IN THE FRENCH OF THE POINTE-AU-CHIEN INDIANS


 1
 LANGUAGE DEATH AND STYLISTIC VARIATION : AN INTERGENERATIONAL STUDY OF THE SUBSTITUTION OF /h/ FOR /¹/ IN THE FRENCH OF THE POINTE-AU-CHIEN INDI...
Author: Richard Goodwin
7 downloads 0 Views 2MB Size


1
 LANGUAGE DEATH AND STYLISTIC VARIATION : AN INTERGENERATIONAL STUDY OF THE SUBSTITUTION OF /h/ FOR /¹/ IN THE FRENCH OF THE POINTE-AU-CHIEN INDIANS

A THESIS SUBMITTED ON THE TWENTY-EIGHTH DAY OF MARCH 2008 TO THE DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE SCHOOL OF LIBERAL ARTS OF TULANE UNIVERSITY FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS BY ___________________________ Katie Carmichael 
 
 
 
 APPROVED:________________________ Thomas Klingler, Ph.D. Director _______________________ Judith Maxwell, Ph.D. _______________________ Olanike Ola Orie, Ph.D. 




2


Abstract
 Within
Louisiana,
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
is
a
particularity
of
the
French
 spoken
in
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes.

For
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians,
 most
of
whom
are
based
in
this
area,
/h/
is
a
stable
variant
of
the
phoneme
/¹/,
and
 the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
occurs
without
phonological
constraints.

Thus
the
 word
jamais,
“never,”
could
be
pronounced
variably
/hame/
or
/¹ame/
by
the
same
 speaker
in
the
same
phonological
context.

This
intergenerational
study
looks
at
the
 variables
that
affect
this
phonetic
choice,
in
particular
focusing
on
gender
and
 attention
to
speech.

The
data
from
three
sub‐groups
of
speakers
(older
fluent
 speakers,
younger
fluent
speakers,
and
semi‐speakers)
were
compared
in
order
to
 see
how
the
social
meaning
of
this
variation
has
changed
as
use
of
the
French
 language
declines
in
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
community.

The
Introduction
looks
 at
the
vitality
of
the
French
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians,
comparing
this
work
 with
other
studies
of
language
death.

Chapter
One
provides
a
socio‐historical
look
 at
French
in
Louisiana,
while
Chapter
Two
offers
a
socio‐historical
description
of
 Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
Louisiana
and
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians.

A
description
the
 French
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
is
given
in
Chapter
Three.

In
Chapter
Four,
 the
methodology
of
this
study
is
laid
out,
and
issues
from
the
field
are
addressed.

 An
analysis
of
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
within
older
fluent
speakers
is
 provided
in
Chapter
Five.

Chapter
Six
offers
an
analysis
of
this
variation
within
the
 speech
of
younger
fluent
speakers,
and
in
Chapter
Seven,
the
substitution
of
h/
for
 /¹/
is
examined
within
the
speech
of
semi‐speakers.

Chapter
Eight
summarizes
the
 findings
of
this
study
and
draws
some
conclusions.




3


Acknowledgements
 
 Very
few
students
are
as
lucky
as
I
have
been
to
have
so
many
people
 committed
to
their
success
as
a
researcher.

This
thesis
could
not
have
happened
 without
the
help
of
my
director,
Thomas
Klingler,
and
my
other
committee
members
 Judith
Maxwell
and
Olanike
Ola
Orie.

Their
interest
in
and
support
for
my
work
was
 truly
inspirational,
and
kept
me
going
in
the
face
of
the
many
difficulties
I
 encountered
in
the
course
of
my
research.

It
has
been
quite
a
journey
and
I
could
 not
have
asked
for
better
advisors
to
steer
me
through.
 


I
must
also
thank
Nathalie
Dajko
for
being
such
a
wonderful
partner
in
crime


especially
during
fieldwork,
but
also
for
providing
help
and
guidance
after
the
data
 had
been
collected.

Through
all
the
trips
down
da
bayou,
all
the
phone
calls
 requesting
advice,
all
the
working
lunches/dinners,
Nathalie
never
once
 complained,
and
I
hope
I
can
some
day
provide
the
same
service
for
her.

I
wish
her
 the
best
on
her
dissertation
work,
and
if
she
ever
needs
anything
in
the
course
of
 her
writing,
I
hope
she
knows
she
has
got
some
favors
to
cash
in.
 


My
other
partner
in
crime,
Rocky
McKeon,
could
not
have
possibly
provided


more
entertainment
for
the
long
drives
up
and
down
the
bayou.

Between
the
 remixes
of
rap
songs
set
to
Cajun
music
(and
vice
versa)
and
the
little
white
sock
he
 carried
around
in
case
there
was
an
opportunity
to
film
an
episode
of
LeChausson
 Show,
Rocky
definitely
deserves
thanks
for
making
our
adventures
in
fieldwork
one
 of
the
most
fun
aspects
of
performing
this
study.

Also
thanks
to
Rocky
for
checking




4


transcripts
for
me
whenever
I
had
a
question,
and
for
providing
me
with
a
well‐ informed
local
opinion
on
the
French
of
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes.
 


I
would
also
like
to
thank
Emily
Vernon,
whose
guidance
in
performing
the


statistical
analyses
on
these
data
was
incredibly
helpful;
I
can
honestly
say
that
I
 could
not
have
done
it
without
her.

Emily
is
a
truly
talented
linguist
and
it
has
been
 such
a
pleasure
to
discuss
my
work
with
one
of
my
oldest
childhood
friends,
who
 has
given
me
excellent
insight
on
this
project
and
others.


 


Of
course,
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
themselves
surely
deserve
thanks
for


giving
up
their
time
to
speak
with
me.

I
could
not
have
asked
for
a
more
welcoming,
 kind
group
of
people
to
work
with
for
this
study,
and
I
hope
to
return
to
Pointe‐Aux‐ Chênes
and
visit
often.

I
would
like
to
thank
Earl
and
Brenda
Billiot,
Emary
and
 Laurencia
Billiot,
Jake
and
Esther
Billiot,
Teddy
Billiot,
Michelle
Billiot
Matherne,
 Emily
Billiot
Pitre,
Melissa
Billiot
Viguerie,
Chris
Brunet,
Donald
and
Theresa
 Dardar,
Sam
and
Nazia
Dardar,
Terry
Dardar,
Terry
Dardar,
Annie
Hutchinson,
Terry
 LeBlanc,
Zelma
Lecompte,
Angel
Lyons,
Connelly
Naquin,
Keith
Naquin,
Lester
 Naquin,
Roy
Naquin,
Russell
Naquin,
Sandra
‘Cookie’
Naquin,
Shawn
Naquin,
 Veronica
Naquin,
JoAnna
Plaisance,
Carol,
Allison,
and
Leo
Rodriguez,
Lisa
Trahan,
 Brian
Verdin,
Carl
and
Melinda
Verdin,
Chuckie
Verdin,
Cleveland
Verdin,
Earlene
 Verdin,
Early
Verdin,
jr.,
John
and
Bernita
Verdin,
Juanita
Verdin,
Mary
Verdin,
 Patrick
Verdin,
Vinus
and
Betty
Verdin,
Wickliff
Verdin,
and
Sheila
Verdin
Bourgeois.

 I
really
enjoyed
speaking
with
everyone
and
I
look
forward
to
future
 conversations—with
or
without
a
tape
recorder
present.



 


5
 A
research
grant
from
the
Conseil
de
la
Vie
Française
en
Amérique
(CVFA)


helped
to
fund
trips
to
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
for
data
collection;
I
was
very
grateful
for
 these
funds,
which
allowed
me
to
take
several
extra
trips
to
complete
more
 interviews.


 


Finally,
I
would
like
to
thank
my
family
and
friends,
who
have
been
so


supportive
throughout
this
year.

I
don’t
know
what
I
would
do
with
out
the
 patience
and
understanding
of
my
friends
and
my
family,
who
listened
to
my
long‐ winded
explanations
about
this
project
and
even
feigned
interest
at
times!

Thanks
 for
believing
in
me,
because
that
has
meant
everything
to
me.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




6
 Table
of
Contents
 


Introduction
–
Language
Death
and
Dialect
Contraction…………………………………1
 Chapter
1
–
A
Socio­Historical
Look
at
French
in
Louisiana…………………………..10
 Chapter
2
–
A
Socio­Historical
Look
at
Pointe­Aux­Chênes,
Louisiana

 and
the
Pointe­Au­Chien
Indian
Tribe………………………………………………..20
 Chapter
3
–
Linguistic
Description
of
PACIT
French………………………………………40
 Chapter
4
–
Fieldwork
and
Methodology……………………………………………………….58
 Chapter
5
–
Results
:
Older
Fluent
Speakers………………………………………………….75
 Chapter
6
–
Results
:
Younger
Fluent
Speakers……………………………………………..86
 Chapter
7
–
Results
:
Semi­Speakers……………………………………………………………...99
 Chapter
8
–
Conclusions………………………………………………………………………………117
 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………………….128
 
 
 
 
 
 




7
 List
of
Tables



 Table
3.1
:
Conjugation
Chart
for
the
Verb
Aller……………………………………………44
 Table
3.2
:
Pronoun
Table…………………………………………………………………………….49
 Table
4.1
Older
Fluent
Speakers…………………………………………………………………..72
 Table
4.2
Younger
Fluent
Speakers………………………………………………………………73
 Table
4.3
Semi­Speakers……………………………………………………………………………….73
 Table
5.1
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
OFS………………….75
 Table
5.2
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Speech……………………82
 Table
5.3
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Casual
Speech………..83
 Table
5.4
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Careful
Speech……….85
 Table
6.1
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
YFS………………….88
 Table
6.2
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of

 /h/­substituting
YFS…………………………………………………………………………..94
 Table
7.1
:
/h/­Substitution,
Je­dropping,
and
Left
Dislocation
of
Mon
 Percentages
within
Translation
Sentences
for
Three
Semi­ Speakers…………………………………………………………………………………………...112
 Table
7.2
:
SS1’s
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech………………….113




8
 List
of
Figures
 


Figure
1.1
Map
of
Colonies
in
the
New
World………………………………………………..11
 Figure
1.2
Map
of
Acadia……………………………………………………………………………….12
 Figure
2.1
:
Map
of
the
Region
Surrounding
the
Town
of
Pointe­Aux
 Chênes………………………………………………………………………………………………..21
 Figure
2.2
Land
Loss
on
Southern
Louisiana
Coastline
1853­1978……………….26
 Figure
3.1
:
Distribution
Map
for
the
Substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
and
/ß/
in
 Saintonge……………………………………………………………………………………………54
 Figure
5.1
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
OFS………………..76
 Figure
5.2
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Speech…………………..82
 Figure
5.3
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Casual
Speech……….83
 Figure
6.1
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
YFS…………………88
 Figure
6.2
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
OFS…………………89
 Figure
7.1
:
SS1’s
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech…………………114
 Figure
7.2
:
OFS
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech…………………..115
 




9


Introduction
–
Language
Death
and
Dialect
Contraction
 
 YFS4:
il
y
a
plus
espoir
dans
le
français
parce
que…c’est
comme
nous­autres,
on
a
 pas
montré
notres
zenfants
à
parler
français
et
là
eusse
va
pas
montré
à
leurs
 zenfants
à
eusse,
ça
fait
ça
venait…eusse
perde
le
français
 ‘There
is
no
more
hope
in
French
because…it’s
like
us,
we
didn’t
teach
our
 children
to
speak
French
and
so
they
won’t
teach
their
own
children,
so
it’s
 becoming…they
are
losing
the
French.’
 
 Depending
on
the
source
one
consults,
there
are
currently
anywhere
from
5001
to
 30002
endangered
languages
in
the
world.

