re: How French was almost decimated and efforts to save it in Louisiana

While in undergraduate school in FLA, I worked summers off shore from Louisiana as a roughneck on oil rigs for 1-3 weeks on, 1week off in the early 70's. There was not a word spoken in English (sometimes broken English). It felt like I was in a foreign country. The booray games they played were very emotional and loud.

Reading a book now ('Frenchie') detailing how the Cajuns in WWII were bilingual and greatly helped our troops in France communicate with the locals. The Cajuns were given special treatment by our armed services Brass.

My paternal grandmother spoke only French until she went to school in Avoyelles Parish. She could speak it fluently when she passed but that was in the 70's. I had plenty of relatives who could speak it when I was a kid, don't have any that can speak it any longer, at least that I know.

I remember my grandmother and her sister speaking French. But only when they didn’t want us to understand what they were saying.

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I love her and I love her more for saying "The Kings Language"

We dont bow to a king. I like her mentality.

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Me, too. She was born in 1878. My grandmother was her youngest child and my mother was her youngest. They both lived to 100.

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There was never a vote to make German the official language of the United States. For that matter there was never a vote to make English our official language. The fact is that there is no official language of the United States.

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I definitely think my high school German (American-born of Hungarian descent) teacher propagated that theory anyway. But yes, I believe you are correct, sir.

LINK

Interesting nonetheless.

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The teachers killed her for being left handed?

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Killed her------no, but she would get the occasional scolding and just a couple times got slapped on the hand with a ruler. That crap ended when our mom went to the school and raised enough hell for it to never happen again.

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Looking back it was beyond stupid for any high schools to be teaching anything outside of spanish or making them retake English.

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I hear ya. My local high school offered German but not Spanish. I think it was because TOPS required foreign language classes and they already had a teacher on staff who spoke German so they just ahead and started offering German due to the influx of students looking to take foreign language classes.

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Me, too. She was born in 1878. My grandmother was her youngest child and my mother was her youngest. They both lived to 100.

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Talk about rare.

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My parents went to France in the 70's and said they managed with their Cajun fairly well.

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did they go on that trip where EWE chartered a 747? or was that in the early 80s?

I was born in Marerro and grew up there for a little while until we moved to Lafayette when I was in 3rd grade.

My grandparents and great uncles / aunts all spoke Cajun French fluently amongst themselves especially at bourre games but didn’t pass it down to my parents or us grandkids.

My paw paw was from Lockport and used to run trap lines with my great uncle to help the family make ends meet. They actually used to paddle down the bayou in a pirogue to the boat stop to go to school. He fought in Pattons army during WWII and would shoot deer to give to the civilians in France with whom he could converse easily. His mom who was in her 90s when I was a little kid didn’t speak English at all, only French.

I so regret not learning but we moved away and several visits a year wasn’t enough exposure to ask them to teach me.

My wife was a Thibodeaux and her grandpa also spoke Cajun French but didn’t teach them either.

It really sucks that it hasn’t been passed down more than it was.

I took French in high school and for 3 semesters at USL. The last one was French literature and we had to read classic French novels in French and write plot analysis book reports in French.

And I still can’t speak it, that’s not how you learn to make it stick. You have to have someone to use it with.


When I get too old to fish and hunt maybe I’ll try to find some old fricks if there are any left here in Erath or over in Pierre Part if I have to go way over there to teach me and play cards and tell stories.