Depends on the region. As in most cases its classy when the rich do it, if the poor do it however... Here it seems the french speakers were mostly farmers and not the ruling elite. Thus its seen as lower class. Where as when england was conquered by the normans it was the elite which spoke french and the locals spoke an early form of english. Thus speaking french was seen as classy
I feel like it's always dependent on who holds power at the time. Once america took hold of Louisiana it makes sense (power wise) that they would brand french speakers as lesser.
I am from Louisiana. I learned French, my kids will learn French. It’s part of our culture and identity. I’m proud of my states rich and diverse history and hope to see it carried on for generations to come.
*FUN FACTS:* 1. Parts of Acadia were even found in northern Maine. 2. Missouri's French dialect is also on the verge of resurgence. 3. The first Mardi Gras in North Ameirca happened in Mobile, Alabama.
Same thing is happening in my country today well not at that extreme but if you are caught speaking French at school you get suspended for some hours and reprimanded
Yep, it’s unfortunate, but as much as we are a cultural melting pot here in the states, English is the preferred majority language and a lot of languages have been suppressed over the years through various means. After-all, some like German (which my family spoke a few generations ago) were highly discouraged to the point that it’s all but disappeared except for certain communities. There‘s actually a video of a guy on here where he explains a similar story where his parents (who were Cajun) had taught his older brother but ended up refusing to teach him because of his brother‘s experiences in school as well as his father being convinced (by his time as a soldier in World War 2) that English was better and more patriotic.
I’m 110% on board. I’m a Cajun youth. My great grandmother speaks Cajun French, but all the generations after her lost that dialect. I want to protect and revitalize my culture.
@ProgressiveGoldbug “Proper French” is for the pretentious French of Europe. Cajun French is the culture here, and I’m not going to bend to some foreigner’s demands on how we talk.
@@hismajesty6272 hey we're not all that pretentious, en tout cas moi j'aime que les Cajuns se réapproprient leur langue et leur culture française d'Amérique !
@@ProgressiveGoldbug Cajun French is the local French, no such thing as a bastardised language nor is there anything less culturally relevant about aave, in fact, in modern media it’s becoming more and more culturally relevant. Languages in all forms are just as complex and historically dense no need for elitism
I’m a Louisiana Creole born and raised in Louisiana, though I no longer live there. Thank you for your video on a rarely discussed topic, though I must correct a huge inaccuracy and oversight. Creoles, and that language in Louisiana did not originally descend from the people in the Caribbean(though there were some that came from that area later). The word was used to mean native born in the colony in Louisiana. The term was originally applied to the direct descendants of those from France and Spain, and later also to their mixed race descendants, the Creoles of color. The majority of the French speakers of the state early on were Creoles, with a Cajun minority coming in later from their Canadian expulsion. Now, most of the Creoles are creoles of color, and are generally the ones who speak that dialect. The original French and Spanish only Creoles later intermarried with the Cajuns and are now mostly indiscernible in language. The French language was declining already by my mother’s generation, who was a baby boomer. She told me they could be beaten for speaking it in school. She understood it and could speak some but that was it. I’m Gen X/Xennial. When I was a little girl she would teach me a few words here and there, but intentionally did not teach me more and put me in Catholic school in one of the major cities so I would not have an accent. I have a standard American/west coast accent now. My grandparents and some of my relatives used to switch to French around me and my cousins when they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. Of course we still knew some words, which helped one of my cousins hide from a spanking one day 😂 CODOFIL has pretty much been a massive failure because of previous rules discouraging people from speaking it for so long and also because of the kind of French they teach. It was supposed to protect and teach French as it is spoken in the region, but as my grandmother(maman) said, that’s proper French and it isn’t the same. Fun fact, apparently the language that is projected to be the most spoken language in the future is said to be French! Au revoir 😊
Louisiana Creoles are different than the black/afro Caribbean people. Louisiana Creole is our ethnic community, there are white people that identify as such that have no African heritage at all. It’s a shared identity among primarily White, black, native, and all the mixes between them.
@@jasonhaven7170Creole just means you're a French speaking person native to the region (meaning you weren't coming from abroad). It comes from the Spanish word criollo and before the English-speaking Americans took over Latin-based Louisiana, there was no distinction between white and mixed race creoles. The concept of Cajunism came about after the purchase when English-speaking segregation replaced French-speaking assimilation and White creoles realized they could get further in life and society by distinguishing themselves from other creoles. Similarly, the afro-creole BS came about when African Americans from other Southern states moved in and introduced the one drop rule and their concepts of panafricanism.
Just correcting, it will become the most spoken mother tongue* not the most spoken language by 2050 (although they will be top 3 compared to being top 5 currently; it'd still be way way behind English which is projected to be 2 billion by then), this is due to many countries in Africa having population booms where French is the most spoken language (it's projected over 85% of French speakers will be from Africa by 2050)
As an Irishman, who is a French teacher living in Mexico, I found this an interesting video. I would encourage Louisianans to keep up their efforts. Learning languages is great. I grew up in Dublin, a monolingual English-speaking city (token signage in Irish and compulsory teaching in school notwithstanding). But now I am a fluent French, German, Italian and Spanish speaker. You’re never too old to start to learn a new language!
But the issue here is not only language but culture. Louisiana Cajun's closest kins are actually located on the east coast of Canada. When they visit each other, they have a sense of déjà vu, although they have been separated for more than 250 years, courtesy of the British Empire.
Interesting that you did not learn Gaeliga. I do not know how to say it in Irish but Gaelic, or I guess Irish. Just as much as Louisiana should continue their efforts with Cajun French it seems to me that Ireland should continue with Irish, and Scotland should continue with Scots Gaelic. I have learned a bit of Scots. It is difficult because the only main language learning source is actually Duolingo. Irish on the other hand is much more spoken, and available to be learned. It is available on Rosetta Stone, unlike Scots.
@@leviturner3265 oh we were taught Irish in school, but never used it after that. But I took the Romance languages like a duck to water. Probably due to having studied Latin for six years.
As a Louisianan, even though I’m not Cajun at all, I still know some French. Edit : I learned some more French and I just reached level 2A! Merci France, de Louisiane!
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Yeah we use so many French words in English, so it's hard not to!
The truth is most Louisiana people arent Cajun even the ones with French last names like me. Some people with my last name call themselves Cajuns but the truth is no Acadians ever had my last name. Cajuns kept the language the longest and thats to be commended but I cannot in good conscience call myself that when none of my family ever lived in Acadiana or would have called themselves Cajuns. White french speakers in New Orleans integrated into Wasp culture pretty seemlessly. But yea i can get by in French it's a family tradition to know basic phrases mainly regarding cooking and construction
Any language is nice to learn , it's important to understand the world and a wealth . All language is precious and shouldn't be forgotten in the name of our historical past witch tells us where we come from to help us carry on toward our futur.
My mom was full Britonic, but she was adopted into a Cajun household, and took on their mannerisms. It isn’t too late for you to throw one or two Cajun French phrases into your lingo.
Chers cousins du continent Américain, le sang Français n'existe pas, l'histoire de la France est un brassage des peuples durant plusieurs milliers d'années (Gaulois, Francs, Celtes, Anglo saxons...) je suis né et vie en France mais j'ais des arrières grands parents anglais et Russe. Ce qui nous unit c'est la culture française.
The US makes languages the responsibility of individual states. Many states have English as their official language. Still, having an official language does not mean that people aren’t allowed to speak other languages.
@@coolandhip_7596 New Mexico doesn't have any official languages but Spanish has "special recognition" according to the state constitution. Thus making Puerto Rico the only jurisdiction in the US where Spanish is an official language.
"unique cultures" hill billies that speak friench. yea no one with you on this case. Rather some native American culture is restored then some weird colonizers that do not have a pretty history.
To what extent? You could get government aid, but voters are usually highly skeptical of programs like that. Especially if there's no dividend or return.
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Proud to see dozens of our episodes featured in this video! We are the only Louisiana French media outlet. Subscribe to our channel to learn more about our unique language, culture, and people.
I'm french and visited Louisiana this summer going to three towns: Lafayette, Bâton-Rouge and New Orleans, it is a splendid state with a so overwhelming cultural background due to all the ethnic group present at the same place that it makes it a must go in the USA and I hope that they will conserve their culture and traditions!
Je fais de mon mieux, j’ai appris le français et mon p‘tit frère peut me comprendre (même si il peut pas parler encore). Mon père et grand-père le parlent, et si j’ai des enfants, ils vont savoir
The US government did the same thing in the Philippines when it took over the Islands in 1898, they banned the Spanish language in all schools and withing 50 years they had switched the language of the Filipinos from Spanish to English.
Actually, while the U.S. did try to get rid of Spanish what actually got rid of the language was the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Because of the many people that died due to the massacre that they inflicted, a large percentage of them were Spanish-speaking. Given that the Spanish weren't able to fully hispanize the archipelago the vast majority of Spanish speakers in the Philippines were located in cities. The rest of the archipelago mostly spoke their various autochthonous languages that had been spoken prior to Spanish colonization, but now have been heavily influenced by the Spanish language because they were still educated and preached to in it.