But
what
exactly
does
language
 endangerment
mean,
and
how
does
a
language
become
endangered?

There
are
 many
different
ways
a
language
can
die
out,
but
a
language
becomes
endangered
 when,
for
whatever
reason,
it
loses
speakers
without
gaining
any
in
return.

 Campbell
and
Muntzel
(1989)
lay
out
several
types
of
language
death
situations
:
 Sudden
Death
:
“The
case
where
a
language
abruptly
disappears
because
 almost
all
of
its
speakers
suddenly
die
or
are
killed”
(p
182)
 Radical
Death
:
“Language
loss
is
rapid
and
usually
due
to
severe
political
 repression,
often
with
genocide,
to
the
extent
that
speakers
stop
speaking
the
 language
out
of
selfdefense
[sic],
a
survival
strategy.”
(p
183)
 Gradual
Death
:
“The
loss
of
a
language
due
to
gradual
shift
to
the
dominant
 language
in
language‐contact
situations.”
(pp
184‐185)
 Bottom­to­top
Death
:
Dubbed
the
“Latinate
pattern,”
in
which
the
language
 is
first
lost
in
contexts
of
family
intimacy
but
is
retained
for
religious
or
ritual
 ceremonies.

 
 























































 1
According
to
the
Ethnologue
:
http://www.ethnologue.com

 2
According
to
UNESCO
:
http://www.unesco.org/





10


Of
these,
the
most
common,
and
the
most
commonly
studied,
is
gradual
language
 death.

Often
this
is
the
linguistic
situation
that
results
from
colonization,
as
the
 colonized
population
shifts
to
the
ruling
language
either
because
of
higher
prestige,
 more
opportunity,
or
outright
need
to
speak
the
language
in
order
to
perform
one’s
 daily
work.

With
gradual
language
death,
there
is
often
a
bilingual
generation
of
 speakers
that
‘transitions’
to
the
dominant
language,
speaking
to
their
children
only
 in
the
dominant
language.

As
Denison
(1977
:
21)
puts
it,
 …
there
comes
a
point
when
multilingual
parents
no
longer
consider
it
 necessary
or
worthwhile
for
the
future
of
their
children
to
communicate
with
 them
in
a
low‐prestige
language
variety,
and
when
children
are
no
longer
 motivated
to
acquire
active
competence
in
a
language
which
is
lacking
in
 positive
connotations
such
as
youth,
modernity,
technical
skills,
material
 success,
education.
The
languages
at
the
lower
end
of
the
prestige
scale
 retreat
from
ever
increasing
areas
of
their
earlier
functional
domains,
 displaced
by
higher
prestige
languages,
until
there
is
nothing
left
for
them
 appropriately
to
be
used
about.
In
this
sense
they
may
be
said
to
commit
 suicide
[his
emphasis]
 
 Although
Denison’s
expression
of
language
suicide
appears
to
put
the
blame
on
the
 speakers
of
the
minority
language,
it
becomes
clear
from
his
description
that
there
 are
many
factors
that
lead
to
the
death
of
a
language.

These
factors
can
be
internal,
 such
as
a
community’s
negative
attitude
towards
the
language,
or
external,
such
as
 military,
economic,
religious,
cultural,
or
educational
subjugation
by
a
dominant
 group
(Brenzinger
et
al
2003);
often
language
death
results
from
a
combination
of
 these
two
types
of
factors.
 In
some
cases
of
language
death,
as
the
language
loses
domains
(that
is,
 different
areas
of
life
in
which
the
language
is
used,
such
as
church,
school,
work,




11


home,
etc.)
it
undergoes
a
large
amount
of
leveling
and
simplification
of
linguistic
 structure.

For
this
reason,
studying
languages
in
decline
can
show
linguists
“the
 non‐essential
features
of
a
language
that
tend
to
be
eliminated
when
a
language
 undergoes
reduction
and
contraction”
(Rottet
1995
:
3),
as
well
as
the
features
that
 are
much
more
resistant
to
change.

As
a
language
loses
speakers
and
domains
it
 begins
to
change
rapidly,
even
within
the
lifespan
of
a
single
speaker.

Because
of
 this
accelerated
rate
of
change,
declining
languages
offer
insight
to
language
change
 as
a
whole.




 The
language
at
the
focus
of
this
study,
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe
(PACIT)
 French,
a
variety
of
Louisiana
Regional
French
spoken
by
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
 Indian
Tribe,
is
undergoing
gradual
language
death.

A
language
such
as
PACIT
 French
becomes
endangered
when
it
is
no
longer
a
valued
vehicle
of
communication
 for
its
speakers,
who
have
opted
for
the
dominant
language,
which
is
in
this
case
 English.

PACIT
French
provides
an
interesting
instance
of
language
death,
because
 the
French
language
as
a
whole
is
in
fact
very
healthy,
with
active
speech
 communities
located
in
Europe,
parts
of
Canada,
the
Caribbean,
and
Africa.

 However,
the
variety
of
French
spoken
by
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians,
which
has
 equally
endangered
sister
dialects
within
Louisiana
and
in
Acadia,
is
facing
the
 threat
of
extinction.

For
this
reason,
it
may
be
more
appropriate
to
call
the
situation
 ‘dialect
contraction’
than
‘language
death,’
although
the
general
process
remains
the
 same.

Dialect
contraction
can
occur
when
“an
enclave
dialect
that
is
cut
off
from
 contact
with
the
source
language
finds
itself
beleaguered
by
the
presence
of
an
 altogether
different,
dominant
language…this
is
the
situation
of
French
in
South




12


Louisiana.”
(Picone
1997
:
117)
Although
enclave
dialect
contraction
does
not
result
 in
the
death
of
an
entire
language,
it
does
result
in
the
death
of
a
particular
variety
 of
a
certain
language—a
variety
that
was
once
valuable
to
a
certain
group
of
 speakers
for
cultural
self‐identification
and
expression.

In
fact,
enclave
dialect
 contraction
provides
a
particularly
interesting
case
for
linguistic
study,
since
the
 changes
the
language
goes
through
can
be
looked
at
in
comparison
to
other
healthy
 varieties
of
the
language
in
order
to
differentiate
natural
processes
in
the
language
 from
symptoms
of
language
death.


 As
Picone
(1997)
makes
clear,
all
dialects
of
French
spoken
in
Louisiana
have
 become
endangered
as
the
younger
generation
of
potential
speakers
are
more
often
 than
not
raised
as
monolingual
English
speakers.

There
are
several
reasons
for
this
 shift
to
English,
one
of
which
being
that
French
has
become
a
highly
stigmatized
 language
within
the
state
of
Louisiana
over
the
past
two
centuries
(this
fact
will
be
 elaborated
upon
in
Chapter
One).

Because
of
the
stigmatization
many
older
 speakers
faced
as
children,
they
chose
not
to
pass
the
language
on
to
their
own
 children
in
an
effort
to
spare
them
the
strife
of
speaking
such
a
low‐prestige
 minority
language
in
an
English‐dominant
area.

The
few
members
of
the
younger
 generation
who
do
in
fact
speak
PACIT
French
explained
that
many
felt
 embarrassed
to
speak
the
language,
which
is
looked
at
by
some
as
backwards
and
 rural.

 YFS7
:
I
notice
some
people,
they
get,
like,
shy,
you
know,
to
speak
different
 when
you’re
in
public,
and
to
me
it’s
nothing,
you
know,
like,
we
talk
to
each
 other,
me
and
(BROTHER),
me
and
(BROTHER),
in
our
family
we
talk,
like,
 French,
and
it
don’t
matter
where
we’re
at,
it
don’t
matter




13
 KC
:
But
some
people
don’t
like
to
talk
French
in
public?
 YFS7
:
I
find
[that
to
be
the
case].

I
find
[that
to
be
the
case].

I
notice
that.

 Unless—
 YFS7’s
Brother
:
I
guess
cause
they
think,
they
think
that
it’s
a
lower
level
of
 speaking,
that’s
why
 KC
:
Is
it
older
people
that
think
that,
or
younger?
 YFS7
:
younger
 YFS7’s
Brother
:
younger
 YFS7
:
younger,
yeah
 YFS7’s
Brother
:
probably
our
age
[thirties]
 


This
negative
attitude
towards
the
French
language,
especially
within
the
younger
 generation,
is
one
of
the
reasons
the
number
of
speakers
of
PACIT
French
has
been
 on
the
decline.

This
excerpt
also
shows
how
the
language
is
losing
domains,
as
it
is
 relegated
to
non‐public
places
such
as
one’s
home,
or
the
home
of
a
PACIT
French‐ speaking
neighbor
or
relative.

As
one
speaker
further
explained,
people
don’t
think
 that
the
language
is
particularly
elegant‐sounding,
and
they
don’t
want
to
be
heard
 speaking
it,
so
they
don’t
feel
the
need
to
pass
on
such
a
language
to
their
children.
 YFS3
:
je
crois
que
c’est
le
monde
a
peur
de
parler
toujours
en
français.

Parce
 que
eusse
crois
pas
que
c’est…je
pense,
c’est
joli,
je
pense,
plein.

Et
je
pense
c’est
 un
autre
[langage]
qui
est
plus
dur
de
apprendre.

Et
eusse
a
juste
pas
le
temps
 d’être
l’après
faire
en
nanglais
et
en
français
…pour
faire
comprendre
le
 français,
je
pense.

C’est
pour
ça
que
je
parle
pas
avec
mes
petits,
je
pense.
 ‘I
think
[the
reason
PACIT
French
is
dying
is]
that
people
are
afraid
to
 still
speak
in
French.

Because
they
don’t
think
it’s…I
think,
that
it’s
 pretty,
I
think,
really.

And
I
think
it’s
another
language
that
is
harder
 to
learn.

And
they
just
don’t
have
the
time
do
be
doing
[everything]
in
 English
and
in
French…to
make
[their
children]
understand
French,
I
 think.

That’s
why
I
don’t
speak
with
my
kids,
I
think.’
 




14


Many
speakers
stated
that
they
did
not
have
the
time
to
pass
on
French
to
their
 children,
claiming
that
raising
their
children
bilingually
would
just
add
to
their
 workload.

YFS3
in
particular
cites
French
as
another
language
to
teach
their
 children,
in
addition
to
English.

Pye
(1992
:
77)
expressed
the
same
situation
 occurring
in
the
Chilcotin
speech
community,
writing
that
“Chilcotin
parents
seem
 to
have
come
to
view
their
own
children
as
native
speakers
of
English
who
must
be
 ‘taught’
Chilcotin.”

One
of
the
main
factors
leading
to
the
decline
of
PACIT
French
is
 the
fact
that
school
is
in
English.

YFS3
explained
that
in
order
for
her
children
to
do
 well
in
school,
they
must
understand
everything
in
English
first,
once
again
 relegating
PACIT
French
to
a
second
language
to
be
taught
if
there
is
extra
time.
 YFS3
:
et
là,
c’est
assez
dur
avec
l’école
pour
être
après
essayer
les
montrer
un
 autre
[langage]
parce
que
c’est—il
faut
que
tu
l’as
fait
comprendre
les
affaires
 en
nanglais
pour
être
après
essayer
de
les
montrer
les
affaires
en
français
 ‘and
then,
it’s
hard
enough
with
school
to
be
trying
to
teach
them
 another
[language]
because
it’s—you’ve
got
to
make
them
understand
 things
in
English
before
you
can
be
trying
to
teach
them
things
in
 French.’
 
 More
than
one
PACIT
French
speaker
explained
that
once
their
children
got
a
grasp
 on
English,
they
would
begin
‘teaching’
them
French.

Some
of
the
speakers
that
 made
this
claim
had
children
that
were
already
in
middle
school,
well
past
the
 critical
period
during
which
they
would
acquire
PACIT
French
as
a
native
speaker.


