If you go to my Facebook page (Tom Louie) you will see that I have been very faithful in posting notices that will help people get involved with restoring Louisiana.
It happens, just not in New Orleans on any kind of regular basis. When it does, it’s as much of a novelty to us as it would be to someone from New York City.
New Orleans is depicted in the movies as being full of Cajuns and it’s absolutely untrue. Cajun country is in southwestern Louisiana, probably centered around Lafayette. The people who moved from that area to New Orleans lost their French quickly since it isn’t spoken here. The accent would disappear too because there’s strong pressure to sound like your neighbors.
My maternal Grandmother spoke French, but it wasn’t Cajun French. Her family came from France in the mid-1800s and settled in lower Plaquemines Parish (near the mouth of the Mississippi) and she lived on the New Orleans Westbank since she was an infant. She spoke French because her mother had taught her, but she probably never used it outside of the house. She didn’t have the slightest hint of a French accent…she sounded just like everybody else of her generation that lived in Algiers.
My father’s family is from Churchpoint, Louisiana, which is in the heart of Cajun country (although they came directly from France in the 1800s, so they’re technically not Cajun). The vast majority of his family was French and spoke Cajun French. My dad never really spoke any French, but his parents and grandparents did. My dad’s relatives speak with a heavy Cajun accent as did my grandparents, but my dad has lived in New Orleans since he was about 8, so he only has a slight accent.
From your description, it sounds like your ancestors could be described as Creoles, assimilated to Cajun culture.
Churchpoint! That’s the hometown of Professor Ancelet, aka the Cajun poet Jean Arceneaux – did your Dad’s family know they lived in a literary centre???
My father grew up in southwest Louisiana in the 40s and 50s. Although his parents had been raised speaking the French dialects of their respective humble small town origins, they insisted that their son would speak English only. Speaking Creole French in public was akin to admitting that one was a half-breed, which placed certain limitations upon one’s ability to hold one’s head up in polite society.
Same old story everywhere, isn’t it? All over the world, languages are being lost due to social pressure. Actually, I have heard that most of the world’s languages are endangered. Sure hope Louisiana French can survive another generation.
I worked for a lawyer in downtown Houston, back in the early 70’s. I remember hearing two older African-American ladies in the reception area–amazingly, speaking French!
They probably lived in Frenchtown, an area near downtown settled by Creoles from Louisiana. This 1992 article tells the history of an area already losing its tradition. These black (or mixed-race) Creoles spoke a different French than Cajun, but there were probably similarities. Houston is one of the homes of zydeco; Clifton Chenier lived here for years, updating the old la-la music with R&B–moving backyard music into the urban clubs.
I wonder if those ladies were speaking Louisiana Creole French (Kreyol), which is quite different from standard French and Cajun French.
Louisiana Kreyol: Konmen lé-z’affè?
French: Comment vont les affaires?
Cajun French: Comment les affaires?
Haitian Creole: Sa ou fè?
English: How are things?
It must have been especially awkward for my dad growing up under these conditions, since he studied French all throughout grade school, high school, and into college, but was encouraged never to use it. That’s putting it mildly – he told me once that his father game him a severe beating when he was a kid for practicing his French homework out loud. Naturally, he’s forgotten just about everything he ever knew about the language. The only time I ever hear a trace of an accent in his voice is in his pronunciation of Louisiana names.
New Orleans-area native checking in.
Absolutely spot on.
My paternal grandparents were originally from Avoyelles Parish, near the town of Marksville, LA. My grandfather was born in 1899, and my grandmother in 1906. They grew up speaking French and English, and spoke French to each other in their home. Despite growing up (in the New Orleans suburbs) in a household with two French-speaking parents, my dad, uncle, and aunt speak no French except for some stock phrases and a few vocabulary words.
We’ve still got cousins in Avoyelles Parish, and they all speak English in the home, peppered in with some French vocabulary and idioms. It’s possible that you could visit Marksville and find some fluent Cajun French speakers among elderly residents … I’d be surprised if any of them were younger than 60.
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I am curious about something: is it the popular perception of New Orleans that there are a substantial number first-language Cajun French speakers in the city?
I knew that the Cajuns are not a big New Orleans population, but I was still hoping to hear some French. Creole or whatever.
Très magnifique! C’est EXACTEMENT the kind of glossary I need, so I can do my part in keeping Luzianne-talk alive instead of just diving in with my highschool French.
Do you have more, or can you point me in the direction of more???
(The LSU website has a contrastive glossary of International French and Cajun French, but just those two.)
I know Marksville. I worked in a small supermarket chain with a branch there and I knew people from there. I am from Northern Louisiana. We tried hard to fit into Louisiana culture but also the Deep South as a whole as well as a lot of Texas where I am from. There aren’t many people that are of French heritage North of Alexandria though and I am not.
When I was driving home from Tulane once, I was almost completely out of gas and had to do something. I took a side road somewhere near Marksville and ran straight into a load of true Cajuns at a family gathering. I just wanted directions to the nearest gas station and they were trying to by helpful but there was a true language barrier. They were speaking French in the background and even the English was almost impossible for me to understand. I made it but only by luck and hand signals. That was in 1992 and it was rare even then. My SIL is from the Alexandria area though and speaks some cajun french.
Tulane has a really good French department and my ex-wife majored in it. They have in depth classes in cajun and creole French for people already fluent in french and she can speak and write it pretty well. They also had talks by older native speakers that were very interesting. You could find one sponsored through LSU, Tulane or other universities if you really wanted to schedule a trip around it. There are a number of people around that can speak cajun french but you wouldn’t know unless you ask around. It isn’t useful as a daily language anymore.
My high school French textbook had little write-ups of various parts of the Francophone world. Notable French-speaking areas like Quebec, Belgium, Switzerland, Cote d’Ivoire, and Martinique were outlined.
And then they had a section on Louisiana and New Orleans. Actually living in the N.O. metro area, I had to give a big :dubious: to the implication that New Orleans was even a billionth as “Francophone” as Brussels or Quebec City. A Parisien or Montrealais could never step off the plane in New Orleans and rely on being able to conduct their affairs in French.
Any first-language French speaker – Cajun, Creole, whatever – that you may happen to encounter in New Orleans is from somewhere else. New Orleans, in 2010, is a staunchly English-speaking city.
I live on the westbank of New Orleans and my neighbor speaks cajun french all the time. He mostly speaks it when swearing to himself. For instance, when he stubs a toe. I asked him about it one time and he told me he grew up in SW Louisiana where his parents only spoke cajun french. He grew up speaking it and only learned english in grade school. I said to him that it must have been tough, he replied, no because most of the children were that way also.
Eh, oui, so my question from post #17 has been answered. It DOES still happen!
But if that was only in 1992, why so pessimistic about Cajun French as a daily language?