There are a number of uphill battles one has to fight when reclaiming or reviving a minority language, and one of the most difficult is developing educational materials. It’s a time-consuming process that demands careful attention to detail. Many times the resources it requires mean that–practically speaking–a language community cannot afford this important step towards raising the prestige of their heritage language and improving its prospects for survival.
Luckily that is not always the case. It gives me great pleasure to present you all with Ti Liv Kréyòl: A Louisiana Creole Primer! This free PDF, written by me and generously edited by Oliver Mayeux and Herbert Wiltz, is a step towards developing a full curriculum of Louisiana Creole language-learning materials for teachers and students. It is not a traditional textbook. While creating such a textbook remains a somewhat lofty goal, I hope this primer will make that job a little bit easier down the road.
This booklet was created with the solo language-learner in mind. Few of us have the luxury of people to talk to in Louisiana Creole on a regular basis or a classroom where we can ask questions of a teacher. Instead, most of us have to teach ourselves independently. The lessons in the primer are very bare bones; each contains a word list and two short dialogues illustrating some of the vocabulary in use. But with the sentence structures presented in these lessons, learners will be able to create new, natural phrases as needed with the help of the glossary at the back of the primer (1,500+ entries).
As already mentioned, this primer is just a first step. Although we have done our best to create a clear, useful tool for everyone, we’re only human. That’s why we’ve also created a way for you to share your comments, edits, and suggestions, which we will then be able to incorporate in a future version of this booklet. Feel free to write us at LAcreoleprimer@gmail.com with anything you’d like to tell us about the primer and its contents.
Épi astœr-la, alon aprònn! Bon lashans!
-N.A.
Ti Liv Kréyòl FINAL (1st ed)
Learning to speak Creole French has been my goal. This is a big part of me my heritage. My mother was from Pointe Coupee Parish false River my grandmother grandfather all spoke Creole never forgot it hope to increase my learning more of the language and to share with others