re: When did the french language become obsolete in Acadiana

Good question. I don't know why.

I live next door in Evangeline Parish. I'm in my mid-50's, and graduated high school in the late 70's, 1978 to be exact. In other words, I am a late Baby Boomer, born in 1960.

This area is traditionally as Cajun as you can get. As I mentioned earlier, my parents spoke French (my Dad spoke it much more than my Mom), and the parents of most of my friends and classmates spoke French. In day to day conversation they spoke either language as much as the other, but when they spoke of things they didn't want us kids to know about, they spoke French. They did not teach it to us in conversation.

I can count on one hand the number of my classmates who were taught conversational French by their parents. I can recall two classmates who spoke it fluently, and a couple more who were near fluent. That is all. This is from a high school graduation class of about 75 people, and I am pretty certain it was like this across our parish.

When I was in 6th grade we received a young teacher from Belgium, hired by CODOFIL to teach us French. She did a good job, but it was not enough. We were not immersed in it.

The death of Cajun French began in the early part of the 20th Century (from the 20's to the 30's), when the education system punished our parents, not in the 1980s or 1990s.

LC

quote:

---

i have never understood the french fetish

---

Fetish? It's a culture, not a fetish.

LC

All of my grandparents spoke it, but neither of my parents ever learned. I think some of the older uncles and aunts on my mom side speak a little, but it didn't make it to their children.