![]() ![]() Once Louisiana was admitted as the 18 th state of the Union in 1812, one would have expected English to prevail, but in fact Louisiana's francophone populace remained the prime political mover and state statutes were resolutely French-oriented.ģThat this remained the case until the mid-nineteenth century was due to the historical and political importance of the established francophone merchant families of New Orleans - the Creoles - and the « Cajuns » of southwestern Louisiana.ĤThe white Creoles are descendants of those who established and administered the colony of Louisiana in the name of France in the years after its foundation in 1682, and of the settlers who came to exploit the territory's riches in sugar, cotton and silver, attracted by John Law's Compagnie des Indes after 1717.ĥIn the nineteenth century they were merchants in New Orleans or owners of vast plantations along the Mississippi River towards Baton Rouge, and as such had an important say both in the state's economy and its lingua franca.ĦMore colonists arrived in the early 1720s to swell the population of the newly-founded city of New Orleans, at the same time as thousands of black slaves who, little by little, came to boost the francophone ranks by learning the French of their masters. So why does the myth persist ? Why does everyone equate Louisiana and the French language ? One reason, perhaps, is that the use of French has withstood all manner of attack from the outside it survived the entire period of Spanish rule until the end of the Civil War in 1865. Nevertheless, the idea remains that Louisiana is a « French » state.ĢYet Louisiana was only « French », in the fullest sense of the word - linguistically and politically - from 1682 until 1763, that is to say a period of eighty-one years. By the 1930s, the offshore oil industry had caused anglo immigration to penetrate even the most fiercely francophone areas of the state : the result was the gradual breakdown of the French language. The language is an important part of Cape Verdean cultural identity and has a rich oral and literary tradition, with poetry, music and folktales.1 La langue française fut le parler d'usage en Louisiane until the arrival of the Carpet Baggers and their Yankee Constitution in 1868 established an anglophone bridgehead on which future generations were quick to build. ![]() The language is written primarily with the Latin alphabet, but there are also some Creole forms of writing, which use their own spellings for words.Ĭape Verdean Creole is a vibrant and expressive language that is used in all aspects of daily life in the country, from communication between friends and family to the media and literature. The language developed from the interaction between enslaved Africans and Portuguese settlers, and evolved over the centuries with the influence of other languages and cultures, such as English, French, and Dutch.Ĭurrently, there are different varieties of Cape Verdean Creole, which vary according to the island and region of the country. It originated from the mixture of Portuguese with African languages, mainly Mandinka, Wolof and Creole Guinean. It is the mother tongue of the majority of the Cape Verdean population and is considered the national language of the country, along with Portuguese. ![]() Cape Verdean Creole is a Creole language spoken in Cape Verde, a group of islands located off the west coast of Africa. ![]()
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