When I was a young buck in my early undergraduate years, I was pretty heavily involved in efforts to safeguard French language in Louisiana. In fact, my involvement in the Francophone cause went back as far as high school, where through Nelwyn Hébert and Joanna Swett, I helped organize annual twinnings with Francophones from New Iberia’s sister-city in Brussels, Belgium (Woluwe-Saint-Pierre, actually) and Saint-Jean-d’Angély, France. Monique Peltier (now, Monique Aucoin) and I even gave the morning announcements in high school every morning in French after the English announcements had been made.
A couple of years after graduating high school, I had the absolute honor, and thrill, of being appointed (along with another New Iberian, Jennifer Gipson) a Louisiana delegate to the very first Parlement francophone des Jeunes, or Worldwide Youth Francophone Parliament. I’m not sure what Dr. David Chéramie, the Executive Director of the Louisiana Francophone Affairs Agency (CODOFIL), was thinking by sending Doofus to this highly prestigious event, but off we went, chaperoned by a good friend, Elaine Clément, then Community Outreach manager at CODOFIL. We discussed and debated global issues alongside young Francophone delegations from over 30 nations and regions of the world. Many of these young parliamentarians I still am in regular contact with to this day. We went to represent our Francophone community, and returned to south Louisiana. I realized then that maybe French was not as threatened as we imagined: we’ve French language public schools throughout south Louisiana, bilingual French-English signage, even trilingual (French-English-Spanish) in my hometown, and one need only have ears to hear French spoken naturally in south Louisiana in stores, cultural events, and on TV.
Parlement francophone des Jeunes. Myself along with the delegation and chaperone from Laos.
Sometime after we returned from the parliamentary assembly, I met Dr. Deborah Clifton. She was adjunct faculty in Modern Languages at the University of Lafayette at Lafayette, but otherwise a specialist in Creole folk medicine and collections curator at the Lafayette Natural History Museum.
I cannot even recall exactly how we met, but whatever the occasion, it changed my life in significant ways. Debbie teaches a 300 level, undergraduate, class in Louisiana Creole, has published poetry in the language, and was a member of C.R.E.O.L.E., Inc., a Lafayette-based organization whose influence in the 1990s was considerable. Outside of some family members, in-laws, and neighbors, Debbie was the first person I heard speak Creole. It blew my mind away. Why? Because the severity of the situation with Creole was so serious that, even being from right there along the banks of the Bayou Têche, commonly referred to in Creolistics academic publications as “the central zone [of Louisiana Creolophones],” it was odd to hear it in Lafayette on a University campus. You know, I too had been brainwashed that it was only for front porches, the sugarcane fields, or occasionally in a few Zydeco classics. But, certainly not in any professional atmosphere. Too “country.”
Although Debbie is very low-key on Creole language affairs, her influence was immense on me. I realized that as French was institutionalized in Louisiana, mentioned in legislation, and therefore had a de facto co-official status in the state, that it would not be vanishing anytime soon (although, admittedly, there still is a lot more work there, too). But Creole was neither mentioned in legislation, had no status whatsoever, besides being plain “backwards,” and not worth the hassle. Something snapped in me, and I latched onto Creole language revitalization and have been there, ever since.
Despite the personal money and time dispensed, it has been absolutely worth every minute and penny to arrive at this momentous period in not just Louisiana history, but international history. There are more people actively learning Louisiana Creole today since any period after 1900. They reside on five continents. They are of all ancestries and occupations. Some have never even been to Louisiana. But most importantly, as you will discover below, Creole mothers and grandmothers are relearning their heritage language, and are teaching it to–and practicing it with–their children and grandchildren! That, more than anything else in our revitalization efforts, means the most, because it reassures us that, above all, the language will be transmitted, once again, from mother to child.
Nokin kréyol, li byin, byin vivan, vouzòt!
Louisiana Creole is alive and well, yall!
More info on Louisiana Creole’s revitalization:
Louisiana Creole Language Facebook Fanpage
Louisiana Creole Instagram Memes and Infographics
Louisiana Languages Channel
Louisiana Creole Dictionary Online
This was very interesting . Thank you for all your time and efforts . Through my years of growing I use to wonder why Creole wasn’t taught to us in school. I learn a few words here and there at home, and just thought it was a secret language only to be spoken at home. Well I am glad that it is a real language that has come out of hiding, again Thank you!!!