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Preserving Louisiana French | ||
Tags: United States | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4941 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 1 of 23 01 May 2012 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think this same group was brought up in another thread a month or so ago, but there's a new article about preserving Louisiana French here.
I particularly like the idea of them choosing a public place such as a restaurant so non-speakers can hear French. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 01 May 2012 at 7:28pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Michael K. Senior Member United States Joined 5540 days ago 568 posts - 886 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Esperanto | Message 2 of 23 01 May 2012 at 9:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
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It's said that kids were beaten or forced to write out their spelling words for speaking their native language.
I always feel queasy when I hear about the government suppressing language or culture. The government has no business getting involved in that sort of meddling. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4911 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 3 of 23 01 May 2012 at 10:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I know that this probably anathema around here, but I can't seem to muster much interest in preseerving dying languages. It's like trying to make everyone speak "proper" [insert language]. You just can't stop change from taking place and sometimes that change is extinction.
In southern states, I'd imagine that keeping English around might be a bitter more important, but to each their own... Now I don't have alot of knowledge about this particular dialect of French, but isn't Cajun French about as ... (I hate to say "valuable" but I can't think of a better term) valuable as speaking Ebonics? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4941 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 4 of 23 01 May 2012 at 10:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
These two statements contradict each other. If southern states have a population that prefers to speak Spanish (I'm assuming that that was what you were referring to), then you really can't stop that either, can you?
It's apparently valuable enough to this group of people to try to preserve it. So you're not part of this group. That's OK, of course, but it's not up to you to determine the value that's placed on the language. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 01 May 2012 at 11:14pm 14 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Darklight1216 Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4911 days ago 411 posts - 639 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German | Message 5 of 23 01 May 2012 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
It was a question, not a determination. What I was trying to say in far fewer words than than this was: if, for instance, a Cajun speaker travelled to say Quebec or Switzerland would they be likely to have people correct their "French" much like we (sometimes) do in English when someone says "I can't do nothing?" Do people ever seek to hire Cajun French speakers to teach their children as they do with uhm... French French speakers? Are books published in Lousisanna French? And things like that... Sorry, it offended you so much, but like I said, I don't know much about this dialect. That said, there is no need for anyone to answer those questions, I think I know where this will probably lead. I knew that using "valuable" might open a can of worms so I will apologize to anyone whose feelings may have been hurt. Edited by Darklight1216 on 01 May 2012 at 11:20pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 4941 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 6 of 23 01 May 2012 at 11:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm not offended in the least. I was pointing out what was really pretty obvious in the article. Did you read it? I don't know much about Louisiana French either, but from the article I recognize that it's important to some people. EDIT: Not knowing that much myself about Louisiana French, I did a bit of searching. Wikipedia has a little bit of information on it. R. == Edited by hrhenry on 02 May 2012 at 12:41am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| rivere123 Senior Member United States Joined 4641 days ago 129 posts - 182 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 7 of 23 06 May 2012 at 7:47am | IP Logged | |||||
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Cajun French isn't far from Quebecois but certainly would bug many a Parisian, so the comparison to Ebonics is a bit unfair.
I'm happy to read this article and see they're trying to revitalize it out in the Lafourche area and appalled to see the number is only about 17,000 speakers. The current state of Louisiana French (I'll use that term from now on, since there are different forms of French here) is as follows, from a native's point of view, to shed some light on it. While this is untrue of most other parishes, it would seem every other time I go to the grocery store some old people run into eachother and get into a conversation, and the youngest Cajun speaker I know is late 40s, so we do have time to act and save the language. French is critical to our culture. Zydeco (find some on youtube- it is certainly a unique genre of music I can't really describe and I'm sure you'll enjoy) has made a big comeback, and may possibly be more popular with younger audiences these days. French names persist and are fashionable to use when naming a business or event (think Cafe du Monde or Festival International de Louisiane). "Cajun English" is doing well. It's a funny little dialect, and features a lot of French words and sounds. Want to get your language credit in high school? Most schools in small towns only offer French. Despite it all, we have a lot of challenges for a few reasons. Firstly, it's impossible to find teachers of Cajun French; all of our French teachers come from Canada and sometimes France. For one, there aren't too many speakers to fill the positions, and since many are older and probably not changing careers it'll be hard convincing them. Of course, the deepest cause of our inability is probably all of the shame formerly associated with speaking Louisiana French. Imagine being bullied and punished for doing something and having this idea of being inferior because of association with this language burrow itself into your brain. And, finally, Louisiana French is not one accent. It varies quite a bit from town to town and even people from the same neighborhood can speak differently because of a different socioeconomic background.
I understand this was a rhetorical question, but I'll answer it for the sake of making the community more aware on the topic. Books are, in fact, made. You can find them in many schools and bookstores, but they read a lot like standard French using the Clovis the Crawfish series as an example. I hope I helped clear things up for you. :D Edited by rivere123 on 06 May 2012 at 7:55am 9 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| njblue Diglot Newbie United States Joined 5138 days ago 9 posts - 11 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 8 of 23 07 May 2012 at 5:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I really enjoy there French. It's sounds great. I have seen some video's in the language like this one. I don't know
many books for that kind of French. Congrès Mondial Acadien en Louisiane en 2014 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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