 


One
of
the
most
important
factors
in
judging
level
of
endangerment
of
a


language
is
whether
or
not
the
language
is
being
passed
on
to
the
younger
 generation.

It
is
clear
that
in
the
case
of
PACIT
French,
the
language
is
simply
not




15


spoken
by
the
younger
generation.

However,
there
are
more
factors
than
just
this
 that
add
to
the
possibility
of
a
language’s
extinction.

For
this
reason,
there
have
 been
a
number
of
‘levels
of
endangerment’
developed
by
such
organizations
as
the
 Summer
Institute
of
Linguistics
(SIL)
and
the
United
Nations
Educational,
Scientific
 and
Cultural
Organization
(UNESCO).
The
Summer
Institute
of
Linguistics
 distinguished
the
following
stages
of
language
endangerment
at
a
2000
colloquium
 in
Germany
(Grimes
2001)
:
 • • • • • •

Critically
endangered.
Very
few
speakers
all
70
years
old
and
older,
great‐ grandparent
age.
 Severely
endangered.
Speakers
are
only
40
years
old
and
older,
 grandparent
age.
 Endangered.
Speakers
are
only
20
years
old
and
older,
parent
age.
 Eroding.
Speakers
are
some
children
and
older
people.
Other
children
do
not
 speak
it.
 Stable
but
threatened.
All
children
and
older
people
are
speakers,
but
few
 in
number.
 Safe.
Not
endangered.
Language
expected
to
be
learned
by
all
children
and
all
 others
in
the
ethnic
group.

 


According
to
SIL’s
rating
system,
PACIT
French
is
considered
an
endangered
 language,
since
almost
all
speakers
are
twenty
years
old
and
older.


UNESCO
came
 up
with
a
more
in‐depth
form
of
classification,
setting
out
nine
factors
for
each
of
 which
a
language
can
rate
from
one
to
five,
with
five
representing
the
highest
level
 of
vitality.

PACIT
French’s
rating
for
each
factor
will
be
briefly
summarized
in
order
 to
give
a
better
idea
of
the
linguistic
situation
of
this
endangered
dialect
of
French.
 1. 


Intergenerational
Language
Transmission
:
3

 “The
language
is
no
longer
being
learned
as
the
mother
tongue
by
 children
in
the
home.

The
youngest
speakers
are
thus
of
the
parental
 generation.

At
this
stage,
parents
may
still
speak
their
language
to
 their
children,
but
their
children
do
not
typically
respond
in
the




16
 language.”
(Brenzinger
et
al
2003
:
8)
 2. 


Absolute
Number
of
Speakers
:
2

 Although
it
is
difficult
to
get
exact
numbers
of
speakers,
the
group
of
 PACIT
French
speakers
is
a
very
small,
insular
community
in
which
 speakers
know
almost
everyone
else
in
the
speech
community.

 Languages
with
lower
absolute
populations
of
speakers
are
 considered
at
higher
risk
than
larger
speech
communities.
 3. 


Proportion
of
Speakers
within
the
Total
Population
:
2­3

 For
this
factor,
the
ethnic
population
of
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
is
 taken,
out
of
which
there
is
a
(sizeable)
minority
of
PACIT
French
 speakers,
consisting
of
most
people
over
age
fifty
and
a
number
of
 speakers
aged
twenty
to
fifty.
 4. 


Trends
in
Existing
Language
Domains
:
3

 “The
non‐dominant
language
loses
ground
and,
at
home,
parents
 begin
to
use
the
dominant
language
in
their
everyday
interactions
 with
their
children,
and
children
become
semi­speakers
of
their
own
 language
(receptive
bilinguals).

Parents
and
older
members
of
the
 community
tend
to
be
productively
bilingual
in
the
dominant
and
 indigenous
languages:
they
understand
and
speak
both.

Bilingual
 children
may
exist
in
families
where
the
indigenous
language
is
 actively
used.”
(Brenzinger
et
al
2003
:
10)
 5. 


Response
to
New
Domains
and
Media
:
1­2

 This
factor
refers
to
whether
or
not
the
minority
language
is
 appearing
in
newer
domains
such
as
radio,
television,
and
internet.

 PACIT
French
appears
in
none
of
these
domains,
however
other
local
 varieties
of
French
appear
on
the
radio
and
to
a
certain
extent
on
the
 internet
(especially
after
the
inception
of
www.tvtl.tv
Télévision
 Terrebonne­Lafourche).

 6. 


Materials
for
Language
Education
and
Literacy
:
3

 This
is
a
difficult
category
to
rate,
since
many
children
are
exposed
to
 French
in
school;
however
it
is
not
the
local
variety
of
French.

Picone
 (1997
:
124)
goes
so
far
to
say
that
the
teaching
of
Modern
European
 French
(MEF)
in
Louisiana
schools
“amounts
to
the
promotion
of
an
 external
French
standard
in
Louisiana
rather
than
to
the
preservation
 of
regional
varieties
of
French.”

An
additional
problem
is
that
there
is
 no
accepted
orthography
for
Louisiana
Regional
French
(LRF);
 however
most
frequently
LRF
is
represented
using
MEF
orthography,
 once
again
promoting
the
MEF
standard.
 7. 


Governmental
and
Institutional
Language
Attitudes
and
Policies,
 Including
Official
Status
and
Use
:
4

 As
far
as
this
factor
is
concerned,
PACIT
French
and
other
varieties
of
 Louisiana
French
are
in
theory
well
represented
in
government
by
the
 state‐run
agency
CODOFIL.

Especially
after
the
Cajun
Renaissance
in
 the
1960’s,
Louisiana’s
French
heritage
has
been
capitalized
upon
for
 purposes
of
tourism.

However,
putting
the
language
on
display
as
a
 tourist
attraction
does
not
necessarily
foster
a
positive
language




17
 attitude.

In
her
study
of
Gaelic
speakers
in
Cape
Breton,
Mertz
(1989
:
 110)
stated
that
although
“tourists
were
quite
positive
in
their
 reactions
to
hearing
Gaelic
spoken…the
condescension
inherent
in
 their
view
of
Gaelic
as
quaint
or
charming
could
hardly
have
escaped
 local
residents.”
 
 8. 


Community
Members’
Attitudes
Toward
their
own
Language
:
2


 As
seen
already
in
a
few
quotes
from
speakers
of
PACIT
French,
there
 is
still
a
certain
amount
of
shame
and
embarrassment
about
speaking
 French.

Although
there
are
some
staunch
advocates
of
PACIT
French,
 many
PACIT
French
speakers
expressed
indifference
over
language
 revitalization
and
maintenance
efforts.

 9.


Amount
and
Quality
of
Documentation
:
3


 There
have
been
a
number
of
works,
descriptive
as
well
as
 sociolinguistic
in
nature,
on
French
in
the
region
(Guilbeau
1936,
 1950;
Lecompte
1962;
Papen
and
Rottet
1997;
Oukada
1977;
Rottet
 1995;
Carmichael
2007,
2008).



Based
on
these
quantified
scales
of
endangerment,
it
is
clear
that
PACIT
French
is
in
 danger
of
extinction
within
the
next
few
generations.

 This
study
examines
a
form
of
variation
(the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/)
 within
PACIT
French
as
the
population
of
speakers
and
number
of
domains
in
which
 the
language
is
being
used
are
both
on
the
decline.

In
looking
at
rates
of
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
the
speech
of
older
fluent
speakers,
younger
fluent
 speakers,
and
semi‐speakers
of
PACIT
French,
this
study
adds
to
the
literature
on
 sociolinguistic
and
stylistic
variation
within
endangered
languages,
as
well
as
 adding
to
the
overall
description
of
Louisiana
French.
 
 
 
 




18


1.
A
Socio­Historical
Look
at
French
in
Louisiana
 French
has
not
always
been
an
endangered
language
in
the
state
of
Louisiana;
in
 fact,
for
hundreds
of
years
French
was
the
lingua
franca
in
the
entire
Louisiana
 Territory,
which
stretched
from
Canada
in
the
north
to
the
Mississippi
delta
in
the
 south.

Thus
French
once
played
the
role
of
the
dominant
language,
replacing
the
 indigenous
languages
of
the
region,
just
as
English
is
now
taking
precedence
over
 the
dialects
of
French
spoken
in
the
small
francophone
communities
of
Louisiana.
 Figure
1.1
Map
of
Colonies
in
the
New
World



 The
story
of
French
Louisiana
begins
in
Canada,
which
was
colonized
by
the
 French
starting
in
1605
(Picone
1997
:
145).

This
French
colony
in
Canada
 comprised
Acadia
(present‐day
Nova
Scotia)
and
New
France
(present‐day
Québec),
 with
outposts
extending
to
the
Great
Lakes.

As
seen
in
Figure
1.1,
this
territory
 borders
the
English
colony
to
the
South.

Struggle
with
the
British
colonists
was
part




19


of
the
impetus
for
expansion
into
present‐day
Louisiana,
in
search
of
an
alternate
 route
for
access
to
the
sea.
 French
presence
in
Louisiana
came
by
way
of
the
Mississippi
River,
which
 was
first
navigated
by
French
explorers
in
1673,
when
Louis
Joliet
and
Père
Jacques
 Marquette
made
it
all
the
way
to
the
mouth
of
the
Arkansas,
pursuing
an
outlet
to
 the
Pacific
Ocean.

Explorer
René‐Robert
Cavelier,
sieur
de
La
Salle
would
be
the
 next
French
Canadian
to
sail
the
Mississippi
River,
when
he
made
it
all
the
way
 down
to
the
Gulf
of
Mexico
in
1682.

La
Salle
claimed
the
land
in
the
name
of
the
 French
King
Louis
XIV,
calling
the
territory
‘Louisiana’
in
his
honor
(Rottet
1995
:
 88‐89).
 The
territory
was
settled
by
a
heterogeneous
group
of
francophones
coming
 from
France,
Canada,
and
Haiti,
among
other
countries
and
territories,
bringing
with
 them
various
regional
varieties
of
French
(see
Brasseaux
2005
for
a
more
detailed
 account
of
the
provenance
of
these
settlers).

The
later
arrival
of
the
Acadians
would
 bring
yet
another
variety
of
French
to
the
Louisiana
territory,
which
became
a
 dialectal
and
cultural
melting
pot.
 As
mentioned,
Acadia
was
part
of
the
French
colony
in
Canada,
mostly
settled
 by
French
farmers
from
the
Centre‐Ouest
region
of
France
(Poitou,
Aunis,
Saintonge,
 Angoumois,
Anjou,
Berry,
and
the
Touraine)
and
the
Northern
provinces
(Brittany,
 Normandy,
Picardy,
and
Ile‐de‐France).3
These
rural
farmers
brought
with
them
 























































 3
See
Brasseaux
1992,
Le
Menestrel
1999,
and
Poirier
1928
for
more
detailed


discussions
about
the
origins
of
the
Acadians.




20


their
various
dialects
of
French,
which
explains
relic
features
now
found
in
the
 French
of
Acadia
and
that
of
Louisiana
(one
of
which
is
the
focus
of
this
study
:
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/).


 Figure
1.2
Map
of
Acadia



 Note:
Ile
St.
Jean
is
now
known
as
Prince
Edward
Island
and
Ile
Royale
is
known
as
Cape
Breton.

The
 lower
peninsula
where
Grand
Pre
and
Port
Royal
are
located
is
modern‐day
Nova
Scotia.
 




When
the
1713
Treaty
of
Utrecht
ceded
modern‐day
Nova
Scotia
and


Newfoundland
to
British
rule,
the
Acadians
found
themselves
in
a
precarious
 position.