I am French and I am baffled how France doesn’t care about French speaking regions. It is a tragedy. We should have a strong relationship with Louisiana. I mean every school should exchange students. We should learn our history. We should have movies about it, we should have TV channels in common, TV shows… I don’t understand why the connection is so weak between us
Everybody knows that louisiana was French it is learned in school and there is a big francophonie bond with all French speaking countries but I agree that we should encourage more French in Canada and usa
Quebec canada is also loaing french language. I wonder as a french citizen, how much do you know about Quebec and how much connection is there with frnace? Theyre starting to come up with very weird laws to protect the language there
@@Gluteus.Maximus there is definitely more links with quebec than louisiana bc lots of French lives in Montreal, history is known but not precisely overall I think Other regions of Canada speaking French are not known though
Well France has had extremely aggressive language policies within its own borders already, killing any language other than French, even though French started as a minority language in what is now France. It’s surprising to see the French don’t try the same overseas as much.
SUCH an original and well thought out topic still presented without pretension! Fantastic, loved how community perspectives were included alongside the broad range historical context. Keep it up man!
Maine have the same problem. Fun fact, there was more Ku Klux Klan member in Maine only than in the entire south. And they wanted to clean Maine from the French Speakers.
I am assuming it was dependent on the time period. I mean that it was during the second phase of the Ku Klux Klan. The one that was the largest, and was around from approximately 1915 to the late 1920's. At that time there was not a large Ku Klux Klan presence in the South. It was much more prevalent in places like Indiana, or Colorado, or other northern states.
Ma langue maternelle est l’anglais mais je préfère à parler, écrire et lire français. Parce qu’il est une langue plus belle que l’anglais, à mon très-humble avis.
@@bikesfrench8524 Assurément, beaucoup des mots anglais sont d’origine française, bien sûr, mais ce serait comme dire, la langue française, anglais, italien, et les autres langues sont les mêmes choses comme Latine, et Grecque ancien.
Beaucoup de mots sont effectivement d'origine française, le vocabulaire ayant été influencé par l'invasion normande, mais foncièrement c'est une langue d'origine germanique du fait de l'invasion anglo-saxonne.
I'm not from Louisiana but after meeting a group of French students one summer I decided that French would be a good thing to know. It's one of the best things I've ever done. And it's allowed me to understand a country that previously had been a bit of a mystery.
I am a Cajun myself. I lived here all my life in Acadiana. I was not privileged to pick up on french whenever I was young but I hope that both myself and my home will bring back another unique aspect of our culture!
Bonjour de Bretagne, France d'ou provient une partie des colons de l'époque qui ont tous quitté pour une nouvelle vie au Quebec et en Louisiane 😊 Hello from Bretagne, France where some of the colonist back then came from and who left evrything for a new life in Quebec and Louisiana 😊
@@archimade Nope, à un certain point de l'histoire, la Bretagne (française donc) était nommée la "Petite Bretagne". Ceci dit, j'ai trouvé toujours incongrue le fait que les Romains aient nommé la partie sud de cette grande île outre mer "Grande Bretagne". Ça aurait été logique et compréhensible si c'était la totalité de l'île, pas juste le sud.
I grew up and still live in Louisiana, My grandparents spoke French a lot, I mostly only learned the cuss words, lol! When I joined the military in the early 90's, my first roommate tried to speak French to me and told me I had the thickest French accent he has ever heard. I had to say sorry, I don't know what you were saying! One thing I did notice was that despite only learning English as a kid, I did retain parts of French grammar, I caught hell for it in the air force too!
In fact, it will happen! French taught and learned by imposition, not by choice; But English is the one spoken and the most used by taste, necessity and priority. What is not used is forgotten. Quebec is destined for Louisianaization. R.I.P.
@@jorgeomarjaimesviafara6061 Quebec is still vastly predominantly French speaking. It hasn't happened yet and if we can have our way, it ain't happening soon.
That way of expellong French from schools feels infuriating. But at the same time the French elites did exactly the same thing to eradicate all the regional languages. Some survived like Breton but barely hanged on
Yeah that large of a piece of land that existed for such a long time, and before the existence of hyper-travel/hyper-communication, meant that languages just went their own direction. BTW I don't know what the French elite over on another continent have to do with it, these are completely different people.
@@SchlabbeflickerThe Brits & American were master at repressing other languages too 😂. Everywhere there was another language the Brits & Americans did everything to kill the language.
@@Dim.g0v i think its something like 50k. not russian russians, like russian descendants, but relative to it's population, thats a pretty large chunk. i think alaska also has a decent native population
Throughout the 1990s my grandparents and my uncle worked tirelessly to expand the teaching of the Cajun French language through southeastern Louisiana, specifically Terrebonne and Lafourche parish. Unfortunately, they failed. Outside of the Lafayette/Acadiana region of Louisiana, the Cajun French language and culture is dying rapidly. The area I live is referred to as “Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou” yet you aren’t even offered to learn French in some high schools. Only Spanish. Cajun culture is beautiful and unique, and I wish I lived in a time when the local governments did more to embrace and preserve it.
I know what you're talking about and unfortunately That's cuz prairie Cajuns don't view y'all as real Cajuns. I've heard them they think y'all and the new Iberia Cajuns are something lesser called the hadeyas
@@voiceofreason2674 if they do think that, I just pity them, because it’s sad, self-defeating, and misinformed to think that way. And any Cajun from the bayou parishes would proudly defend themselves to anyone thinking of them in any way as “lesser”. It’s deplorable that people are actually like that.
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We helped open the first Indian/Cajun French school in Pointe-au-Chien. Coming soon to Lafourche...
Quand je suis allé a la Nouvelle Orleans, j'ai été étonné que la culture Cajun et française ai été mis en avant mais que pas une personne ne connaissait un seul mots en Français.
C'est un coup de com' ! Pour attirer les touristes américains (exotisme) et français en leur faisant croire qu'il y a un revival de leur culture... Alors que tout est faux !!! Personne n'apprend le français aux USA.... Trop compliquée et pas assez usitée dans le monde. L'espagnol est largement préférée à toutes autres langues étrangères aux USA.... La proximité du Mexique et des pays d'amérique latine rend la langue plus intéressante et les débouchés économiques plus grands....
@@guyl9456 Complètement oui !! C'est un peu d'exotisme.... Comme nous nous entendons parler l'anglais, cela nous charme l'espace d'un instant et puis nous lasse... Eux c'est pareil...
I live in Lafayette. Theres a lot of effort about bring french into the mix. A lot of street signs are in French, the airport gives announcements in English and French (Cajun french. I dont speak it but you can tell the difference). I work at a hotel. My coworker was in french immersion school. She blew it off as a kid but she still knows and understands a lot. We host a lot of guests from French Canada and France, and truthfully thats about the only time I ever see french come up in day to day. Shes good at speaking it but theres a lack of opportunities for practice for her, and like he said in the vidieo its what they call Parisian French, or official French, not the cajun dialect. Im from Honduras originally and I speak spanish and that just comes up to be useful way more. I highly doubt that figure of 160000 Spanish speakers is accurate, I feel like you have to at least double that. Im working on my French skills. I love the culture here. I dont have that native Cajun connection here like that but I still love Louisiana and everything about it.
Not like the languages in the British Isles are doing much better... Or in any other part of the world where a country expanded & took control of new territory.
I am from California, and I am very disappointed my state government hasn't taken similar initiatives to preserve our Spanish-speaking heritage. I support Louisiana. Soy Californiano y siento mucha vergüenza de que mi gobierno estatal no está trabajando de preservar nuestra cultura latina e hispanohablante. Ojalá lo harán pronto. Apoyo Luisiana
Louisiana French will never recover due to lack of incentive to learn it. People there rather learn Spanish because it is more useful inside and outside of Louisiana.
It is the learning of Spanish that lack incentives because all Hispanic countries are in 3rd world and it's absent when it comes to science and technology 🤪😝🤣😁🤭 FYI, French is not just spoken in France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Louisiana. It is also spoken in Upper NY/Maine/VT/NH and even in MA, CT, and RI. French is also very much spoken in Francophone African countries. So the Hispanics should learn French instead of Spanish 🤪😝🤣😁🤭
I am a Louisiana native from St. Martin Parish. I took french grammar class and was taught science and social studies in french since kindergarten. I am glad I got to have this experience, you don’t think about it as a child but now that I am an adult I understand how important it is for us to carry our culture into the next generation. Although I can’t really speak creole like my parents and grandparents, I speak the France dialect of French very well and and gratful to pass on such a huge part of our culture. Our French is fading but I speak to my son in French and will absolutely make sure he learns too. Love my culture, love where I’m from.
The Canadian province of Québec and the American state of Louisiana + former states of the former French province of Louisiana have to save the french language, if we French have the international permission we can propose that French will be the official language in these territories for administration, education, social and everyday life, we've to reinstalled the French in our former territories of America as cultural exception. If the Canadian government and the American government loved us so more they will have already accepted it but in reality they didn't loved us so more as we think they broken the French language in these territories to reduce the French influence in America but this is our legal right to build an commonwealth of French speaking nations and territories for enlightened the french language in the World.
