The Thing About Regional With Louisiana Cajun French

       People are always ready to put a label on something, especially if it is something they do not understand.  Then there are the sorted few, a handful or so, that refuse to believe anything other than their belief that grandparents knew the language forwards and backwards. 

     Of course, if it's not your grandparents you can understand and comprehend that many people did not receive education in French here in Louisiana for over 40 or 50 years, and that began around 1910, for some a bit earlier. That created a huge gap in the knowledge of the language. 

       Only the few whose parents were able to send them to New Orleans to be educated in French, or the few rich who were sent to France to be educated actually received education in the language. 

       My grandfather, for example, was very fortunate that his grandfather was well educated in French and knew the language well. That gave me an edge on the language, although I never knew my great, great grandfather. 

       What really harmed the language more than anything was the punishing of students for speaking French in school. French was not allowed to be spoken on any public school campus in Louisiana and many students were severely punished; and some were actually beaten or ridiculed for speaking Louisiana Cajun French. The practice, which occurred from the 1930s to the early 1960s, actually caused a gap in several generations who were not taught French at home. This practice crippled the language. Now the schools want to give a rebirth to the language. The bad thing is that it is not Louisiana Cajun French, it is not the French of old. 

       regionalism

      There are several things that cause true regionalism in the language. One was the presence of other cultures such as Native Americans, Spanish, Italians, African, etc. Many picked up words of other cultures and applied it to the French. One example is the word Chaoui for Raccoon. Many standard French teachers frown on such words but adapting words from the American Indians has been done in many languages including English. The English borrowed the word for Raccoon from Native Americans. One of the reasons for that is that the raccoon is native to North America and does not exist in other parts of the world unless they were imported there.

       The original Acadian community was composed mainly of farmers and fishermen who were able to provide their children with a reasonable amount of schooling. However, the hardships after being exiled from Nova Scotia, along with the difficult process of resettlement in Louisiana and the ensuing poverty, made it difficult to establish schools in the early stages of the community’s development. Eventually schools were established, as private academies whose faculty had recently arrived in Louisiana from France or who had been educated in France. Children were usually able to attend the schools only long enough to learn counting and reading. At the time, a standard part of a child’s education in the Cajun community was also the Catholic catechism, which was taught in French by an older member of the community. The Cajuns of old always made sure that their children knew their catechism, their prayers, etc. The educational system did not allow for much contact with Standard French. However, it should be noted that up to about 1890 Louisiana French was up to par with Standard French of that time. 

       boucaner (to smoke, as in to smoke meat) is a word that is native to Louisiana. It is not used in France and is not part of Standard French. The word boucanière, (smokehouse) is also native to Louisiana French. The word comes from the Tupi language which is native to Brazil. The Tupi language is now extinct but this word lives on in Louisiana French.

      Also, words from the French that have more than one definition in one area, different than another area,  are sometimes localized and considered to be regional.  Sometimes words are regional due to a lack of education of how the word was used , and sometimes it is due to a word having more than one definition.  There are certain words that are regionalized due to slang  giving local words a sexual connotation.