The
British
wanted
the
Acadians
to
convert
to
Protestantism
and
swear
an




21


oath
of
allegiance
to
the
British
Crown;
however
the
Acadians
did
neither,
 attempting
to
remain
neutral
in
the
ever‐changing
politics
of
colonial
life
(Rottet
 1995
:
94).

This
resulted
in
the
eventual
expulsion
of
the
Acadians
from
Acadia
in
 1755.
Out
of
the
population
of
about
12,000
Acadians,
some
6,000
to
8,000
were
 taken
prisoner
and
placed
in
detention
centers
or
deported
(Le
Menestrel
1999
:
 164).
This
mass
deportation
is
known
as
Le
Grand
Dérangement.4

Some
Acadians
 were
sent
back
to
France,
some
to
the
West
Indies,
but
many
were
sent
to
the
British
 colonies
on
the
Eastern
seaboard,
where
they
became
indentured
servants
to
the
 British
colonists.

After
living
dispersed
around
the
globe
for
several
years,
many
of
 the
Acadians
were
able
to
escape
these
fates;
these
displaced
Acadians
headed
to
 the
port
city
of
New
Orleans
in
the
Louisiana
colony,
which
they
believed
still
to
be
a
 territory
of
France.

Unfortunately,
by
the
time
most
of
the
Acadians
arrived,
 Louisiana
had
already
been
granted
to
Spain
in
a
secret
treaty,
in
an
attempt
to
keep
 the
land
out
of
England’s
hands.

The
secret
Treaty
of
Fontainebleau
was
signed
in
 1763
and
Brasseaux
(2005
:
17)
informs
us
that
“between
1764
and
1788
 approximately
3,000
Acadian
exiles
made
their
way
to
Louisiana
after
a
decade
of
 exile
and
wandering
throughout
the
northern
Atlantic
rim.”
The
Acadians
mostly
 settled
along
Bayous
Teche
and
Lafourche,
and
along
the
Atchafalaya
River
in
the
 Opelousas
and
Attakapas
districts
of
Southwest
Louisiana
(Brasseaux
2005
:
18‐19).
 


These
Acadian
exiles
had
a
more
profound
effect
on
the
linguistic
situation
in


Louisiana
than
the
Spaniards
did
during
the
Spanish
Period,
since
they
brought
their
 























































 4
“The
Great
Upheaval”




22


variety
of
French
with
them,
thus
further
reinforcing
the
position
of
French
in
what
 was
already
a
mostly
francophone
colony.5

In
1784,
a
traveler
wrote,
“les
habitants
 de
la
Louisiane
sont
presque
tous
Français;
à
peine
entendent­ils
la
langue
espagnole6”
 (Griolet
1986
:
25).

Spain’s
open‐door
policy
welcomed
the
Acadian
refugees,
 further
adding
to
the
mélange
of
French
dialects
in
the
Louisiana
colony.


 In
1803,
the
United
States
doubled
its
size
by
purchasing
the
Louisiana
 Territory
from
Napoleon
(who
had
just
won
the
territory
back
from
Spain
three
 years
previous,
through
another
secret
treaty).

Nine
years
later,
on
April
30,
1812,
 Louisiana
would
become
the
eighteenth
state
to
join
the
Union.

This
period
marks
 the
beginning
of
the
Anglicization
of
French
Louisiana.

In
1808
a
law
was
passed
 banning
slave
importation,
forcing
French
planters
to
buy
English‐speaking
slaves
 already
present
in
the
United
States
(Picone
and
Valdman
2005
:
149).

In
addition,
a
 wave
of
Anglo
settlers
caused
Louisiana’s
population
to
increase
twofold
between
 1810
and
1820.

Thus
it
comes
as
no
surprise
that
during
this
period
French
lost
its
 status
as
the
language
spoken
by
the
majority
of
Louisianans
(Rottet
1995
:
97).

 Many
of
the
English‐speaking
newcomers
were
better
educated
and
wealthier
than


























































 5
This
is
not
to
say
that
there
were
no
Spanish
speakers
in
Louisiana.

On
the


contrary,
some
700
Spaniards
were
forced
to
emigrate
from
the
Canary
Islands
 (then
a
Spanish
possession),
and
would
come
to
be
known
as
the
isleños.

In
 addition,
immigrants
from
southern
Spain
founded
a
settlement
called
“New
Iberia”
 along
Bayou
Teche.
(Wall
1990
:
72)

However,
outside
of
street
names
and
a
 handful
of
borrowed
words,
these
Spanish‐speakers
had
a
negligible
effect
on
the
 well‐established
francophone
community
of
Louisiana.
 6
“The
residents
of
Louisiana
are
almost
all
French;
they
barely
understand
the


Spanish
language.”
(my
translation)




23


the
white
Creoles
who
previously
held
the
highest
hierarchical
position
in
society.7

 Because
of
these
wealthy
Anglophones,
English
had
become
the
language
of
prestige
 in
Louisiana
by
the
late
1830s
and
1840s.
“By
1860,”
writes
Louisiana
historian
Carl
 Brasseaux
(1992
:
93),
“English‐speakers
constituted
70%
of
the
Pelican
State’s
 population.”
 In
1861,
after
less
than
fifty
years
of
statehood,
Louisiana
seceded
from
the
 Union
and
joined
the
Civil
War.
During
this
time,
many
impoverished
Acadians
 began
moving
out
of
rural
areas
in
search
of
work,
and
the
French
language
became
 associated
with
these
people,
who
were
unfairly
viewed
as
backwards,
ignorant,
and
 























































 7
The
word
“Creole”
was
borrowed
into
English
from
the
French
Créole,
which
is
the


Gallicized
pronunciation
of
the
Spanish
word
criollo
and
Portuguese
crioulo.

The
 term
has
its
roots
in
the
Latin
creare
or
‘create’
(Dormon
1996
:
vii).

The
word
 “creole”
(note
the
lowercase)
was
originally
used
simply
to
mean
“of
the
new
world”
 (Brasseaux
2005
:
91).
The
use
of
this
term
expanded
to
human
beings—slave
and
 free—that
were
born
in
the
New
World.

In
the
case
of
slaves,
“Creole”
or
native‐ born
slaves
were
considered
more
valuable,
as
they
were
accustomed
to
the
climate,
 language,
and
ways
of
the
colony.

They
were
also
thought
to
be
more
docile
and
 obedient,
since
they
had
never
known
a
life
of
freedom.

It
is
important
to
note
that
 the
term
“Creole”
did
not
apply
to
Native
Americans,
though
they
were
clearly
born
 in
the
New
World.

Thus
there
was
the
implication
that
Creoles
were
of
European
 (or
African)
origin,
creating
the
earliest
ethnic
connotations
associated
with
this
 term.

Once
the
Acadians
arrived
en
masse
during
the
Spanish
period,
the
white
 settlers
of
“direct”
French
heritage
(meaning
not
having
connections
to
Acadia)
 appropriated
the
term
“Creole”
to
accentuate
the
fact
that
they
were
in
Louisiana
 before
the
Acadians.

These
people
are
the
“white
Creoles”
I
refer
to
in
this
chapter.

 I
specify
the
ethnicity
of
the
Creoles
because
the
term
shifted
in
meaning
once
again
 following
the
Civil
War.

Brasseaux
(2005
:
111)
explains,
“To
differentiate
 themselves
from
the
freedmen,
the
free
blacks
continued
to
identify
themselves
as
 free
people
of
color—despite
the
fact
that
the
term
had
lost
all
relevance—until
the
 late
1890s
in
some
southern
Louisiana
parishes.

In
the
twilight
years
of
the
 nineteenth
century
the
former
gens
de
couleur
libres
began
to
refer
to
themselves
as
 Creoles—much
to
the
horror
of
white
Creoles,
who
began
to
insist
that,
like
 everything
else
in
the
kingdom
of
Jim
Crow,
admittance
to
their
fraternity
was
 limited
to
whites
only.”





24


simple.

This
sealed
the
fate
of
the
French
language
in
Louisiana,
as
white
Creoles
 sought
to
further
distance
themselves
from
the
Acadians
by
speaking
the
English
 language
of
their
fellow
Américains.
 An
apt
quote
by
Tinker
explains
the
situation
of
French
in
post‐Civil
War
 Louisiana:
 Le
Sud
entier
fut
ruiné
et
les
Créoles
avec
lui.

Ils
n’avaient
plus
le
moyen
de
 s’offrir
des
voyages
à
Paris
avec
leur
famille
ou
d’envoyer
leurs
fils
dans
des
 établissements
français.

Leur
misère,
comme
un
ciseau,
coupa
le
cordon
 ombilical
qui
les
rattachait
à
la
France…la
guerre
civile
condamna
la
langue
 française
aux
Etats‐Unis.8
(cited
in
Picone
and
Valdman
2005
:
149)
 
 The
fact
that
the
white
Creoles
of
Louisiana
were
ruined
economically
by
the
war
 accelerated
their
loss
of
the
French
language
and
their
connection
with
France,
as
 they
assimilated
into
Anglo
culture
in
a
struggle
to
retain
their
place
in
the
upper
 echelons
of
the
social
hierarchy.

Thus
the
age
of
the
French‐speaking
white
Creole
 elite
came
to
an
end.
 


The
twentieth
century
held
more
miseries
for
francophone
Louisiana,
as
the


revised
state
constitution
of
1921
banished
use
of
French
in
government
affairs
and,
 more
importantly,
in
schools
(Rottet
1995
:
103).

Indeed,
there
are
numerous
 accounts
of
punishments
inflicted
upon
students
who
were
caught
speaking
French
 on
school
grounds.

Many
of
these
unfortunate
students
spoke
no
English
 























































 8
“The
entire
South
was
ruined,
and
the
(white)
Creoles
with
it.

They
no
longer
had


the
means
to
fund
family
trips
to
Paris
or
send
their
sons
to
French
schools.

Their
 misery,
like
scissors,
cut
the
umbilical
cord
that
attached
them
to
France…the
Civil
 War
sealed
the
fate
of
the
French
language
in
the
United
States.”
(my
translation)




25


whatsoever
upon
commencement
of
school.

This
experience
is
recounted
in
the
 song
“200
Lines:
I
Must
Not
Speak
French,”
by
Cajun
fiddler
and
songwriter
Hadley
J.
 Castille
of
Opelousas
in
southwestern
Louisiana:
 Although
we
were
so
poor,
Papa
told
us
that
we
would
go
to
school
even
if
he
 had
to
work
day
and
night
 On
the
first
day
of
school,
the
teacher
warned
us
that
 You
must
not
speak
French,
it
is
strictly
prohibited
 My
cousins
and
I
and
my
friends,
we
couldn’t
speak
a
word
of
English
 200
lines
is
what
I
must
write
for
her
 200
lines
I
have
blisters
on
my
fingers
 200
lines
I’ll
never
understand
why
 I
mustn’t
speak
French
on
the
school
ground
anymore9
 
 Thus
this
generation
was
not
only
taught
that
English
was
the
language
of
 knowledge
and
success,
they
were
also
taught
the
French
was
the
language
of
 ignorance
and
shame.

In
order
to
save
their
children
the
honte
of
speaking
French,
 many
people
made
a
conscious
effort
to
stop
passing
on
the
French
language
to
their
 children.

The
following
excerpt
is
from
an
interview
with
an
older
fluent
speaker
of
 PACIT
French
(see
appendix
for
information
on
each
informant).

OFS9
is
the
 informant
and
ND
and
KC
are
the
interviewers.
 ND
:
T’as
pas
montré
à
parler
français
aux
enfants
?
 


‘You
didn’t
teach
your
children
to
speak
French
?’


























































 9
Lyrics
taken
from
Picone
1997
:
146
(“200
Lines:
I
Must
Not
Speak
French,”
by


Hadley
J.
Castille,
copyright
1991
Flat
Town
BMI)




26
 OFS9
:
A
pas
montré
assez
 


‘I
didn’t
teach
them
enough’


ND
:
Cofaire
?
 