There's a lot of similarities that Maine has faced with our Acadian French language dying. The language being banned from 1919 to 1960 really held it from being passed down and taught to children by their parents and grandparents. Recently in the past few years there have been programs to restore the lost French culture, especially in Aroostook County.
Anglo-Saxons were the biggest white population by 1830, so naturally English becomes dominant, but it isn't like the culture changed, it is still the same, and is still the only US State with a French legal system. Southern culture was always a good mix of Engand and French.
@@Da_Gr88 well if ur talking about south east plantation states then the very south of Alabama and Mississippi too had a larger spanish presence than a French presence, because they were part of the Florida territory but idk how well that translates to culture because I've never been there.
Acadia is also New Brunswick and parts of east Quebec, not just Nova Scotia, then again, it never had official borders and is now just our ideal ancestral homeland where we used to live in harmony with the Mi'kmaq people.
As a creole national and tribal native who grew up in Gentilly area. I grew up on Paris avenue and France Rd. Paris is my birthright! The bourbon estate is my birthright and France needs to return to its monarchy ASAP. One day I'll walk the streets of my 3rd estate holdings. For now I'm content with Mon grandmeres.
It's crazy that these assimilation methods were the exact same that metropolitan France used against their many own languages (Catalan, Breton, Dutch, Occitan, German, Arpitan, Alammannic, etc). It started during the XV century where the many Autonomous Councils were forced to only write in Francien (the Parisian dialect of that time) . Then during the French Revolution the French revolution, French would become the only official language of France, and the other languages started to be persecuted by the state, sin e they were seen as there at to the Republic's unity. A tactic that was commonly employed was the internal immigration, where young people from non French speaking regions were almost forced to travel to northern provinces where education and job opportunities were created, whilst the Parisian government was leaving the local infrastructure old fashioned, and even cut of resources like light or gas dorm remote places. In the other hand, people from these Northern territories that spoke one of the many frnhc dialects, were given facilities to retire back down in the south, where they could being their children. This demographic movement forced the different communities that now found themselves together to use a common language of communication. Since universal education didn't really reach everywhere until after the Revolution, in all the schools you would be only taught in French, by a teacher of Northern descent. In those schools you might be physically and verbally punished for speaking any other language, teachers cracked out deminisging jokes against their own student's culture, and reduced their own people's pride. When these Northern immigrants came in, it was only natural that people would speak to them, in (a badly spoken) french. Meanwhile the young men that came to northern cities to study, had even more preasure to learn and get good at speaking French, since they were already mocked for being southerners or farmers, they didn't want to be even more looked down upon for speaking peasants French. In addition, the parents of many non French speakers started speaking them in French since they were born, and told their kids to get good at the language to not face the same repercussions they did before, and because they were sold the idea that "earning French will get you better opportunities in life". The last straw was with the world wars, which not only united many people that would come back home from all over France, but it'd create a national sentiment (that had already been built up since the French revolution) of a unique identity opposed to other countries's.
@@Bernat_Pascual It was inevitable that after settling the region, that the French, and later American colonists would develop a culture different from that of the parent country, including linguistically. For example, it didn't take long for Louisiana French to start deviating from Metropolitan French (the variety of the language that's spoken in France itself), nor did it take long after large American immigration to the area that Louisiana began developing its own variety of English.
It's not easy to do justice to the history of Louisiana French in 15 minutes, but this was a very nice overview. It's a fascinating topic, with lots of detail and nuance.
Vraiment trop bien, je ne commente que rarement des vidéos sur youtube en général mais je me dois de référencer celle-ci ! Excellent travail et merci à toi Versed de faire une vidéo au sujet de la langue française en Louisiane.
1:48 I’m not sure if anyone has commented this but you didn’t pronounce Nova Scotia correctly This comment isn’t trying to be a hate comment or anything, I just wanna point this out for the future 👍
Even in France itself there are more and more advertissements and business names that are in English, even local bands prefer to sing in very basic English; and this trend accelerates. Bon courage à nos cousins d'Amérique, et vive notre belle langue et ses dialectes !
When I visited New Orleans I went to see The Cabildo building and then I learned that Louisiana was also Spanish for many years and the influence is visible nowadays. New Orleans and the Louisiana territory under Spanish control played a huge roll in the Revolutionary War. Also, in that period of time there were a lot of people who moved to Louisiana from the Canary Islands. In conclusion the history of Louisiana is more complex this video explained.
I’m so upset because I was raised with French speaking grandparents in the atchafalaya basin in south Louisiana. Cajun culture is what I’m born and raised in. For some reason tho, I never learned to speak it. I remember that the grandparents would talk in French so the kids couldn’t know what they were saying. It’s a beautiful language and culture that we must do whatever we can to preserve.
Vous pourriez accueillir des immigrés francophones en Louisianne, mais de vrais européens éduqués et diplômés (Bac + 5) qui ont marre de la France et la Belgique avec leur taux fiscal collosal. Vous pourriez même les faire profiter d'une exonération fiscale s'ils montent une entreprise. Le slogan sera "Venez en Lousinanne, parlez français et prospérez"
I'm sure a lot of people are wondering, "why did things turn out differently in Canada?" I think it mainly comes down to relative populations. The United States has always been overwhelmingly majority Anglophone, therefore, they could suppress minority languages with impunity. However, in Canada, the Francophone population has always been much larger as a proportion of the overall population. As a result, the British/English-Canadian ruling class had to come up with strategies to appease the French-Canadians enough to prevent them from rebelling, because they could and would have broken free from the English if they were treated badly enough. While Canadian governments haven't always encouraged the French language (and currently they do, which also helps), they have never tried to suppress it. Furthermore, it helps that a large chunk of Canada's core territory has always been majority Francophone, meaning that, in those areas, French is just as useful as English in everyday life, if not more so. This is sadly not the case anywhere in the United States, where French is everywhere a minority language.
Most of Canada treated Francophones exactly the same way as Louisiana did. Only Québec recognized the language for a long time. That’s because the Anglophones never managed to become a majority of the province’s population.
They did try to suppress French in Canada. There was the whole Acadian deportation. And even in Quebec it changed hands from British to French and vice versa many times.
As a Cajun, it's a very good video from an outsider. My great-grandpa served in ww2 and talked about being promoted because he could speak French and was stationed in France.
@@hismajesty6272 I am learning Irish. Tae agus caca le do thoil means tea and cake please in Irish. I am one of your fellow Americans with Irish as the most dominate ethnicity within my genetics.
I have a very strong opinion on local culture/langauge, I hope it will survive! Just like many European languages (Bretagne, Basco, Alsaciennes, Gaelic)
I hope there are similar efforts in Madawaska in Northern Maine to preserve their Native French language. I would love to see efforts to preserve Basque in its enclaves in the Great Basin as well as more efforts to preserve Native American languages.
Even though the video its about french in Louisiana, why don't mention that between 1762 with the Treaty of Fontainebleau and the Treaty of Aranjuez of 1802 Louisiana was spanish?
The best way to save and revive a language is to standardize it. By creating a standardized version, we can ensure consistent usage in education, media, and official communications
@@CouchTomato87But with Cajun French in danger and with few speakers of it, we may need to use existing standards to have any hope of preserving the language at all.
I genuinely don’t understand how there are so many videos about the history of Louisiana pre-US but they barely ever touch on the creole language or the creole people. Which honestly baffles me because creole used to be the lingua franca of Louisiana And pre-Louisiana purchase creole was the identity of all of the people born in Louisiana. The Cajunization of Louisiana came also with the Americanization, in an effort to separate white creole from black creoles. There are plenty of cajuns that to this day have zero Acadian ancestry and people who literally define creole as black and cajun as white. let’s not rewrite history because Louisiana was already a colony with people living there with a whole culture before the exile of the Acadians
10:00 I’m so confused because you even showed video clips of creoles talking about the creole language and how it functions but it wasnt covered at all
because it's unrealistic for Europeans to care about indeginous who often war against each other. I don't blame them, I'm Asain and even we don't care about the indigenous we colonize. Neither do the Turks or Arabs care. If you care, then you talk about them. It's that simple.
It probably happened because the „Fraktur“ font is almost not readable for someone who is not German and even for some of us it is hell to read, but in 4:02, when the covers of the constitutions are shown, the „German variation cover“ is actually the cover of a regular book written in German called „General Butler in New Orleans“. Not to downplay your video, it‘s fantastic, but just to point that out and to clear things up for people who might wonder about that.
Finally a video on this topic! If you go even further back to the late 1800s and early 1900s it's estimated over 70% of Louisiana spoke French. The decline happened because the state banned French and used the same methods on French Louisianians it did on the Natives: Beat the French out of them, literally. So many children got corporal punishment for speaking French, the state purposely brought in English-only speakers and it just went down from there. The ban on teaching French only ended in the 70s.
