Categories: Discrimination & Prejudice, Identity, Language

Not so long ago, the cultural and research arm of the U.N., UNESCO, embarked on a fascinating project. They were aware of issues of marginalization, exclusion and discrimination of segments of populations in countries where multiple languages were spoken, but where some segments of the population did not fully speak the nationalized language. This should not sound all that unfamiliar to Americans (and others) where segregation (forced or voluntary) allowed for languages other than English to flourish, but made employment opportunities for those non-English-speakers, or partial English-speakers, limited. Here in the United Kingdom, even, the famous British Broadcasting Company (BBC) only recently hired a reporter speaking a dialect of English that, still today, makes people smile with “low class” coming to mind. 

What UNESCO did was, they went into a multilingual region of South Asia and devised an educational curriculum utilizing 3 languages from kindergarden through year 12 as the languages of immersive instruction. Kindergarden began with two languages, one being the dominant regional language, the other the national language. In year 6, an additional regional language was added to the curriculum. This multilingual educational initiative impacted marginalized citizens in monumental ways, namely, equipping them with full fluency levels in reading, writing and comprehension, not only in two of the region’s dominant idioms, but also in the national language. The initiative empowered multilingual citizens, making them employable in key national and regional positions. But they also faced many challenges in convincing the locals that their languages were worthy of being developed into curricula and codified.

Louisiana has a number of languages spoken, three of which are Latin-based. Back in 1910, a small, classist effort emerged in New Orleans followed by St. Martinville, to “preserve” Louisiana French (then interchangeably called French Creole, in English), but because of the class pretensions and nostalgia for the glorious colonial days of stately débutante balls and fine china, the masses of speakers (the commoners) were not privy to the “movement.” In fact, the movement was led by upper-class Creoles who were bilingual speakers, some trilingual, of French, English and Creole. Their concern for the language was merely a measure to further distinguish them from Americans, because they themselves found themselves identifying more and more with American values and culture.

And another movement began in 1968 when CODOFIL was mandated by the Louisiana legislature through the efforts of Louisiana politician James “Jimmy” Domengeaux. Domengeaux’s platform and goal for CODOFIL was pretty straightforward: he wanted kids in Latin parishes of the state to go to school with normative French as the language of instruction and was willing to import teachers from France, Belgium and Canada to standardize the local French. His aspirations had far-reaching potential, but it was a potential met with ferocity by some poor Louisiana Francophones, in particular in Vermilion, Acadia and Jefferson Davis civil parishes. Those Francophones, deeply xenophobic, and particularly fond of the frontiersman spirit, where rules are subject to custom, argued that Domengeaux’s platform was decimating the local French variety. They, at the time, were not interested in the business prospects that Domengeaux was hoping to achieve by “modernizing” French in Louisiana, nor had they really understood that they too went to school in normative English, but still spoke local English outside of classrooms; effectively, normative speech in schools did not destroy local varieties of English spoken in Louisiana. From this conflict in interest came the Cajun movement of the 1970s, a movement with visible class cleavages. And, in the end, Cajunists wound up preferring to speak Louisiana English (heavy French or/and Creole expressions, cadence but with predominantly English lexis) rather than Louisiana French. Linguists refer to Louisiana English as Cajun Vernacular English. It’s a fascinating phenomenon, but one that admittedly happens all over the world.

Louisiana Creole language renaissance has largely been reactionary to Cajunism. In 1981, two committees were created in Lafayette voicing opposition to ensuing Cajun hegemony: the Un-Cajun Committee and C.R.E.O.L.E., Inc. (Creole, Inc.). The Un-Cajun Committee vehemently opposed cajunité insofar as it muted the contributions of Creoles of African descent. They argued that it effectively acadianized/whitened everything in Louisiana, from food to music to language. So, race was a major factor in their case. Whereas Creole, Inc. sought to bring Creole culture to the forefront, without race being a major factor, although all of its members identified as black. 

And at the same time that “old French music” was being converted to “Cajun French music” in the 1950s, a new spin on the traditional music came by way of Clifton Chénier with new instrumentation. In both Cajun music and Zydeco, the latter attributed to Chénier and thereafter to “black Creoles,” the performative language was Louisiana French … but with one catch: the Creoles continued referring to it as Creole, because they self-identified as Creole and from then onwards, Zydeco and Creole became one in the same. But French isn’t quite Creole, no more so than English is Dutch, or French is Latin, or Hebrew is Arabic. 