‘Why
not
?’


OFS9
:
c’est…c’était
tellement
dur
équand
nous­autres,
on
a
été
pour
aller
à
 l’école,

et
là
ça
fait
que
voulais
pas
que
eusse
avoir
ce
tracas­là
 ‘It’s…it
was
so
hard
when
we
were
going
to
school,
and
so
I
didn’t
 want
them
to
have
that
same
trouble’
 KC
:
comment
c’était
dur
?
 


‘How
was
it
hard
?’


OFS9
:
well,
les
maîtresses
t’auraient
puni
si
c’est
qu’eusses
t’auraient
 empoigné
parler
français.
 ‘Well,
the
teachers
would
punish
you
if
they
would
catch
you
speaking
 French’
 KC
:
comment
?

T’avais
besoin
d’écrire
des
choses
en
anglais
?
 


‘how
?

You
had
to
write
things
in
English
?’


OFS9
:
écrire
des
choses
eusse
te
mettent
à
genoux,
eusses
te…des
fois
un
petit
 coup
de
fouette
 ‘write
things
they
would
get
you
on
your
knees,
they…sometimes
 [they
gave
you]
a
little
whipping
with
a
switch’
 
 This
period
of
stigmatization
lasted
for
nearly
fifty
years,
and
its
deleterious
effects
 would
be
irreversible,
greatly
reducing
the
number
of
French‐speakers
in
Louisiana.


 In
an
attempt
to
revive
the
French
language
in
Louisiana,
the
state
legislature
 formed
the
Council
for
the
Development
of
French
in
Louisiana
(commonly
 abbreviated
as
CODOFIL)
in
1968.

CODOFIL’s
mission
statement,
as
presented
on
 its
website
at
http://www.codofil.org,
is
as
follows:





27


Our
Mission
is
two‐fold:
to
offer
Louisiana’s
citizens,
whether
they
be
of
French
 ancestry
or
not,
the
opportunity
either
to
learn
French
or
to
enhance
and
utilize
the
 French
they
already
know;
and
to
explore,
understand
and
support
Cajun,
Creole
 and
Francophone
heritage
in
Louisiana
for
the
cultural,
economic
and
touristic
[sic]
 benefit
of
all
its
citizens.

 
 As
of
1995,
Louisiana
had
the
largest
elementary‐grade
population
of
any
state
for
 French
language
instruction
(Picone
1997:
124).

It
should
be
noted,
however,
that
 the
language
taught
in
these
schools
is
Modern
European
French,
not
any
of
the
 dialects
spoken
in
Louisiana.

Rather
than
bolstering
pride
for
their
French‐speaking
 heritage,
these
programs
showed
children
that
their
French
was
not
the
“right”
 French,
a
sentiment
repeated
by
younger
interviewees
in
this
study.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




28


2.
A
Socio­Historical
Look
at
Pointe­Aux­Chênes,
Louisiana

 and
the
Pointe­Au­Chien
Indian
Tribe
 
 Before
continuing
with
a
socio‐historical
description
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
 Tribe,
it
is
necessary
to
address
a
source
of
possible
confusion.

The
name
of
the
 Indian
tribe
that
forms
the
subject
pool
for
this
study,
Pointe‐au‐Chien,
is
also
the
 former
name
of
the
town
in
which
many
of
the
tribe
members
live,
which
is
now
 called
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.

Several
interviewees
explained
that
this
difference
in
 name
is
the
result
of
a
successful
campaign
by
a
local
schoolteacher
named
Laïse
 Ledet
who
wanted
to
change
the
name
of
the
town
from
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
(‘Dog
 Point’),
the
town
name
for
a
period
of
at
least
one
hundred
years,
to
the
current
 name
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
(‘Oak
Point’).

Evidence
of
the
former
town
name
can
be
 seen
in
the
name
of
the
bayou
(Bayou
Pointe‐Au‐Chien),
the
name
of
a
nearby
lake
 (Lac
Chien),
and
of
course
in
the
name
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe.

Because
 the
government
officially
changed
the
name
of
the
town,
all
local
government‐run
 facilities
(the
elementary
school,
the
local
fire
station,
and
the
water
tower,
for
 example)
use
the
official
‘Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes’
orthography.


 The
town
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
is
located
in
Southeastern
Louisiana
about
 twenty
miles
outside
the
town
of
Houma.

Houma
is
the
parish
seat
of
Terrebonne
 Parish,
with
a
population
of
approximately
32,000
according
to
the
most
recent
 census
estimates.

Although
the
town
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
is
technically
bisected
 by
Bayou
Pointe‐Au‐Chien,
which
marks
the
Parish
divide
between
Terrebonne
and
 Lafourche
Parishes,
most
inhabitants
self‐identify
as
members
of
Terrebonne




29


Parish,
since
the
closest
city
center
is
Houma
and
most
children
attend
Terrebonne
 Parish
schools.

 Figure
2.1
:
Map
of
the
Region
Surrounding
the
Town
of
Pointe­Aux­Chênes



 Picture
printed
from
page
365
of
Rottet’s
1995
dissertation.

Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
is
located
along
 Bayou
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
in
the
area
between
Montegut
and
Isle
a
Jean
Charles.


The
town
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
follows
the
path
of
Bayou
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
 and
consists
of
approximately
eight
miles
of
road
on
the
Terrebonne
side
of
the
 bayou,
with
houses
on
the
Lafourche
side
of
the
bayou
connected
by
small
driveway




30


bridges.

In
lower
Pointe‐aux‐Chênes,
a
single
bridge
at
the
head
of
the
street
is
the
 only
land‐connection
between
the
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
sides
of
the
bayou.

 The
bayou
effectively
serves
as
a
main
street,
with
people
living
on
one
side
or
the
 other.

The
one‐lane
road,
Highway
665,
is
the
only
way
in
and
out
of
Pointe‐Aux‐ Chênes,
except
by
boat.

Because
of
the
layout
of
the
town,
there
are
several
key
 differences
between
upper
and
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.

First,
upper
Pointe‐Aux‐ Chênes
is
situated
on
higher
land
than
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
and
it
is
closer
to
 Houma.

Upper
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
features
a
mix
of
houses
and
raised
trailers,
 where
Cajuns,
Indians,
and
non‐francophone
whites
reside.10

Here
it
is
not
 uncommon
to
be
unfamiliar
with
one’s
neighbors,
although
most
people
at
least
 know
the
names
of
the
surrounding
families.

There
are
also
services
along
Highway
 665
in
upper
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
including
a
local
grocery
store,
a
gas
station
and
 po‐boy
shop,
a
fire
station,
an
elementary
school,
and
several
churches.

In
lower
 Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
there
is
one
Baptist
church,
but
no
schools;
several
interviewees
 reported
a
dance
hall
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
in
the
past,
which
is
now
 converted
to
a
home.

A
bait
shop
at
the
marina
at
the
end
of
the
bayou
is
the
only
 store
in
this
part
of
town.

The
last
restaurant,
also
once
located
at
the
marina,
 closed
following
hurricanes
Katrina
and
Rita
and
never
re‐opened.

Lower
Pointe‐ Aux‐Chênes,
which
is
separated
from
Upper
Pointe‐aux‐
Chênes
by
an
empty
stretch
 























































 10
Although
I
am
told
that
in
the
past
upper
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
consisted
of
purely


whites
and
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
was
purely
Indians,
with
the
large
empty
area
 of
marshland
in
between
forming
an
effective
barrier
between
the
two
communities,
 now
many
Indians
have
moved
up
the
bayou,
creating
a
more
heterogeneous
 community
in
upper
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.




31


of
road
surrounded
by
wetland,
is
largely
characterized
by
trailers
often
raised
as
 high
as
twelve
feet
to
avoid
the
frequent
flooding
due
to
hurricanes.

A
close‐knit
 community
of
Indians
resides
in
this
area.

Many
of
these
Indians
consider
 themselves
to
be
part
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe;
however
some
are
still
 members
of
the
United
Houma
Nation
and
still
others
are
not
affiliated
with
any
 tribe.

Despite
their
varied
allegiances,
almost
everyone
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
 will
tell
you,
“on
est
tous
parents
icitte”
(‘we
are
all
related
here’).

Indeed,
there
are
 four
last
names
that
are
shared
by
nearly
every
resident
of
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐ Chênes.11
 Like
the
other
tribes
of
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes,
the
Pointe‐Au‐ Chien
Indian
Tribe
has
faced
difficulty
in
tracing
their
ancestry
for
several
reasons.

 To
begin
with,
the
Louisiana
territory
changed
hands
several
times.

France,
Spain,
 and
the
United
States
had
different
relationships
with,
and
different
names
for,
the
 Indians
of
Louisiana.

These
groups
of
original
settlers—plus
newer
immigrants
to
 Louisiana—have
also
intermarried
with
Louisiana
Indians
to
a
significant
extent.

 Additionally,
Louisiana
Indians
have
moved
frequently
throughout
the
territory
 (and
even,
in
some
cases,
outside
of
it)
and
were
sometimes
forcibly
separated
and
 relocated.

In
the
PACIT
petition
for
federal
acknowledgement,
diaries
and
land
 























































 11
Dorian
(1981
:
57)
also
reports
the
phenomenon
of
3‐5
last
names
shared
by


nearly
everyone
in
one
of
the
fishing
communities
of
East
Sutherland,
Scotland.

In
 East
Sutherland,
giving
nicknames
was
standard
practice
in
order
to
distinguish
 between
the
many
people
with
the
same
given
and
family
names.

This
is
also
 common
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
however
even
more
frequent
practice
than
 nicknaming,
at
least
in
the
older
generation,
is
to
choose
uncommon
first
names
to
 avoid
the
problem
entirely.




32


grants
were
the
most
frequent
means
of
documentation
used
to
track
the
 movements
of
the
Louisiana
Indians
that
may
be
ancestors
of
the
modern‐day
 Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians,
since
there
are
so
few
other
forms
of
documentation.

The
 Chaouachas,
Ouachas,
Chitimachas,
and
the
Houma
Indians
are
all
mentioned
in
the
 petition
as
“historic
Indian
inhabitants”
of
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes,
and
 the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe
website
also
adds
the
Acolapissa,
Atakapas,
and
 Biloxi
Indians
to
the
list
of
possible
ancestors.12

Although
it
is
unclear
from
which
 original
tribe
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
came,
their
strongest
genealogical
ties
are
 with
the
Chitimacha
(Laura
Kelley,
personal
communication).

The
Sovereign
Nation
 of
Chitimacha
is
a
federally
acknowledged
tribe
based
in
Charenton,
Louisiana,
 about
sixty‐five
miles
northwest
of
Houma,
on
a
reservation
that
is
home
to
350
 people.13

According
to
historian
Laura
Kelley,
who
is
currently
working
with
the
 Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe
on
their
petition
for
federal
acknowledgement,
the
 historic
Chitimacha
were
spread
throughout
the
swamps
of
Southern
Louisiana,
 including
the
land
where
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
live
today.

Indeed,
nearby
 tribes
include
the
Isle
de
Jean
Charles
Band
of
the
Biloxi‐Chitimacha
Confederation
 of
Muskogees
(BCCM),
the
Bayou
Lafourche
Band
of
the
BCCM,
and
the
Grand
 Caillou/Dulac
Band
of
the
BCCM,
all
of
whom
claim
connection
to
the
historic
 Chitimacha
(SLS
No.
105
2004
:
1).


 























































 12
The
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe
website
can
be
found
at
:


http://pactribe.tripod.com/index.html

 13
See
http://www.chitimacha.gov/
for
more
information
about
the
Sovereign


Nation
of
Chitimacha.