Acadia also included PEI, New Brunswick and, as someone already stated, part of Maine. Also, the Acadians did pledge allegiance to the Crown. But the crown didn't trust their new subjects, thinking that, in a futurewar with France, they will support their cousins from Quebec.
A mon humble avis, On ne peut défendre une langue dans une autre langue. Lorsque les cajuns promeuvent leur héritage sur un site informatique.. en anglais, il y a quelque chose qui ne va pas. Osez le français.
Mate, you haven't mentioned at all that Lusiana belonged to Spain before the Luisiana Purchase. Indeed, street names in New Orleans are written in Spanish, relfecting its Spanish past!
True, Louisiana was part of the Spanish Empire from 1762 to 1801 following Spain's acquisition of it after the 7 Years War. It then became part of France before America bought it.
It is sad, but, Too little, too late. Louisiana PES has chronic issues teaching basics. Not a chance they’d be able to approve a Quebec style dual-lingual system when math is a greater indicator of success. Then there’s the principle of all foreign language courses: Use it or lose it. you’d have to have plentiful access to French animated and regular shows, and books in stores and still remain profitable. You’d likely have to make the internet domain of Louisiana French so that they were daily encouraged to type in French and hang out on French chat-boards. You’d need to speak French in public. They’ll never get back what they lost.
I mean, the state government could have encouraged the transmission of French language programming from all francophone countries throughout the 20th century, first via radio, then television, and obviously nowadays via the internet. But, yeah, that stuff ain't going to reverse all of that unless the state pushes French as the sole language in the areas that have the most speakers of it. Because, it'll be harder to convert those who don't have francophone households, but it'll be easier to fortify what already exists! However, that's still difficult! Those people would still interact with the rest and even if all government services were in French that doesn't mean private businesses will. The best that could be hoped for would be bilingual signage and the attempt to import products from Canada that will be in English and French. But, even what I mentioned isn't even being attempted!
@OpinionesDieJACCsOpinions I think is possible again. I explain. I borned in quebec. I speak french and english. But... if you see quebec story. Et là, je parle français. Le Québec n'a pas vus son français sur le déclin jusqu'à la révolution industrielle. A ce moment là, avec toute les mesures d'assimilation de l'époque. Le français aurait pus etre perdu si les reformes des années 60 (révolution tranquille) n'avaient pas eu lieu. (Lois 101, qui est détesté par le reste du canada) Et encore là, ce ne fut pas gagné. Le Québec a se battre pendant longtemps pour revenir a un bon niveau. Et ça continue aujourd'hui avec les vagues migratoires actuel. So, i think is not the end for french in louisiana. I know they love her heritages. Do, good luck.
@@shadowsensei9040 Louisiana lost its francophone majority back in the 19th century. The reforms that Quebec did in the 60s would have had to be done in the late 1800s to early 1900s for it to have any positive effects. Today the best that could be hoped for is protecting Acadiana by implementing what is constitutionally possible in the United States. Commercial signage is protected by the first amendment, so having french predominantly in the streets can't be done here like it can be done in Canada. Even implementing something like what Ontario has done with the French Services Act would be preferable, but even this isn't what Louisiana has been doing! I don't know French at all, I used a translator to understand what you were saying.
I’m French Canadien and remember I went to the US with my school when I was younger and was speaking French with my classmates - some older gentleman came up to us and asked if we were speaking French, he was so happy to speak to us and told us that he went to school in French as a child but that it was so rare to find Francophones nowadays. This was Salem.
I'm surprised speaking french was seen as low class. Wasn't the language associated with being educated and rich back in the day?
In Europe yes, but not in US and Canada where they were seen as religious rural hicks.
Depends on the region. As in most cases its classy when the rich do it, if the poor do it however...
Here it seems the french speakers were mostly farmers and not the ruling elite. Thus its seen as lower class. Where as when england was conquered by the normans it was the elite which spoke french and the locals spoke an early form of english. Thus speaking french was seen as classy
If you go to Paris you'll see how poor it is 😂😂
@biggie_smoke_00onig33I'm gay ok
I feel like it's always dependent on who holds power at the time.
Once america took hold of Louisiana it makes sense (power wise) that they would brand french speakers as lesser.
I am from Louisiana. I learned French, my kids will learn French. It’s part of our culture and identity. I’m proud of my states rich and diverse history and hope to see it carried on for generations to come.
Thats awesome, man
Tres bien ✊🏼
Je vous félicite ! 🙂
Same here my guy. Learned as an adult because it struck my as my older relatives were dying that they were the last francophones in my family
Merveilleux!
*FUN FACTS:*
1. Parts of Acadia were even found in northern Maine.
2. Missouri's French dialect is also on the verge of resurgence.
3. The first Mardi Gras in North Ameirca happened in Mobile, Alabama.
Mobile Alabama was originally a Spanish colony.
No French 🥖 @@3x157
Neat
@@3x157 Mobile was the first capital of French Louisiana.
@3x157 Nope it was founded by Iberville in 1702
My parents were forced to kneel for hours on dried corn if they were caught speaking french in school.
Same thing is happening in my country today well not at that extreme but if you are caught speaking French at school you get suspended for some hours and reprimanded
What is your country? And why do they do that to people at this point in the century we live in?
@@jorgeomarjaimesviafara6061 America. And it's not "at this point". It happened to my parents.
Holy shit
Yep, it’s unfortunate, but as much as we are a cultural melting pot here in the states, English is the preferred majority language and a lot of languages have been suppressed over the years through various means.
After-all, some like German (which my family spoke a few generations ago) were highly discouraged to the point that it’s all but disappeared except for certain communities.
There‘s actually a video of a guy on here where he explains a similar story where his parents (who were Cajun) had taught his older brother but ended up refusing to teach him because of his brother‘s experiences in school as well as his father being convinced (by his time as a soldier in World War 2) that English was better and more patriotic.
Je suis moitie Quebecois moitie Acadien, j'ai toujours voulu visite mes cousins de Louisianne. Un jour si le seigneur est bon!
You’re welcomed to come down here and stay if you want, cousin. We Cajuns love other French speakers. God bless.
Just don't go to new orleans
@@anthonypowell4240 yeah the crime rate is pretty bad, so is baton rouge. i reccomend lafayette
@@maysonguywhat’s up with that? Does that city also voted to defund the police?
@@IchabodvanTassel98they changed it from 10% to 25% reduced funding i think
I’m 110% on board. I’m a Cajun youth. My great grandmother speaks Cajun French, but all the generations after her lost that dialect. I want to protect and revitalize my culture.
@ProgressiveGoldbug “Proper French” is for the pretentious French of Europe. Cajun French is the culture here, and I’m not going to bend to some foreigner’s demands on how we talk.
@@ProgressiveGoldbugWhat are you yapping about dawg
@@hismajesty6272 hey we're not all that pretentious, en tout cas moi j'aime que les Cajuns se réapproprient leur langue et leur culture française d'Amérique !
@@ProgressiveGoldbug Cajun French is the local French, no such thing as a bastardised language nor is there anything less culturally relevant about aave, in fact, in modern media it’s becoming more and more culturally relevant. Languages in all forms are just as complex and historically dense no need for elitism
@@ProgressiveGoldbugThat's like asking Spanish speaking LATAM community to learn European Spanish instead of their own version of Spanish
I’m a Louisiana Creole born and raised in Louisiana, though I no longer live there. Thank you for your video on a rarely discussed topic, though I must correct a huge inaccuracy and oversight. Creoles, and that language in Louisiana did not originally descend from the people in the Caribbean(though there were some that came from that area later). The word was used to mean native born in the colony in Louisiana. The term was originally applied to the direct descendants of those from France and Spain, and later also to their mixed race descendants, the Creoles of color. The majority of the French speakers of the state early on were Creoles, with a Cajun minority coming in later from their Canadian expulsion. Now, most of the Creoles are creoles of color, and are generally the ones who speak that dialect. The original French and Spanish only Creoles later intermarried with the Cajuns and are now mostly indiscernible in language. The French language was declining already by my mother’s generation, who was a baby boomer. She told me they could be beaten for speaking it in school. She understood it and could speak some but that was it. I’m Gen X/Xennial. When I was a little girl she would teach me a few words here and there, but intentionally did not teach me more and put me in Catholic school in one of the major cities so I would not have an accent. I have a standard American/west coast accent now. My grandparents and some of my relatives used to switch to French around me and my cousins when they didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. Of course we still knew some words, which helped one of my cousins hide from a spanking one day 😂 CODOFIL has pretty much been a massive failure because of previous rules discouraging people from speaking it for so long and also because of the kind of French they teach. It was supposed to protect and teach French as it is spoken in the region, but as my grandmother(maman) said, that’s proper French and it isn’t the same. Fun fact, apparently the language that is projected to be the most spoken language in the future is said to be French! Au revoir 😊
Most Creoles are Black, and a very large proportion are Afro-Antillean.
@@jasonhaven7170most afro creoles have ancestors that came straight from africa. a good chunk are afro antellian but not most..
