 of 23 09 May 2012 at 1:14am | IP Logged |
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I have found this video on Acadien French in Canada. I enjoy the way they speak. It's very quaint.
Bottom description "École Mathieu-Martin. Réalisé dans le cadre du cours de Parler Acadien de Monsieur Bourgeois. Qualité est moins bonne puisque Youtube prenait mal la version originale en haute définition. Filmé en majorité sur mon iPhone 4. Vive l'Acadie!" Le Parler Acadien 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4775 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 10 of 23 05 June 2012 at 8:03am | IP Logged |
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Like the article says, chances are the language will die. Kind of sucks, but there is
basically no way that French will be a viable language in that region ever again. Native speakers are too few and far between and there are probably almost no unilingual speakers left, which means that the few fluent speakers left are in a diglossic/bilingual phase and have probably chosen to not pass on their native tongue to their children. When every speaker of a minority language in a given territory is bilingual, the decline and eventual death of the weaker language is only a matter of time. If you can't earn a living in the language, it's doomed. A bit bleak for an outlook, but unfortunately that is the case. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 11 of 23 05 June 2012 at 10:20am | IP Logged |
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I don't think it must necessarily die, even though it is very likely if the language
doesn't get more support. But there have already been cases of such "exhumation". Czech was in a bit similar situation in the 19th century and it came back, first as a non-official but everyday use language of the part of austrian empire, later as the official language. Slovak had such a comeback too and it's extinction was much closer than the Czech one. But better parallel to French will be another exemple: Welsh got massive support from both people and the official structures and it got back the place of second language or second native language for many welsh people. Some don't care but others love it as a major part of their own unique culture and history. This is something Luisiana French could get too, under the correct circumstances. So, the language is caught between English and Spanish but it could survive and spread. If the French names are viewed as cool and there is music in the language and speakers who still use it, the young people might get to like it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4775 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 12 of 23 05 June 2012 at 6:29pm | IP Logged |
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If it does survive, it will only be as a heritage language, which means it will be in
need of constant life-support for the rest of its existence. It won't be a language one can truly live and work in in Louisiana. That would require a hefty pool of economically affluent unilingual speakers for whom it would be necessary (not just nice, but necessary) for speakers of other languages to learn French in order to communicate with them. Edited by lecavaleur on 05 June 2012 at 6:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 13 of 23 05 June 2012 at 7:30pm | IP Logged |
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And what's so bad about it? The Welsh don't need it for huge majority of jobs either from
what I read. Still, many use it in their homes or with their friends even though they are not unilingual. Is it not living the language? And you surely don't have to speak Welsh to communicate with them. Welsh surely got a lot of support from above which probably cannot be expected in the USA, unless the people start by themselves and get the authorities clearly know they want support. To keep to your analogy, it seems to me that the revival actions from Wales and GB worked more like a defibrillator and a few weeks at the intensive care than life support slowing death. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4828 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 14 of 23 06 June 2012 at 3:05am | IP Logged |
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When you ask, "Why should we keep minority languages alive?", you fail to realize one of the greatest
motives. Why, then, should you learn any language, if French is not good enough to keep alive, with all due respect? This is a perfectly understandable dialect of French, and knowing multiple languages is, I think, a massive complement to whatever you already know, particularly a language like French. French, in the Metropolitan or Canadian form, is doing just fine. Lots of people learn to actually speak the language in our French emmersion courses (which you attend from first grade), but our French is endangered. A comeback could be engineered but we're running quickly out of time, unless of course we imported some Acadians. But a language like French can go back to being just as important as English, I'm confident. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Gallo1801 Diglot Senior Member Spain Joined 4900 days ago 164 posts - 248 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French | Message 15 of 23 06 June 2012 at 4:41am | IP Logged |
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Just have Lousiana petition to become a subnational member of la Francophonie, and enjoy
the funds that appear! I'm surprised that there aren't more (French from France) agencies in LA/ME that are helping to stoke the fire of French... 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| lecavaleur Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4775 days ago 146 posts - 295 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 16 of 23 07 June 2012 at 5:30am | IP Logged |
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There is no question that French is alive and well elsewhere in the world. The question
is whether it can ever once again become a viable, colloquial language in Louisiana. With the attractive power of English, this is very unlikely. I wish them the best of luck, but I'm not very optimistic about it and this is coming from a fluent French speaker and an ardent francophile. Languages need more than just money from the government and a handful of speakers to survive in anything more than a half-life. They need a large basin of native and fluent speakers and, preferably, a hefty segment of unilingual speakers if there is ever to be a hard core to protect the language from too much outside influence. Unilingual speakers are deaf to the outside world and require thus that things be translated into their language for them, that services be offered them in their language, that television, books, magazines and other cultural products be available in their language. These people are sure to pass their language onto future generations, whereas profoundly bilingual speakers of a minority language may not be so inclined and do not require anything, cultural or otherwise, to be available in their minority mother tongue. Nor is French immersion school some kind of magic process whereby students come out with perfect French. I know literally dozens of English-Canadians who are products of French immersion. Not a single one speaks perfect French. They all have strong accents, poor grammar and rely on a plethora of false cognates to get by. Yet they went through up to 10 years of all-French schooling. How is this possible? Well, the fact is there is a difference between a French immersion school and a Francophone school. The former is a school where all the children are speakers of (in this case) English, and they attend all their classes in French. The latter is a school designed for native French- speaking children to take all their classes in French. In one school, French is the language of instruction, but not the venacular spoken among students. In the other, French is both the language of instruction and the vernacular. Non-francophone children who frequent francophone schools in a place like Quebec or France, will invariably come out perfectly fluent in French (usually with no accent). The reasons for this are clear. Not only do they learn everything in French, but their language skills are constantly reinforced by their French-speaking peers and by society at large. Non-francophone children frequenting French immersion schools do not get the reinforcement by peers and by a greater society at large that is needed for them to be truly fluent in the target language. The result is that they understand the language well but cannot correctly speak it with ease and spontaneity. Long story short, French immersion schools alone cannot give back to French in Louisiana what it has lost, namely its status as a widely used, viable vernacular in the territory. Edited by lecavaleur on 07 June 2012 at 5:36am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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