33
 Despite
this
connection
to
the
Chitimacha,
until
fairly
recently
the
Indians


living
in
and
around
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
were
taken
under
the
umbrella
of
the
 United
Houma
Nation.

The
UHN
is
a
state‐recognized
tribe,
but
their
petition
for
 federal
acknowledgement
was
denied
by
the
Bureau
of
Indian
Affairs
in
1994
after
a
 decade
of
deliberation.

Not
surprisingly,
one
of
the
main
reasons
the
United
Houma
 Nation’s
petition
was
rejected
was
an
inability
to
connect
the
modern‐day
Houma
 Indians
listed
on
the
rolls
to
the
historic
Houma
tribe.


 The
PACIT
website
states,
“in 1993, the Tribe adopted a Constitution and

filed its Articles of Incorporation with the Louisiana Secretary of State.“

On
 February
3,
1995
the
community
of
Indians
living
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
Louisiana
 officially
seceded
from
the
United
Houma
Nation,
forming
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
 Indian
Tribe
(Pointe­Au­Chien
Indian
Tribe
Submission
for
Federal
Acknowledgment
 1997
:
29).

In
2004
the
tribe
was
officially
recognized
by
the
state
of
Louisiana,
 though
they
are
still
working
towards
federal
acknowledgement
(Senate
Concurrent
 Resolution
No.
105).

With
fourteen
petitions
currently
being
considered
by
the
 United
States
Bureau
of
Indian
Affairs,
Louisiana
ranks
fifth
among
all
states
in
 number
of
tribes
currently
petitioning
for
federal
acknowledgement,
after
 California,
Michigan,
North
Carolina,
and
Connecticut
(according
the
Bureau
of
 Indian
Affairs
website).

Federal
acknowledgement
would
offer
these
tribes,
 including
the
PACIT,
federal
money
and
support
for
medical
aid
and
scholarships,
as
 well
as
the
possibility
for
land
on
which
to
set
up
a
reservation.






34
 Even
beyond
tribal
affiliation,
the
Indians
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
have


experienced
many
changes
in
the
past
few
generations.

Language
may
be
the
most
 obvious
change
in
process
as
most
young
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
are
raised
 monolingual
English
speakers
no
longer
speaking
French,
but
perhaps
this
is
only
 symptomatic
of
the
other
changes
the
community
has
gone
through.

To
begin
with,
 the
loss
of
land
was
mentioned
by
many
interviewees—even
those
in
their
thirties
 remarked
that
there
used
to
be
more
woods
and
less
water
in
their
backyards
in
 Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.

Erosion
and
loss
of
wetlands
is
a
big
problem
for
the
coastal
 communities
of
Louisiana;
its
effects
can
be
seen
in
Figure
2.2.


 Figure
2.2
Land
Loss
on
Southern
Louisiana
Coastline
1853­1978









 This
picture
copied
from
the
U.S.
Geological
Survey
Marine
and
Coastal
Geology
Program
website
:
 http://marine.usgs.gov/fact‐sheets/LAwetlands/lawetlands.html






35




Ironically,
due
to
coastal
erosion,
many
of
the
oak
trees
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
(‘Oak
 Point’)
are
dead
from
exposure
to
salt
water,
as
the
salinity
of
the
lakes
around
 Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
rises.

Much
of
this
erosion
has
been
caused
by
the
dredging
of
 canals
for
“energy
exploration,”
according
to
the
U.S.
Geological
Survey
Marine
and
 Coastal
Geology
Program.14

With
less
land
and
fewer
barrier
islands
protecting
the
 coast
of
Louisiana,
hurricanes
have
taken
harder
tolls
on
the
coastal
communities,
 most
recently
evinced
by
the
one‐two
punch
of
Hurricanes
Katrina
and
Rita
in
 Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes.

In
a
2005
article
for
the
Houma
Courier,
Sandy
 Chaisson,
a
27
year‐old
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
local
who
had
just
lost
her
second
home
 in
three
years
to
hurricane
waters,
is
quoted
as
saying,
“We
feel
like
we’ve
been
 forgotten
down
here.

Really,
it’s
up
to
the
families
to
pull
together
and
help
each
 other
out.

We
have
our
families;
there’s
nobody
else
here”
(Rita
Deals
Pointe­Aux­ Chênes
a
Catastrophic
Blow
2005).

The
author
of
this
article
goes
on
to
write
of
 Chaisson,
“…she
feels
too
much
of
a
connection
to
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
where
scores
 of
family
members
live
in
a
500‐foot
radius
of
her
home,
to
leave
for
higher
ground.”
 This
is
indicative
of
the
type
of
community
that
inhabits
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
 especially
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
:
here
groups
of
large
families
that
marry
 amongst
each
other
form
close
social
networks
of
relatives
whose
children
generally
 marry
within
the
community
and
settle
down
within
a
few
houses
from
their


























































 14
See
http://marine.usgs.gov/fact‐sheets/LAwetlands/lawetlands.html
for
more


information
on
coastal
erosion
in
Louisiana.




36


parents.

Additionally,
the
Indians
living
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
mostly
practice
 fishing,
trapping,
and
trawling
for
their
livelihood,
occupations
which
 …require
a
small
group
(sometimes
a
family
group)
to
work
closely
together
 in
isolation
for
extended
periods
of
time,
whether
camped
out
in
the
marshes
 hunting
and
trapping
for
furs
or
aboard
a
shrimp
trawler
in
the
Gulf
(Picone
 1997
:
136).


 
 The
social
network
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
would
thus
be
considered
a
high‐density,
 multiplex
network,
because
it
is
a
community
in
which
all
speakers
know
one
 another
and
interact
with
the
same
people
in
different
spheres
of
activity.

High‐ density,
multiplex
networks
are
generally
associated
with
insular,
rural
societies
 and
have
been
shown
to
“maintain
localized,
vernacular
language
varieties
more
 than
speakers
in
uniplex,
low‐density
networks”
(Wolfram
and
Schilling‐Estes
2006
 :
37).


 In
her
1987
study
of
Belfast
English,
Lesley
Milroy
developed
a
Network
 Strength
Scale
(NSS)
that
assessed
various
relationships
within
a
community
of
 speakers
to
determine
the
social
practice
of
each
speaker
within
the
speech
 community.

The
NSS
score
can
range
from
1
to
5
depending
on
the
density
of
one’s
 connections
within
the
speech
community;
speakers
within
a
community
earned
 one
point
for
each
of
the
following
conditions
they
satisfied
:
 •

Were
members
of
a
high‐density,
territorially‐based
group




Had
kinship
ties
with
more
than
two
households
in
the
neighborhood




Worked
in
the
same
place
as
at
least
two
others
from
the
neighborhood




37
 •

Worked
in
the
same
place
as
at
least
two
others
of
the
same
sex
from
the
 neighborhood




Associated
voluntarily
with
workmates
in
leisure
hours


Under
these
conditions,
most
Indians
living
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
would
 score
at
least
a
4
or
5
on
the
Network
Strength
Scale.

According
to
Milroy’s
scale,
 the
“strongest
vernacular
speakers
were
generally
those
whose
neighborhood
 network
ties
were
the
strongest,”
meaning
those
with
the
highest
scores
on
the
NSS
 (Milroy
and
Gordon
2003
:
121).

Because
of
these
very
strong
network
ties
and
the
 social
and
geographic
isolation
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians,
French
has
been
able
 to
survive
in
this
isolated
community
until
very
recently.

There
are
many
reasons
 for
the
survival
of
French
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
even
as
the
language
 deteriorated
throughout
the
rest
of
francophone
Louisiana,
but
as
the
community
 has
changed
over
time,
the
linguistic
situation
has
followed
suit.
 Most
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
aged
fifty
and
above
speak
French
 fluently,
and
some
even
prefer
it
to
English.

Under
the
age
of
fifty,
one
begins
to
find
 semi‐speakers
(those
who
did
not
fully
acquire
the
language),
passive
bilinguals
 (those
who
understand
French
but
cannot
produce
the
language),
and
monolingual
 English
speakers.

Additionally,
language
preference
leans
towards
English
for
these
 younger
speakers,
especially
for
interactions
within
peer
groups.

In
situations
of
 language
death,
this
pattern
of
language
loss
in
three
generations
is
fairly
common.

 This
model
consists
of
:





38
 •

A
generation
of
older
monolingual
minority
language
speakers,
of
which
 there
are
only
a
handful
left
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes




A
transitional
generation
of
bilingual
speakers,
which
includes
almost
 everyone
over
fifty
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
(plus
a
sizeable
group
of
fluent
 bilinguals
aged
twenty
to
fifty
for
whom
French
is
the
language
of
family
and
 home,
but
who
prefer
English
for
most
daily
interactions)





A
younger
generation
of
monolingual
speakers
of
the
prestige
language
(plus
 some
semi‐speakers
and
passive
bilinguals,
a
number
of
whom
fit
into
the
 middle
generation
in
terms
of
age)


A
big
reason
that
the
shift
towards
English
happened
when
it
did
is
the
integration
 of
schools
in
the
1960s.

Before
this
time,
Indians
were
not
allowed
to
go
to
schools
 for
white
children,
and
they
refused
to
go
to
the
schools
for
black
children.

Baptist
 missionaries
established
an
elementary
school
for
the
Indians
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
 thus
cutting
them
off
from
the
other
ethnic
groups
in
the
area.

This
social
isolation
 continued
until
desegregation,
at
which
time
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
also
had
 the
opportunity
to
continue
school
beyond
the
sixth
grade,
since
there
had
been
no
 high
school‐level
education
set
up
by
the
missionaries.

In
Annette
Schmidt’s
1985
 dissertation
on
the
aboriginal
language
Dyirbal,
for
which
she
studied
semi‐ speakers
in
the
small
town
of
Jambun
in
North
Queensland,
Australia,
Schmidt
laid
 out
the
unfortunate
results
of
schooling
in
the
prestige
language
(in
her
case,
also
 English).

Schmidt
explained
that
placing
the
speakers
of
a
minority
language
in
a
 school
where
the
prestige
language
is
the
only
language
of
instruction
accelerates
 the
process
of
language
death,
as
the
following
occurs
:





39
 1.
English
is
spoken
in
many
homes
to
prepare
Jambun
children
for
school,
 thus
becoming
the
language
of
primary
socialization.
 2.
On
beginning
school,
the
Jambun
student
has
English
reinforced
as
the
 prestigious
language,
and
primary
code
of
communication.
 3.
The
child
is
faced
with
the
conflict
of
education
in
English
and
association
 with
dominant
white
society
on
the
one
hand,
and
belonging
to
the
less‐ prestigious
and
socially‐isolated
Jambun
community
on
the
other.
 (Schmidt
1985
:
20)


The
situation
the
Jambun
children
faced
is
quite
similar
to
that
of
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
 Indians,
and
both
have
resulted
in
language
endangerment,
which
is
quite
severe
in
 the
former
case.



 While
desegregation
was
the
beginning
of
the
end
for
French
in
lower
Pointe‐ Aux‐Chênes,
integration
would
not
completely
put
an
end
the
Indians’
social
 isolation,
as
many
of
the
older
interviewees
still
expressed
feeling
discriminated
 against
at
some
point
in
their
lives
for
being
Indian.
 KC
:
Tu
as
jamais
ressenti
de
la
discrimination
à
cause
d’être
indienne?
 


‘Have
you
ever
felt
discriminated
against
because
of
being
Indian
?’


OFS4
:
Oh,
oui…plein
de
fois.
 


‘Oh
yes…lots
of
times.’


KC
:
Quand
tu
étais
jeune,
ou
asteur
?
 


‘When
you
were
young,
or
now
?’


OFS4
:
jeune,
et
asteur
aussi.

Tu
peux
dire,
le
monde…
 


‘young,
and
now
too.