Louisiana Creoles are different than the black/afro Caribbean people. Louisiana Creole is our ethnic community, there are white people that identify as such that have no African heritage at all. It’s a shared identity among primarily White, black, native, and all the mixes between them.
@@jasonhaven7170Creole just means you're a French speaking person native to the region (meaning you weren't coming from abroad). It comes from the Spanish word criollo and before the English-speaking Americans took over Latin-based Louisiana, there was no distinction between white and mixed race creoles. The concept of Cajunism came about after the purchase when English-speaking segregation replaced French-speaking assimilation and White creoles realized they could get further in life and society by distinguishing themselves from other creoles. Similarly, the afro-creole BS came about when African Americans from other Southern states moved in and introduced the one drop rule and their concepts of panafricanism.
Just correcting, it will become the most spoken mother tongue* not the most spoken language by 2050 (although they will be top 3 compared to being top 5 currently; it'd still be way way behind English which is projected to be 2 billion by then), this is due to many countries in Africa having population booms where French is the most spoken language (it's projected over 85% of French speakers will be from Africa by 2050)
As an Irishman, who is a French teacher living in Mexico, I found this an interesting video. I would encourage Louisianans to keep up their efforts. Learning languages is great.
I grew up in Dublin, a monolingual English-speaking city (token signage in Irish and compulsory teaching in school notwithstanding).
But now I am a fluent French, German, Italian and Spanish speaker. You’re never too old to start to learn a new language!
But the issue here is not only language but culture. Louisiana Cajun's closest kins are actually located on the east coast of Canada. When they visit each other, they have a sense of déjà vu, although they have been separated for more than 250 years, courtesy of the British Empire.
Interesting that you did not learn Gaeliga. I do not know how to say it in Irish but Gaelic, or I guess Irish. Just as much as Louisiana should continue their efforts with Cajun French it seems to me that Ireland should continue with Irish, and Scotland should continue with Scots Gaelic.
I have learned a bit of Scots. It is difficult because the only main language learning source is actually Duolingo. Irish on the other hand is much more spoken, and available to be learned. It is available on Rosetta Stone, unlike Scots.
@@leviturner3265 oh we were taught Irish in school, but never used it after that. But I took the Romance languages like a duck to water. Probably due to having studied Latin for six years.
As a Louisianan, even though I’m not Cajun at all, I still know some French.
Edit : I learned some more French and I just reached level 2A! Merci France, de Louisiane!
Yeah we use so many French words in English, so it's hard not to!
Learn it dude,make an effort even though youre not cajun or creole i bet most people in the parishes would be more than happy to help you learn
Voilà !
The truth is most Louisiana people arent Cajun even the ones with French last names like me. Some people with my last name call themselves Cajuns but the truth is no Acadians ever had my last name. Cajuns kept the language the longest and thats to be commended but I cannot in good conscience call myself that when none of my family ever lived in Acadiana or would have called themselves Cajuns. White french speakers in New Orleans integrated into Wasp culture pretty seemlessly. But yea i can get by in French it's a family tradition to know basic phrases mainly regarding cooking and construction
Any language is nice to learn , it's important to understand the world and a wealth . All language is precious and shouldn't be forgotten in the name of our historical past witch tells us where we come from to help us carry on toward our futur.
As someone from Louisiana I actually have zero French blood (I still want the French culture to still be here)
My mom was full Britonic, but she was adopted into a Cajun household, and took on their mannerisms. It isn’t too late for you to throw one or two Cajun French phrases into your lingo.
Ouais it's about culture and identity not blood.
Make BAGUETTE Great Again 🥖
Sure u have ,do DNA test i garentee u have at least 20%
Chers cousins du continent Américain, le sang Français n'existe pas, l'histoire de la France est un brassage des peuples durant plusieurs milliers d'années (Gaulois, Francs, Celtes, Anglo saxons...) je suis né et vie en France mais j'ais des arrières grands parents anglais et Russe. Ce qui nous unit c'est la culture française.
Whats funny is that the US doesnt even have an official language _de jure_
The US makes languages the responsibility of individual states.
Many states have English as their official language.
Still, having an official language does not mean that people aren’t allowed to speak other languages.
@maryelizamoore7870 new Mexico is the only state with Spanish as a coequal offical language
You mean de facto. De Jure means by law. De facto is by practice.
@@coolandhip_7596 New Mexico doesn't have any official languages but Spanish has "special recognition" according to the state constitution. Thus making Puerto Rico the only jurisdiction in the US where Spanish is an official language.
@@maryelizamoore7870louisiana has no official language louisiana
Je suis de Louisiana et je suis fier d'etre Acadien.
*Louisiane
@@edmerc92😅 C’est une dictée ou quoi ?
Je suis de le Washitaw. Proud to be Washitaw Al Moroccan 🇲🇦🇺🇲🇲🇦💚💜💛🏹🏹🏹🏹🐝🐝🐝🐝
Vive la Louisiane !!!
Lâche pas :)
I feel like governments need to do more about preserving unique cultures from going extinct.
Well no shіt, sherlock.
Ask the Canadians what they actually think about the French.
@@timr.2257 Depends where you are from, bitches exist everywhere !
"unique cultures" hill billies that speak friench. yea no one with you on this case.
Rather some native American culture is restored then some weird colonizers that do not have a pretty history.
To what extent? You could get government aid, but voters are usually highly skeptical of programs like that. Especially if there's no dividend or return.
Proud to see dozens of our episodes featured in this video! We are the only Louisiana French media outlet. Subscribe to our channel to learn more about our unique language, culture, and people.
I'm obsessed with French culture in Louisiana. Very fascinating.
Merci beaucoup!
Make BAGUETTE 🥖 Great Again 🥐
Speaking of French media, when possible, listen to AM radio stations from Quebec.
Il faut faire vivre et rayonner la Francophonie. Bonjour de Belgique francophone. 🇧🇪🇫🇷
I'm french and visited Louisiana this summer going to three towns: Lafayette, Bâton-Rouge and New Orleans, it is a splendid state with a so overwhelming cultural background due to all the ethnic group present at the same place that it makes it a must go in the USA and I hope that they will conserve their culture and traditions!
I Hope than our cousines of Louisiana will keep their culture 🇫🇷
❤🇫🇷
Je fais de mon mieux, j’ai appris le français et mon p‘tit frère peut me comprendre (même si il peut pas parler encore). Mon père et grand-père le parlent, et si j’ai des enfants, ils vont savoir
El idioma Español es superiora en Louisiana
@@whitebeans7292 c’est super félicitations
Rdr2 people
As someone with a Cajun background, I wish I had learned French as a kid. I guess it's never too late to learn
bien sûr 😊
Il n'est jamais trop tard pour apprendre à parler français :)
It's never too late to learn how to speak French :)
exactly! we got some Louisiana French speakers on Discord, if you really wanna get started!
Always remember that english itself is 50% French words
Start now....I taught myself the native Mexican language at 30 y/o
The US government did the same thing in the Philippines when it took over the Islands in 1898, they banned the Spanish language in all schools and withing 50 years they had switched the language of the Filipinos from Spanish to English.
Based🇺🇲
@@pliniojr95
👉🪳
@@pliniojr95 npc
Actually, while the U.S. did try to get rid of Spanish what actually got rid of the language was the Japanese occupation of the Philippines. Because of the many people that died due to the massacre that they inflicted, a large percentage of them were Spanish-speaking. Given that the Spanish weren't able to fully hispanize the archipelago the vast majority of Spanish speakers in the Philippines were located in cities.
The rest of the archipelago mostly spoke their various autochthonous languages that had been spoken prior to Spanish colonization, but now have been heavily influenced by the Spanish language because they were still educated and preached to in it.
@@pliniojr95 Idiot.
I am French and I am baffled how France doesn’t care about French speaking regions. It is a tragedy. We should have a strong relationship with Louisiana. I mean every school should exchange students. We should learn our history. We should have movies about it, we should have TV channels in common, TV shows… I don’t understand why the connection is so weak between us
Le Président de la République nous a rendu visite ici en Louisiane et nous a même adressé en français mais ça faisait pas trop de différence. 🤷♂️
Everybody knows that louisiana was French it is learned in school and there is a big francophonie bond with all French speaking countries but I agree that we should encourage more French in Canada and usa
Quebec canada is also loaing french language. I wonder as a french citizen, how much do you know about Quebec and how much connection is there with frnace? Theyre starting to come up with very weird laws to protect the language there
@@Gluteus.Maximus there is definitely more links with quebec than louisiana bc lots of French lives in Montreal, history is known but not precisely overall I think
Other regions of Canada speaking French are not known though
Well France has had extremely aggressive language policies within its own borders already, killing any language other than French, even though French started as a minority language in what is now France. It’s surprising to see the French don’t try the same overseas as much.
I am literally in new Orleans LA as we speak, trucking.
Man things went downhill after trump for you didn’t they Mike.
@@kattapp🤣
@@kattapp yeah it's definitely this evil Trump who is trying to destroy French language in Louisiana
i am from nawlins, me
That is the most American sentence I've ever read.
