How Louisiana Plans To Save Their French

How Louisiana Plans To Save Their French

[patrickmiller]

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.

[MarsM]

My parents were forced to kneel for hours on dried corn if they were caught speaking french in school.

[mt]

I'm surprised speaking french was seen as low class. Wasn't the language associated with being educated and rich back in the day?

[revinhatol]

*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.

[hismajesty]

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.

[monrow]

Je suis moitie Quebecois moitie Acadien, j'ai toujours voulu visite mes cousins de Louisianne. Un jour si le seigneur est bon!

[GoldwaveGT]

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!

[The_Beautiful_Ones]

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 😊

[gavindoyle]

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!

[Someguyfromthebeststatela]

As someone from Louisiana I actually have zero French blood (I still want the French culture to still be here)

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.

[chrisalex]

Whats funny is that the US doesnt even have an official language _de jure_

[just_a_turtle_chad]

I feel like governments need to do more about preserving unique cultures from going extinct.

[benedictt.]

As someone with a Cajun background, I wish I had learned French as a kid. I guess it's never too late to learn

[robertwaguespack]

Je suis de Louisiana et je suis fier d'etre Acadien.

[loumcast]

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.

[ThomasSselate]

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

[guillaumedumont]

Acadia is not just Nova Scotia, it also is New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Maine . :)

[tototomato]

I Hope than our cousines of Louisiana will keep their culture 🇫🇷

[archimade]

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 😊