You
could
say,
people…’


KC
:
Comme…qui,
qui,
qui
arrive
quand
c’est…des
gens
dit
des
choses,
ou…
?
 


‘Like…what,
what,
what
happens
when…people
say
things,
or…
?’


OFS4
:
Well,
uh,
quand
j’arrivais
au…je
crois
que
c’était
la
huitème
grade,
ou
la
 septième
grade,
pour
le
high
school.

Et
là,

fallait
qu’on
va
au
high
school
à




40
 Larose,
parce
que
j’ai
resté
sus
la
paroisse
LaFourche.

Et
là
ma
sœur
nous
 amenait
dans
un
char
jusqu’à,
au
Grand
Bois.

Et
là
du
Grand
Bois
on
prenait
un
 bus
pour
aller
à
LaRose,
Cutoff,
the
high
school.

Et
il
(y)
a
plein
des
enfants
 dessus
le
bus
et
tout
eusse
a
rit
après
nous­autres,
et
à
l’école
eusse
a
rit
après
 nous­autres.

Eusse
tappait,
‘tu
connais
faire
comme
ça,
faire
comme
des
 indiens,’
et
eusse
nous
appelait
des
noms,
et…là,
c’est
comme
si,
là
si
eusse
 passait
trop
près
de
nous­autres
ou
de
quoi,
et
là,
c’est
comme
si
que…je
connais
 pas,
eusse
aimait
pas
ça.
 ‘Well,
uh,
when
I
got
to…I
think
it
was
eighth
grade,
or
seventh
grade,
 for
high
school.

And
so,
we
had
to
go
to
high
school
in
Larose,
because
 I
lived
in
Lafourche
Parish.

And
so
my
sister
took
us
in
a
car
up
to
 Grand
Bois.

And
so
from
Grand
Bois
we
took
a
bus
to
go
to
Larose,
 Cutoff,
the
high
school.

And
there
were
lots
of
kids
on
the
bus
and
all
 of
them
laughed
at
us,
and
at
school
they
laughed
at
us.

They
would
 hit,
‘you
know
how
to
do
that,
act
like
an
Indian,’
and
they
would
call
 us
names,
and…it’s
like
if
they
passed
too
close
to
us
or
something,
it’s
 as
if…I
don’t
know,
they
didn’t
like
that.’
 KC
:
Et
asteur,
toujours,
il
y
a
des
gens
qui
fait
ça
?
 


‘And
now,
still,
there
are
people
who
do
that
?’


OFS4
:
Oh
oui.
 


‘Oh
yes.’


KC
:
En
ville
?

A
Houma
?

Ou
icitte
?
 


‘In
New
Orleans
?

In
Houma
?

Or
here
?’


OFS4
:
Uh,
pas
icitte,
sur
la
Pointe,
non,
mais
uh,
différentes
places.
 


‘Uh,
not
here,
on
the
Pointe,
no,
but
uh,
different
places.’


NDk
:
Et
dans
les
magasins,
dans
le
vieux
temps,
on
avait
le
droit
d’y
aller,
ou…?
 


‘And
in
stores,
in
the
old
days,
you
were
allowed
to
go
in,
or…
?’


OFS4
:
Uh,
différents
magasins…tu
pouvais
pas
aller
tout
partout.
 


‘uh,
different
stores…you
couldn’t
go
everywhere.’


ND
:
Ah,
oui
?
 


‘Ah,
yes
?’


OFS4
:
Non.

C’est
pareil
comme
manger.

Tu
pouvais
pas
aller
manger
avec
les
 blancs.

Dans
les
places
à
shows.

Plein
de
places
tu
pouvais
pas
aller.

C’était
 juste
des
blancs,
eusse
voulait
pas
des
indiens.




41
 ‘No.

It’s
just
like
to
eat.

You
couldn’t
go
eat
with
whites.

In
the
movie
 theaters.

Lots
of
places
you
couldn’t
go.

It
was
just
whites,
they
didn’t
 want
Indians.
 


Thus
the
discrimination
against
the
Indians
came
from
both
institutional
sources
 (the
restaurants
and
movie
theaters)
and
individuals
(the
children
at
school).

Note
 that
the
interviewee
states
that
she
has
never
felt
discrimination
in
Pointe‐Aux‐ Chênes,
just
when
she
ventured
out
to
‘different
places.’

Milroy
and
Gordon
(2003
:
 119)
write
that
 such
norm‐supporting
(and
norm‐constructing)
communities…flourish
in
 low‐status
communities
in
the
absence
of
social
and
geographical
mobility
 and
foster
the
solidarity
ethos
associated
with
the
long‐term
survival
of
 socially
disfavored
languages
and
dialects.
 
 Because
of
this
social
stratification
based
on
ethnicity
along
with
the
feeling
of
 safety
associated
with
staying
with
their
own
kind
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
the
 Indians
developed
their
own
distinct
identities
separate
from
those
of
the
Cajuns
 and
non‐francophone
whites
in
the
area.

However,
the
fact
that
they
share
a
 language
with
the
Cajuns
makes
some
Indians
question
their
“Indian‐ness”
:
 YFS1
:
c’est
comme
j’ai
dit
à
(MIKE),
si
on
est
des
indiens,
cofaire
on
parle
pas
 indien?

On
parle
français.

Ca
fait,
tu
vois,
mon
je
crois
qu’on
est
plus
français
 que
indien
 ‘it’s
like
I
said
to
(MIKE),
if
we
are
Indians,
why
don’t
we
speak
Indian?

 We
speak
French.

So,
you
see,
I
think
we
are
more
French
than
 Indian.’
 KC
:
oh
ouais?
 


‘oh
yeah?’


YFS1
:
si
on
serait
des
indiens
on
pourrait
parler
en
indien




42
 


‘if
we
were
Indians
we
would
be
able
to
speak
in
Indian.’




 This
particular
speaker
continues
to
explain
how
he
feels
about
the
linguistic
 situation
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
in
which
the
Indians
speak
French
but
no
one
 knows
a
word
of
their
original
Indian
language.

He
laments
the
inevitable
loss
of
 French
for
a
moment,
but
is
more
concerned
with
the
lack
of
a
language
to
call
“their
 own”
:
 YFS1
:
Tous
les
tribe
qu’a
des,
qui
a
des
indiens,
eusse
parle
indien,
eusse
a
un
 langage…pour
eusse­même,
tu
connais.

Et
nous­autres,
on
a
pas
de
langage
 ‘All
the
tribes
that
have,
that
have
Indians,
they
speak
Indian,
they
 have
a
language…for
themselves,
you
know.

And
us,
we
don’t
have
a
 language.’
 


RM
:
Mais
il
y
avait…il
y
avait
un
langage






‘but
there
was
one…there
was
a
language’


YFS1
:
Il
y
avait,
mais—cofaire
le
monde
l’a
pas,
l’a
pas…mon
je
connais
pas
 personne
qui
parle
indien.

Tu
connais,
on
connait
plein
du
monde
qui
parle
 français.

Et
je
pense
dans
quelques
années
le
français
va
être
parti
aussitte,
 mais
ça
va,
ce
sera
longtemps…parce
que
mon,
j’a
trentre­neuf
ans.

Ca
fait,
un
 autre—si
je
vis
un
autre
quarante
ans,
tu
connais,
le
français
alentours—là
 mes,
mes
enfants
a
peut­être
ramassé
un
‘tit
brin,
eusse
va
connaît—eusse
va
 connaît
quelques
mots…mais
mon
je
connais
pas
un
mot
dans
indien
 ‘There
was,
but—why
didn’t
people,
they
didn’t…I
don’t
know
anyone
 who
speaks
Indian.

You
know,
I
know
plenty
of
people
who
speak
 French.

And
I
think
in
a
few
years
French
will
be
gone
too,
but
that
 will
be,
that
will
be
a
long
time…because
me,
I
am
thirty‐nine.

So,
 another—if
I
live
another
forty
years,
you
know,
French
around
 here—my,
my
kids
maybe
picked
up
a
little
bit,
they
will
know—they
 will
know
a
few
words…but
me
I
don’t
know
one
word
in
Indian.’
 
 This
lack
of
concern
over
the
French
language
was
echoed
by
some
other
 interviewees,
however
most
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
said
they
would
like
to
hear




43


their
children
speak
the
local
variety
of
French.

The
2000
census
cites
only
30%
of
 the
population
in
this
area
as
French‐speaking,
however
this
includes
upper
Pointe‐ Aux‐Chênes
as
well
as
less
francophone
communities
closer
to
Houma
such
as
the
 town
of
Montegut.

Census
reports
are
also
faulty
because
of
under‐reporting
by
 many
Indians
who
distrust
the
government
or
otherwise
exclude
themselves
from
 the
census
(Nathalie
Dajko,
personal
communication).15
Regardless
of
the
numbers,
 it
is
clear
that
French
is
dying
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
as
children
are
now
universally
 raised
monolingual
English
speakers.16
 


Another
reason
for
the
drop
in
French
speakers
is
increased
exogamy,
as
it


became
more
acceptable
to
marry
non‐Indians
and
move
up
the
bayou
to
the
towns
 closer
to
Houma.

In
these
towns,
such
as
Bourg
and
Montegut,
the
francophone
 population
is
much
lower,
so
the
French‐speaking
residents
opt
for
English
more
 often
than
not,
in
order
to
fit
in.

Thus
French
becomes
the
language
of
family
and
 tradition
spoken
back
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
but
does
not
make
it’s
way
up
 the
bayou
where
the
prestige
language,
English,
has
already
taken
precedence.

As
 one
interviewee
put
it,
“équand
on
a
quitté
la
Pointe,
on
a
quitté
notre
français
plus
 là­bas
que
l’amener
avec
nous­autres”
(‘When
we
left
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
we
left
our
 French
back
there
rather
than
bringing
it
with
us’).


 























































 15
A
colleague
reports
that
at
a
PACIT
meeting
she
once
asked
about
census
forms,
to


which
everyone
present
replied
in
unison
“we
throw
them
away!”

 16
The
only
exception
to
this
rule
is
the
children
of
one
of
the
interviewees,
who


spoke
fluent
French
and
Spanish.

However,
their
mother
was
a
very
linguistically
 aware
advocate
of
the
French
language,
and
her
10
and
13
year‐old
children
were
 cited
by
the
majority
of
the
interviewees
as
young
speakers,
which
shows
just
how
 exceptional
these
young
speakers
are.




44
 Many
others
moved
up
the
bayou
to
avoid
the
floods
that
each
hurricane


brings,
as
one
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
living
in
Houma
explained
:
 KC
:
et…tu
préfères
Houma
ou
tu
préfères
la
Pointe?

 


‘and…you
prefer
Houma
or
you
prefer
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes?’


YFS2
:
Houma
 KC
:
Cofaire?
 


‘Why?’


YFS2
:
parce
que
j’ai
jamais
eu
de
l’eau
dans
ma
maison
 


‘because
I
never
had
water
in
my
house’



 As
the
younger
Indians
become
exasperated
with
constant
flooding
and
damage
 from
hurricanes,
they
move
away
from
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
in
favor
of
a
house
 that
does
not
need
to
be
replaced
or
raised
even
higher
every
few
years.

 Because
of
access
to
better
education
and
more
Indians
moving
from
lower
 Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
many
people
have
stopped
the
traditional
shrimping,
crabbing,
 and
trawling
careers.

After
an
informant
revealed
that
he
was
first
mate
on
a
 tugboat,
he
told
why
he
had
stopped
trawling
:
 KC
:
et
c’est

[first
mate
on
a
tugboat]
ce
que
tu
as
fait,
tu
avais
fait
comme
job
 toute
ta
vie?
 ‘and
that
[first
mate
on
a
tugboat]
is
what
you
have
done,
you
had
 done
as
a
job
all
your
life?’
 SS7
:
ah
no
mon
je
trawl
avant
ça
 


‘ah
no
me
I
went
trawling
before
that’


KC
:
avec
ton
père?
 