So in 1996, a team of linguists who had been studying Louisiana Creole for years, combined footage from interviews, folktales, and other literary texts, to publish the Dictionary of Louisiana Creole, largely unheard of by actual Louisianians who speak the language. In fact, only 200, or so, copies were printed, most being purchased by academics or scholars. Due to a refound interest, the Creole Institute at Indiana University now sells the Dictionary as a pdf file which they can burn to DVD, print on paper or, if I recall well, e-mail the pdf to purchasers. There is a purchase price.

From there, the low-key, eminent and universally adored scholar, Dr. Deborah Clifton, began teaching Louisiana Creole at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Creole author Sybil Kein, whose family originates in Pointe-Coupée Parish, published a guide to the language. Ulysses Ricard, who was an archivist in New Orleans, though of Pointe-Coupée parentage, also dabbled with bringing resources in the language to the public. Denise Labrie of Houston’s “Frenchtown” community, later published a guide with audio for Louisiana “French Creole” (which actually is French, rather than Creole). Paul Lacorde, a Mauritian, published a website in the early 2000s with expressions and basic vocabulary in Louisiana Creole. The Creole Heritage Center in Natchitoches also launched a Creole language documentation project. And later in the 2000s, I launched a website with more resources on the language, combining audio clips, grammar lessons, vocabulary … a slightly more involved version than Paul’s valuable website. I realized that if we ever wanted Louisiana Creole to thrive, people needed to hear what it sounded like, since we mostly learn to speak, first, then learn to read and write. So, a number of individuals put in their own personal time to produce and provide resources for the language, both audio-visual and textual. But something just didn’t gel well with some people, in particular Zydeco musicians singing “Creole.”

More recently, as in this year, I’ve had a number of challenges presented before me with respect to teaching and offering resources in the language. Overwhelmingly, Zydeco musicians have entirely rejected the orthography (established by linguists Drs. Albert Valdman of Indiana University, Tom Klingler of Tulane University, and others). I recall all too well one guy asking me “why you write like that? it looks ghetto.” And I remember being accosted by another musician from Houston who insisted that the orthography “was jacked the eff up.” Because those persons, who only speak English, associate and conflate the language with French, they insist on it being written in French orthography. But the orthography, in the immediate sense, was only one of many hurdles with a certain segment of the Creole-identified population. Race, identity and actual language were really at the root/route of the discord. And in the United States, when you begin to challenge racial identity, all hell, literally, breaks loose, most diabolically among those Americans identifying as black. And, as I learned all too well this year, they are willing to attack your personhood quicker than they are to create flashcards and use audio provided to them, to learn the language–the task at hand.

Granted, these challenges are not unique to the Creole language resurgence in Louisiana. Diehard Cajun musicians of my generation react in the same way to French. Rules and structure are entirely rejected, as the now century old belief that Louisiana French and Creole are merely “broken” versions of French, is gospel, even today. And, as such, no rules apply. It makes it possible for folks to speak Louisiana English and comfortably refer to this as Cajun French, for example. It makes it possible for both groups to write whatever they desire, however they wish, with any trivial collection of languages to create that good old “broken French.” Correct them and be prepared for a fight. Neither groups are willing to actually learn the rules and structure of both languages divorced from English. It’s normal, since English is the language they speak in and is their entire vantage point.

But, all of the same challenges have been met all over the world. Back when a codified, normative English was being established in England, in the 1300s, fiery debates over orthography, what should be normative and what shouldn’t, whether normalization was even favored, all characterized the experiences of those early language codifiers. Whether you were in France, Portugal, Brazil, Spain, Italy, Germany, Ethiopia, or South Africa, the exact same experiences were commonplace. 

So, why even waste personal time and effort to people who denigrate your work based on their personal issues with you, the provider of resources? You know why? Because for every group of 50 obstinate, selfish and envious fool, there are 5 who are dedicated, appreciative and serious learners. Every week I receive e-mails from people around the world, including Americans of Creole descent, thanking me for the resources I make available, or asking for private virtual lessons, or translations for movies or whatever. Many folks cherish it. And, those people are the reason that I give my personal time to develop and provide resources for a language, literally, on the brink of extinction. Convincing the others that this/these language/s are full of life, not broken, and worthy of blossoming and unimpeded expansion, is the challenge that all activists face.