Pause Midi: Louisiana French Today: Le français Louisiane d’asteur

French settlers first came to Louisiana at the end of the seventeenth century, bringing their language with them. Today, Louisiana Regional French (LRF) is spoken by an estimated 200,000 people who self-identify as Black, Cajun, Creole, French, and Native American. Official efforts to preserve this endangered language began in the 1960s with the establishment of Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL).

While CODOFIL’s start was initially rocky (teachers from France would routinely scoff at LRF), an appreciation for French as spoken in Louisiana began to blossom in the 1970s and ’80s. Now in the 2020s many schoolchildren across the state are enrolled in a bilingual curriculum in which they learn not only Standard French but LRF as well.

For our Pause Midi on March 15, Trenton Holliday will highlight the spoken LRF of today using examples of conversational LRF as well as music and storytelling. He will also give a quick review of the history of French in Louisiana, as well as a brief foray into his own family history.

Trenton Holliday is professor of anthropology at Tulane University in New Orleans. A ninth-generation Louisianan, he is an avid speaker of LRF. As someone who frequently engages in archaeological and paleontological research in France, he has found that speaking LRF opens doors for him, especially in rural France where few people (especially those of the older generation) are comfortable conversing in English.

This presentation will be via Zoom, in English and French.