Acadia is not just Nova Scotia, it also is New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Maine . :)
SURTOUT le Nouveau-Brunswick, mais il ne faut pas oublier non plus certaines parties du Québec (Ïles de la Madeleine et la Gaspésie).
@@kamikazes03 Il y a actuellement plus de Québécois d'origine acadienne qu'il y a d'Acadiens au Nouveau-Brunswick...
Proud New Orleanian Creole, et je parle français, é mo parl kréyol Lalwizyan. Thank you for this video.
Salut de la Martinique
SUCH an original and well thought out topic still presented without pretension! Fantastic, loved how community perspectives were included alongside the broad range historical context. Keep it up man!
Maine have the same problem. Fun fact, there was more Ku Klux Klan member in Maine only than in the entire south. And they wanted to clean Maine from the French Speakers.
I am assuming it was dependent on the time period. I mean that it was during the second phase of the Ku Klux Klan. The one that was the largest, and was around from approximately 1915 to the late 1920's. At that time there was not a large Ku Klux Klan presence in the South. It was much more prevalent in places like Indiana, or Colorado, or other northern states.
😂😂😂
Ma langue maternelle est l’anglais mais je préfère à parler, écrire et lire français. Parce qu’il est une langue plus belle que l’anglais, à mon très-humble avis.
L'anglais est une langue d'origine française et c'est la réalité
@@bikesfrench8524 Assurément, beaucoup des mots anglais sont d’origine française, bien sûr, mais ce serait comme dire, la langue française, anglais, italien, et les autres langues sont les mêmes choses comme Latine, et Grecque ancien.
*elle
Beaucoup de mots sont effectivement d'origine française, le vocabulaire ayant été influencé par l'invasion normande, mais foncièrement c'est une langue d'origine germanique du fait de l'invasion anglo-saxonne.
🙏🏼🙏🏼👏🏼
I'm not from Louisiana but after meeting a group of French students one summer I decided that French would be a good thing to know. It's one of the best things I've ever done. And it's allowed me to understand a country that previously had been a bit of a mystery.
I am a Cajun myself. I lived here all my life in Acadiana. I was not privileged to pick up on french whenever I was young but I hope that both myself and my home will bring back another unique aspect of our culture!
As another Cajun, me too.
Jamais trop tard sha.
Bonjour de Bretagne, France d'ou provient une partie des colons de l'époque qui ont tous quitté pour une nouvelle vie au Quebec et en Louisiane 😊
Hello from Bretagne, France where some of the colonist back then came from and who left evrything for a new life in Quebec and Louisiana 😊
Jack kerouac
La petite Bretagne, précisons.
@@Belaziraf Ba non, c'est soit la Bretagne, soit la Grande-Bretagne :)
@@archimade Nope, à un certain point de l'histoire, la Bretagne (française donc) était nommée la "Petite Bretagne".
Ceci dit, j'ai trouvé toujours incongrue le fait que les Romains aient nommé la partie sud de cette grande île outre mer "Grande Bretagne". Ça aurait été logique et compréhensible si c'était la totalité de l'île, pas juste le sud.
I grew up and still live in Louisiana, My grandparents spoke French a lot, I mostly only learned the cuss words, lol! When I joined the military in the early 90's, my first roommate tried to speak French to me and told me I had the thickest French accent he has ever heard. I had to say sorry, I don't know what you were saying! One thing I did notice was that despite only learning English as a kid, I did retain parts of French grammar, I caught hell for it in the air force too!
That's the fate Quebec is trying to avoid .
In fact, it will happen! French taught and learned by imposition, not by choice; But English is the one spoken and the most used by taste, necessity and priority. What is not used is forgotten. Quebec is destined for Louisianaization. R.I.P.
@@jorgeomarjaimesviafara6061english is not the most used in québec pls stop making up fake nonsense😅
Because their resist
@@marlene97280 No shit Sherlock
@@jorgeomarjaimesviafara6061 Quebec is still vastly predominantly French speaking. It hasn't happened yet and if we can have our way, it ain't happening soon.
“50,000 French used to live here. Now it’s a ghost town.”
That way of expellong French from schools feels infuriating. But at the same time the French elites did exactly the same thing to eradicate all the regional languages. Some survived like Breton but barely hanged on
Yeah that large of a piece of land that existed for such a long time, and before the existence of hyper-travel/hyper-communication, meant that languages just went their own direction. BTW I don't know what the French elite over on another continent have to do with it, these are completely different people.
Navajo and Crow barely held on. Many natives speak that
Oui c'est le même combat !
Nothing more French than suppressing the regional minority language
@@SchlabbeflickerThe Brits & American were master at repressing other languages too 😂. Everywhere there was another language the Brits & Americans did everything to kill the language.
Louisiana is by far one of the coolest states, both culturally and historically. The only two states I'd say that beat them out are Alaska and Hawaii.
Only the southern area.
hawaii cause its literally a sovereign nation we ate, alaska cause it has lots of russians?
@@adamelghalmi9771 And the Natives.
@@adamelghalmi9771 How many Russians are living in Alaska?
@@Dim.g0v i think its something like 50k. not russian russians, like russian descendants, but relative to it's population, thats a pretty large chunk. i think alaska also has a decent native population
Throughout the 1990s my grandparents and my uncle worked tirelessly to expand the teaching of the Cajun French language through southeastern Louisiana, specifically Terrebonne and Lafourche parish. Unfortunately, they failed. Outside of the Lafayette/Acadiana region of Louisiana, the Cajun French language and culture is dying rapidly. The area I live is referred to as “Louisiana’s Cajun Bayou” yet you aren’t even offered to learn French in some high schools. Only Spanish. Cajun culture is beautiful and unique, and I wish I lived in a time when the local governments did more to embrace and preserve it.
I know what you're talking about and unfortunately That's cuz prairie Cajuns don't view y'all as real Cajuns. I've heard them they think y'all and the new Iberia Cajuns are something lesser called the hadeyas
@@voiceofreason2674 if they do think that, I just pity them, because it’s sad, self-defeating, and misinformed to think that way. And any Cajun from the bayou parishes would proudly defend themselves to anyone thinking of them in any way as “lesser”. It’s deplorable that people are actually like that.
We helped open the first Indian/Cajun French school in Pointe-au-Chien. Coming soon to Lafourche...
Quand je suis allé a la Nouvelle Orleans, j'ai été étonné que la culture Cajun et française ai été mis en avant mais que pas une personne ne connaissait un seul mots en Français.
C'est un coup de com' !
Pour attirer les touristes américains (exotisme) et français en leur faisant croire qu'il y a un revival de leur culture... Alors que tout est faux !!!
Personne n'apprend le français aux USA.... Trop compliquée et pas assez usitée dans le monde.
L'espagnol est largement préférée à toutes autres langues étrangères aux USA....
La proximité du Mexique et des pays d'amérique latine rend la langue plus intéressante et les débouchés économiques plus grands....
@@guyl9456 Complètement oui !! C'est un peu d'exotisme.... Comme nous nous entendons parler l'anglais, cela nous charme l'espace d'un instant et puis nous lasse... Eux c'est pareil...
French must be spoken at home for the language to thrive.
I live in Lafayette. Theres a lot of effort about bring french into the mix. A lot of street signs are in French, the airport gives announcements in English and French (Cajun french. I dont speak it but you can tell the difference). I work at a hotel. My coworker was in french immersion school. She blew it off as a kid but she still knows and understands a lot. We host a lot of guests from French Canada and France, and truthfully thats about the only time I ever see french come up in day to day. Shes good at speaking it but theres a lack of opportunities for practice for her, and like he said in the vidieo its what they call Parisian French, or official French, not the cajun dialect. Im from Honduras originally and I speak spanish and that just comes up to be useful way more. I highly doubt that figure of 160000 Spanish speakers is accurate, I feel like you have to at least double that. Im working on my French skills. I love the culture here. I dont have that native Cajun connection here like that but I still love Louisiana and everything about it.
Yes, it is astounding that not even in Lavayette there is a bar where one gets funny looks when not speaking French or Kouri-Vini.
I was born in Houma, Louisiana. My great-grandfather started the first newspaper. It was in French. I have a copy of it.
Continue Bat toi la garde ne se rend pas😊
And that's also what happened with every other language spoken in France a century ago beside French.
Not like the languages in the British Isles are doing much better... Or in any other part of the world where a country expanded & took control of new territory.
As a metropolitan French, Cajun french to me almost sounds like its own language and it would be indeed very sad if it disappeared.
Damn, English Americans really discriminated against everyone huh
I am from California, and I am very disappointed my state government hasn't taken similar initiatives to preserve our Spanish-speaking heritage. I support Louisiana.
Soy Californiano y siento mucha vergüenza de que mi gobierno estatal no está trabajando de preservar nuestra cultura latina e hispanohablante. Ojalá lo harán pronto. Apoyo Luisiana
Oh please. It's in no threat of dying out anytime soon. Nobody is trying to get rid of Spanish in California.
Louisiana French will never recover due to lack of incentive to learn it. People there rather learn Spanish because it is more useful inside and outside of Louisiana.
It is the learning of Spanish that lack incentives because all Hispanic countries are in 3rd world and it's absent when it comes to science and technology 🤪😝🤣😁🤭
FYI, French is not just spoken in France, Canada, Belgium, Switzerland, Louisiana. It is also spoken in Upper NY/Maine/VT/NH and even in MA, CT, and RI. French is also very much spoken in Francophone African countries. So the Hispanics should learn French instead of Spanish 🤪😝🤣😁🤭
i'm suprise he didn't talk about Quebec. lots of comparison could have been made.
I hope they can maintain their language and culture
I am a Louisiana native from St. Martin Parish. I took french grammar class and was taught science and social studies in french since kindergarten. I am glad I got to have this experience, you don’t think about it as a child but now that I am an adult I understand how important it is for us to carry our culture into the next generation. Although I can’t really speak creole like my parents and grandparents, I speak the France dialect of French very well and and gratful to pass on such a huge part of our culture. Our French is fading but I speak to my son in French and will absolutely make sure he learns too. Love my culture, love where I’m from.
As Haitian 🇭🇹 I see Louisiana as our american cousins and their creole is kind of similiar to ours, although more frenchified.
🫶🏾🫶🏾
Merci et merci Tele Louisiane 💙🧅🫑🌶️
Pas de quoi ! On ne lâche pas.
Slava 🥖
As long as LSU keeps winning.
Make BAGUETTE Great Again 🥖
As a French-descendant living in Peru, I feel really proud for this language.
It would be helpful that the State started printing signs in both French and English.
Actually they do at the border. The welcome signs.
The Canadian province of Québec and the American state of Louisiana + former states of the former French province of Louisiana have to save the french language, if we French have the international permission we can propose that French will be the official language in these territories for administration, education, social and everyday life, we've to reinstalled the French in our former territories of America as cultural exception. If the Canadian government and the American government loved us so more they will have already accepted it but in reality they didn't loved us so more as we think they broken the French language in these territories to reduce the French influence in America but this is our legal right to build an commonwealth of French speaking nations and territories for enlightened the french language in the World.
There's a lot of similarities that Maine has faced with our Acadian French language dying. The language being banned from 1919 to 1960 really held it from being passed down and taught to children by their parents and grandparents. Recently in the past few years there have been programs to restore the lost French culture, especially in Aroostook County.
Very American to get rid of something that isn’t Anglo-Saxon related
Anglo-Saxons were the biggest white population by 1830, so naturally English becomes dominant, but it isn't like the culture changed, it is still the same, and is still the only US State with a French legal system. Southern culture was always a good mix of Engand and French.
@@Da_Gr88Southern culture has more spanish elements such as cowboys, than french elements don't forget, that most of mainland us was part of Spain
@@RaffleRaffle Sure but that shows up much more from Texas and the SW rather than the plantation South.
@@Da_Gr88 well if ur talking about south east plantation states then the very south of Alabama and Mississippi too had a larger spanish presence than a French presence, because they were part of the Florida territory but idk how well that translates to culture because I've never been there.
Acadia is also New Brunswick and parts of east Quebec, not just Nova Scotia, then again, it never had official borders and is now just our ideal ancestral homeland where we used to live in harmony with the Mi'kmaq people.
As a French man who lives near Paris, I would like to visit the States !
As an American I recommend visiting anywhere except Cali New York Florida or Texas.
If you want to get some good food visit us in superior Virginia! Charleston, Wheeling, and the Panhandle are all great places!
As a creole national and tribal native who grew up in Gentilly area. I grew up on Paris avenue and France Rd. Paris is my birthright! The bourbon estate is my birthright and France needs to return to its monarchy ASAP. One day I'll walk the streets of my 3rd estate holdings. For now I'm content with Mon grandmeres.
How do you say "blessings, be careful, bests to you" in French maybe two words?
@@RegentDeMarquis005 Your romanticizing the Bourbon Monarchy?! Who would you even want to be the king!?!
It's crazy that these assimilation methods were the exact same that metropolitan France used against their many own languages (Catalan, Breton, Dutch, Occitan, German, Arpitan, Alammannic, etc). It started during the XV century where the many Autonomous Councils were forced to only write in Francien (the Parisian dialect of that time) . Then during the French Revolution the French revolution, French would become the only official language of France, and the other languages started to be persecuted by the state, sin e they were seen as there at to the Republic's unity. A tactic that was commonly employed was the internal immigration, where young people from non French speaking regions were almost forced to travel to northern provinces where education and job opportunities were created, whilst the Parisian government was leaving the local infrastructure old fashioned, and even cut of resources like light or gas dorm remote places. In the other hand, people from these Northern territories that spoke one of the many frnhc dialects, were given facilities to retire back down in the south, where they could being their children. This demographic movement forced the different communities that now found themselves together to use a common language of communication. Since universal education didn't really reach everywhere until after the Revolution, in all the schools you would be only taught in French, by a teacher of Northern descent. In those schools you might be physically and verbally punished for speaking any other language, teachers cracked out deminisging jokes against their own student's culture, and reduced their own people's pride. When these Northern immigrants came in, it was only natural that people would speak to them, in (a badly spoken) french. Meanwhile the young men that came to northern cities to study, had even more preasure to learn and get good at speaking French, since they were already mocked for being southerners or farmers, they didn't want to be even more looked down upon for speaking peasants French. In addition, the parents of many non French speakers started speaking them in French since they were born, and told their kids to get good at the language to not face the same repercussions they did before, and because they were sold the idea that "earning French will get you better opportunities in life". The last straw was with the world wars, which not only united many people that would come back home from all over France, but it'd create a national sentiment (that had already been built up since the French revolution) of a unique identity opposed to other countries's.
You're gonna copy paste this on every video, dude ?
Même combat !
Womp womp
@@Bernat_Pascual It was inevitable that after settling the region, that the French, and later American colonists would develop a culture different from that of the parent country, including linguistically. For example, it didn't take long for Louisiana French to start deviating from Metropolitan French (the variety of the language that's spoken in France itself), nor did it take long after large American immigration to the area that Louisiana began developing its own variety of English.
It's not easy to do justice to the history of Louisiana French in 15 minutes, but this was a very nice overview. It's a fascinating topic, with lots of detail and nuance.
i spoke with a guy from Louisiana in San Francisco in french, his french was perfect and he had never been to France :)
"Make Louisiana French again" 😂
God bless you dear Americans brothers, from France
Although I'm not French, I've had to learn to read in French because of my interests. Not easy- but overall not a problem.
Vraiment trop bien, je ne commente que rarement des vidéos sur youtube en général mais je me dois de référencer celle-ci ! Excellent travail et merci à toi Versed de faire une vidéo au sujet de la langue française en Louisiane.
The music at the beginning of the video sounds like you where going to introduce some kind of crime or conspiracy theory lol. 10/10
1:48
I’m not sure if anyone has commented this but you didn’t pronounce Nova Scotia correctly
This comment isn’t trying to be a hate comment or anything, I just wanna point this out for the future 👍
Yes, it's pronounced "skosha".
Even in France itself there are more and more advertissements and business names that are in English, even local bands prefer to sing in very basic English; and this trend accelerates. Bon courage à nos cousins d'Amérique, et vive notre belle langue et ses dialectes !
When I visited New Orleans I went to see The Cabildo building and then I learned that Louisiana was also Spanish for many years and the influence is visible nowadays. New Orleans and the Louisiana territory under Spanish control played a huge roll in the Revolutionary War. Also, in that period of time there were a lot of people who moved to Louisiana from the Canary Islands. In conclusion the history of Louisiana is more complex this video explained.
From France, I would love to visit this state. It could be interesting to see french influences in the US
This is great news👍 keep your language and indentity
I’m so upset because I was raised with French speaking grandparents in the atchafalaya basin in south Louisiana. Cajun culture is what I’m born and raised in. For some reason tho, I never learned to speak it. I remember that the grandparents would talk in French so the kids couldn’t know what they were saying. It’s a beautiful language and culture that we must do whatever we can to preserve.
Je suis de Panama en Amérique Centrale et je parle bien le français parce que je suis enseignant de français au Panama. ❤ 🇫🇷
Vous pourriez accueillir des immigrés francophones en Louisianne, mais de vrais européens éduqués et diplômés (Bac + 5) qui ont marre de la France et la Belgique avec leur taux fiscal collosal. Vous pourriez même les faire profiter d'une exonération fiscale s'ils montent une entreprise. Le slogan sera "Venez en Lousinanne, parlez français et prospérez"
I'm sure a lot of people are wondering, "why did things turn out differently in Canada?"
I think it mainly comes down to relative populations. The United States has always been overwhelmingly majority Anglophone, therefore, they could suppress minority languages with impunity. However, in Canada, the Francophone population has always been much larger as a proportion of the overall population. As a result, the British/English-Canadian ruling class had to come up with strategies to appease the French-Canadians enough to prevent them from rebelling, because they could and would have broken free from the English if they were treated badly enough. While Canadian governments haven't always encouraged the French language (and currently they do, which also helps), they have never tried to suppress it.
Furthermore, it helps that a large chunk of Canada's core territory has always been majority Francophone, meaning that, in those areas, French is just as useful as English in everyday life, if not more so. This is sadly not the case anywhere in the United States, where French is everywhere a minority language.
Most of Canada treated Francophones exactly the same way as Louisiana did. Only Québec recognized the language for a long time. That’s because the Anglophones never managed to become a majority of the province’s population.
They didn't suppress the language? Tell that to Manitoba.🙄😒
Canada treated the french canadian the exact same way, this is why they almost disappeared everywere ☺️
They did try to suppress French in Canada. There was the whole Acadian deportation. And even in Quebec it changed hands from British to French and vice versa many times.
@@edmerc92**quebec and new-brunwick.
Si vous vivez en Louisiane, je recommande que vous appreniez la langue. Je ne viens pas de Louisiane mais j'apprends la langue.
My grandpa was from Nova Scotia, and an American Indian. He told us about stories of Acadian treasure buried in Nova Scotia.
As a Cajun, it's a very good video from an outsider. My great-grandpa served in ww2 and talked about being promoted because he could speak French and was stationed in France.
There used to be a dialect in Dutch spoken in my state.
Learn Dutch and try to revive what you can of it.
@@hismajesty6272 I am learning Irish. Tae agus caca le do thoil means tea and cake please in Irish.
I am one of your fellow Americans with Irish as the most dominate ethnicity within my genetics.
Bienvenue chez moi en France aux Louisiannais qui parlent français. Pas tous à la fois, hein...
I have a very strong opinion on local culture/langauge, I hope it will survive! Just like many European languages (Bretagne, Basco, Alsaciennes, Gaelic)
why is it so hard for americans to learn 2 languages... they could've just tought both
At the sale of Louisiana in the contract the French language was protected by the constitution it was violated by the English😅
I hope there are similar efforts in Madawaska in Northern Maine to preserve their Native French language. I would love to see efforts to preserve Basque in its enclaves in the Great Basin as well as more efforts to preserve Native American languages.
Even though the video its about french in Louisiana, why don't mention that between 1762 with the Treaty of Fontainebleau and the Treaty of Aranjuez of 1802 Louisiana was spanish?
The rulers were Spanish but they allowed Louisiana to keep French and Creole as the languages of the land unlike the Americans lol
Next year: how Pondicherry plans to save French. /hj
They are Indian not French
@@JamesDelanoMcCarthysecondacc Pondicherry was colonized by France.
And, the people there still view France pretty Positively.
@@spaghettiisyummy.3623there are still french schools and they can pass the baccalaureat.
The best way to save and revive a language is to standardize it. By creating a standardized version, we can ensure consistent usage in education, media, and official communications
The French language already has at least two organizations dedicated to this.
@@aycc-nbh7289 Pretty sure he meant Cajun French though. No one's worried about standard French going extinct lol
@@CouchTomato87But with Cajun French in danger and with few speakers of it, we may need to use existing standards to have any hope of preserving the language at all.
Theres so much wrong about the graph at 0:10 that it hurts.
I genuinely don’t understand how there are so many videos about the history of Louisiana pre-US but they barely ever touch on the creole language or the creole people. Which honestly baffles me because creole used to be the lingua franca of Louisiana And pre-Louisiana purchase creole was the identity of all of the people born in Louisiana. The Cajunization of Louisiana came also with the Americanization, in an effort to separate white creole from black creoles. There are plenty of cajuns that to this day have zero Acadian ancestry and people who literally define creole as black and cajun as white. let’s not rewrite history because Louisiana was already a colony with people living there with a whole culture before the exile of the Acadians
10:00 I’m so confused because you even showed video clips of creoles talking about the creole language and how it functions but it wasnt covered at all
because it's unrealistic for Europeans to care about indeginous who often war against each other. I don't blame them, I'm Asain and even we don't care about the indigenous we colonize. Neither do the Turks or Arabs care. If you care, then you talk about them. It's that simple.
Europeans care about Europeans, which I'm for. I'm Asain, I support Asains. Not hard
It probably happened because the „Fraktur“ font is almost not readable for someone who is not German and even for some of us it is hell to read, but in 4:02, when the covers of the constitutions are shown, the „German variation cover“ is actually the cover of a regular book written in German called „General Butler in New Orleans“. Not to downplay your video, it‘s fantastic, but just to point that out and to clear things up for people who might wonder about that.
Finally a video on this topic! If you go even further back to the late 1800s and early 1900s it's estimated over 70% of Louisiana spoke French. The decline happened because the state banned French and used the same methods on French Louisianians it did on the Natives: Beat the French out of them, literally. So many children got corporal punishment for speaking French, the state purposely brought in English-only speakers and it just went down from there. The ban on teaching French only ended in the 70s.
Fun fact : Ontario and Louisiana banned french at the exact same time. Coordination 😎
@@borisguillen31
Wait, do you mean the teaching of French that happened in 1912 that was later lifted in 1927?
Acadia also included PEI, New Brunswick and, as someone already stated, part of Maine. Also, the Acadians did pledge allegiance to the Crown. But the crown didn't trust their new subjects, thinking that, in a futurewar with France, they will support their cousins from Quebec.
Can you do videos on other American dialects, my favorite is Wisconsin German it’s extinct tho
"UNT FGOM VISCONSAN"
Acadian French from New Brunswick here. thanks for this video ❤️
My family is Acadian from Nova Scotia . My great grandmother was the last to speak French I believe
A mon humble avis, On ne peut défendre une langue dans une autre langue. Lorsque les cajuns promeuvent leur héritage sur un site informatique.. en anglais, il y a quelque chose qui ne va pas. Osez le français.
Mate, you haven't mentioned at all that Lusiana belonged to Spain before the Luisiana Purchase. Indeed, street names in New Orleans are written in Spanish, relfecting its Spanish past!
True, Louisiana was part of the Spanish Empire from 1762 to 1801 following Spain's acquisition of it after the 7 Years War. It then became part of France before America bought it.
Louisiana can't save itself let alone a language.
I as someone from Louisiana, will Keep our culture alive.
It is sad, but, Too little, too late.
Louisiana PES has chronic issues teaching basics. Not a chance they’d be able to approve a Quebec style dual-lingual system when math is a greater indicator of success.
Then there’s the principle of all foreign language courses: Use it or lose it. you’d have to have plentiful access to French animated and regular shows, and books in stores and still remain profitable. You’d likely have to make the internet domain of Louisiana French so that they were daily encouraged to type in French and hang out on French chat-boards. You’d need to speak French in public. They’ll never get back what they lost.
I mean, the state government could have encouraged the transmission of French language programming from all francophone countries throughout the 20th century, first via radio, then television, and obviously nowadays via the internet.
But, yeah, that stuff ain't going to reverse all of that unless the state pushes French as the sole language in the areas that have the most speakers of it. Because, it'll be harder to convert those who don't have francophone households, but it'll be easier to fortify what already exists!
However, that's still difficult! Those people would still interact with the rest and even if all government services were in French that doesn't mean private businesses will. The best that could be hoped for would be bilingual signage and the attempt to import products from Canada that will be in English and French.
But, even what I mentioned isn't even being attempted!
The solution is easy. Give Louisiana to the Belle Province.
@@simix6915
They would never take it! It'll mean too many anglophones to deal with.
@OpinionesDieJACCsOpinions
I think is possible again.
I explain. I borned in quebec. I speak french and english.
But... if you see quebec story.
Et là, je parle français.
Le Québec n'a pas vus son français sur le déclin jusqu'à la révolution industrielle. A ce moment là, avec toute les mesures d'assimilation de l'époque. Le français aurait pus etre perdu si les reformes des années 60 (révolution tranquille) n'avaient pas eu lieu. (Lois 101, qui est détesté par le reste du canada)
Et encore là, ce ne fut pas gagné. Le Québec a se battre pendant longtemps pour revenir a un bon niveau. Et ça continue aujourd'hui avec les vagues migratoires actuel.
So, i think is not the end for french in louisiana. I know they love her heritages. Do, good luck.
@@shadowsensei9040
Louisiana lost its francophone majority back in the 19th century. The reforms that Quebec did in the 60s would have had to be done in the late 1800s to early 1900s for it to have any positive effects.
Today the best that could be hoped for is protecting Acadiana by implementing what is constitutionally possible in the United States. Commercial signage is protected by the first amendment, so having french predominantly in the streets can't be done here like it can be done in Canada.
Even implementing something like what Ontario has done with the French Services Act would be preferable, but even this isn't what Louisiana has been doing!
I don't know French at all, I used a translator to understand what you were saying.
Thank you , french is a very beautiful language
I’m French Canadien and remember I went to the US with my school when I was younger and was speaking French with my classmates - some older gentleman came up to us and asked if we were speaking French, he was so happy to speak to us and told us that he went to school in French as a child but that it was so rare to find Francophones nowadays. This was Salem.
C'est un immense honneur que vous nous rendez en voulant sauver la langue française dans cet état des USA....