‘with
your
father?’




45
 SS7
:
oui
 


‘yes’


KC
:
et
lui,
il
fait
du
trawl
toujours,
asteur?
 


‘and
him,
he
goes
trawling
still,
now?’


SS7
:
oui
 


‘yes’


RM
:
cofaire
toi
t’as
quitté?
 


‘why
did
you
stop?’


SS7
:
c’est
pas
de
l’argent.

Si
mon
j’étais
jeune
tu
peux
faire,
c’est
une
bonne
vie.

 Asteur—
 ‘there’s
no
money
in
it.

If
me,
I
was
young
you
can
do
it,
it’s
a
good
life.

 Now—‘
 RM
:
parce
que
t’avais
pas
de
bills
 


‘because
you
didn’t
have
any
bills’


SS7
:
non
pas
de
bills
et
tout,
mais
asteur
veux
dire,
asteur
il
y
a
plus
de
 chevrettes
en
bas,
la
fuel
la
diesel
a
haut,
so
je
veux
pas
faire
ça
 ‘no,
no
bills
and
all,
but
now
[I]
mean,
now
there
are
no
more
shrimp
 down
there,
fuel,
diesel
[price]
is
high,
so
I
don’t
want
to
do
that’
 
 Many
men
still
work
on
the
water,
on
tugboats
as
SS7
does,
however
this
profession
 generally
puts
them
in
an
English‐speaking
setting
rather
than
with
small
 francophone
groups
as
with
trawling
and
crabbing.

A
younger
woman
interviewed
 told
regretfully
of
her
eight
year‐old
son
who
wants
to
be
a
crabber;
she
thinks
he
 will
not
have
the
money
to
support
a
family.

Another
interviewee
who
works
as
a
 production
operator
for
an
oil
company
elaborated
on
another
reason
young
people
 have
not
continued
the
traditional
career
of
trawling
:

 




46
 KC
:
t’as
jamais
fait
du—du
trawl?
 


‘you
never
went
trawling’?


YFS6
:
le
trawl?
Oh
oui.

Quand
j’étais
plus
jeune
 


‘trawling?

Oh
yeah.

When
I
was
younger.’


KC
:
oh
ouais?
 


‘oh
yeah?’


YFS6
:
trop
paresseux
pour
faire
ça
pour
une
vie,
ça
c’est
l’ouvrage
(laughter)
 


‘too
lazy
to
do
that
to
make
a
living,
that’s
[hard]
work’




 So
not
only
is
trawling
looked
at
as
a
less
lucrative
profession
than
other
options,
it
 is
considered
more
work.

As
SS7
and
YFS6
make
clear,
often
those
who
continued
 to
trawl
are
looked
upon
as
unfortunate
for
working
so
hard
for
so
little
income,
 instead
of
respected
for
continuing
a
traditional
lifestyle.
 


As
for
women,
the
once‐universal
position
of
staying
at
home
taking
care
of


the
children
has
been
replaced
by
more
progressive
standards
as
more
women
have
 started
working,
mostly
in
supermarkets
and
stores
in
which
most
interaction
 happens
in
English.

Some
of
these
women
have
told
stories
of
speaking
French
to
 older
monolingual
customers,
and
feeling
thankful
they
had
this
skill;
however
it
 was
clear
that
they
were
merely
making
use
of
the
language
to
communicate
with
a
 few
elderly
customers
while
the
rest
of
their
“work”
was
carried
on
in
English.

 Additionally,
once
these
elderly
customers
are
gone,
there
will
be
no
need
for
 French
to
enter
the
workplace
at
all.




47
 These
myriad
changes
in
the
lifestyles
of
younger
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians


have
taken
them
away
from
many
of
the
traditional
domains
in
which
French
was
 once
used.

As
more
Indians
move
away
from
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
pursuing
different
 lives
than
those
lead
by
their
parents,
they
leave
French
behind
in
favor
of
the
more
 prestigious,
and
therefore
more
useful,
English
language.

Thus
loss
of
lifestyle
for
 the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
is
translating
into
a
loss
of
language,
and
vice
versa.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 






48


3.
Linguistic
Description
of
PACIT
French
 Although
there
have
not
been
living
speakers
of
the
native
languages
of
the
Indians
 of
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
since
the
nineteenth
century,
these
groups
are
 believed
to
be
part
of
the
Muskoghean
language
family
(according
to
Brown
and
 Hardy
2000
:
11
and
PACIT
SFA
1997
:
4).

The
fading
language
of
choice
among
the
 Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians,
however,
is
French.

The
variety
of
French
currently
 spoken
in
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes
is
a
mixture
of
French
dialects
from
 numerous
sources,
some
discussed
in
the
first
chapter;
however
it
is
known
that
 waves
of
Acadian
settlers
began
arriving
in
this
region
around
1763
(PACIT
SFA
 1997
:
7),
with
the
biggest
wave
of
settlers
arriving
in
1785
(Brasseaux
2005
:
19).

 This
influx
of
Acadian
French
speakers
explains
some
of
the
dialectal
features
found
 in
the
French
spoken
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
today.

One
of
these
features,
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/,
is
the
subject
of
this
study.
 Because
all
of
the
informants
for
this
study
are
members
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐ Chien
Indian
Tribe,
I
will
refer
to
their
variety
of
French
as
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
 Tribe
(PACIT)
French.

PACIT
French
is
a
variety
of
Louisiana
Regional
French17

 (LRF).

In
this
chapter,
I
will
present
a
description
of
PACIT
French,
paying
 particular
attention
to
differences
between
PACIT
French
and
Modern
European
 French
(MEF).

Many
of
the
features
discussed
in
this
chapter
are
found
in
other
 























































 17
LRF
is
colloquially
referred
to
as
“Cajun
French,”
a
term
I
will
avoid
because
the


word
‘Cajun’
in
Louisiana
implies
an
identification
with
the
cultural
group
of
people
 that
call
themselves
Cajuns;
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
do
not
claim
to
be
part
of
 this
group,
thus
I
prefer
to
name
their
variety
of
French
after
the
group
that
they
do
 in
fact
identify
with.




49


dialects
of
LRF,
particularly
those
varieties
spoken
in
and
around
Terrebonne
and
 Lafourche
Parishes.

These
differences
will
be
discussed
to
a
certain
extent,
although
 a
full
dialectological
comparison
of
PACIT
French
with
other
varieties
of
French
is
 outside
of
the
scope
of
this
study.
 One
of
the
most
notable
phonetic
traits
of
PACIT
French
when
compared
to
 MEF
is
the
rolled,
or
apical,
[r]
(in
MEF
this
is
pronounced
as
the
velar
fricative
[ë]).

 Although
there
are
regions
of
Louisiana
where
the
velar
fricative
[ë]
is
used— particularly
on
Grand
Isle,
located
about
30
miles
southeast
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
 (Nathalie
Dajko,
personal
communication)—most
dialects
of
LRF
use
the
apical
[r].

 As
more
English
loanwords
have
entered
PACIT
French,
the
retroflex
approximant
 /ª/
has
made
its
way
into
the
language,
however
it
does
not
have
phonemic
status.
 A
phonological
trait
found
in
PACIT
French
which
differentiates
it
from
MEF
 is
the
presence
of
the
aspirated
[h],
pronounced
in
words
such
as
honte
/hŠ~t/
 “shame”
and
haler
/hale/
“to
pull”
(in
MEF
the
phoneme
[h]
does
not
exist,
thus
 these
words
would
be
represented
phonetically
as
/Š~t/
and
/ale/,
respectively).

 This
aspiration
contrasts
the
words
eau
/o/
“water”
and
haut
/ho/
“high,”
which
are
 homophones
in
MEF
(L.
Dubois
2005
:
90).

The
retention
of
the
phoneme
[h]
in
 PACIT
French
is
most
likely
a
relic
of
an
older
French
pronunciation.

Confirmation
 of
this
phoneme’s
past
existence
in
the
French
language
can
be
found
in
the
MEF
 writing
system.


 The
phoneme
[h]
shows
up
elsewhere
in
PACIT
French,
as
well—in
places
 where
there
is
no
orthographical
evidence
in
MEF.

For
example,
[h]
can
be
heard




50


appended
word‐initially
to
certain
words
that
begin
with
vowels,
as
in
the
word
 aigre
“bitter”
pronounced
/h°g/,
or
indien
“indian”
pronounced
/h°~dj°~/.

Of
 particular
significance
to
this
study,
in
PACIT
French
[h]
can
be
heard
substituted
for
 the
phoneme
/¹/.18

For
example,
the
words
jamais
and
aujourd’hui
can
be
 pronounced
alternatively
/¹ame/
or
/hame/
and
/o¹urd¡i/
or
/ohurd¡i/.

It
is
 important
to
note
that
this
phonetic
substitution
does
not
alter
the
meaning
of
 either
word,
thus
[h]
is
said
to
be
an
allophone
of
/¹/.

In
Louisiana,
the
phonetic
 substitution
of
[h]
for
/¹/
is
a
particularity
of
the
French
spoken
in
Lafourche
Parish
 and
in
parts
of
Terrebonne
Parish,
where
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians
are
centered.

 As
seen
as
in
the
example
of
haigre
“bitter,”
prosthesis
is
common
in
PACIT
 French.

This
process
is
frequently
seen
in
question
words,
which
normally
appear
 phrase‐initially,
as
in
the
examples
of
équand
/ekå~/
“when”
(MEF
quand)
and
ayoù
 /aju/or
éyoù
/eju/
“where”
(MEF
où).

Another
interesting
example
of
prosthesis
in
 PACIT
French
is
in
the
word
for
“bird,”
which
is
oiseau
/wazo/
in
MEF,
les
oiseaux
 /lezwazo/
being
the
plural
form.

In
PACIT
French,
however,
the
singular
form
of
 “bird”
is
zoiseau
/zwazo/,
based
on
the
liaison
present
in
the
plural
form.

This
same
 phenomenon
occurs
with
the
word
enfant
“child,”
the
pluralized
version
of
which
is
 pronounced
/lezå~få~/
(les
enfants),
with
the
singular
form
retaining
the
liaison
 























































 18
In
some
cases,
as
well,
/h/
is
substituted
for
the
fricatives
[s],
[z],
and
[ß].

This


could
be
because
of
analogy
with
[¹],
however
there
is
historical
evidence
 supporting
the
claim
that
these
phonemes,
especially
/ß/,
have
been
replaced
by
/h/
 in
other
dialects
of
French
(see
Bittner
1994;
Bodin
1988;
Boissonneault
1999;
S.
 Dubois
2005;
Gauthier
1995a,
1995b;
Geddes
1894,
1908;
Hull
1968;
Sheldon
 1887).

In
PACIT
French,
/h/
is
not
commonly
heard
substituted
for
/ß/.




51


consonant
as
with
zoiseau;
thus
the
singular
form
of
“child”
in
PACIT
French
is
 pronounced
/zå~få~/,
as
in
the
phrase
“quand
j’ai
eu
mon
premier
zenfant.”
Another
 example
of
the
reanalysis
of
a
liaison
consonant
as
the
initial
segment
of
a
lexical
 item
rather
than
as
the
final
consonant
of
the
preceding
item
is
presented
in
the
case
 of
homme
“man,”
pronounced
/nŠm/
and
oncle
“uncle,”
pronounced
/nŠ~nc/,
with
the
 /n/
probably
coming
from
the
article
un
“a,
one”
and/or
the
possessive
pronoun
 mon
“my.”
 Another
common
phonological
process
in
PACIT
French
is
word‐final
 consonant
cluster
reduction.19

This
can
be
heard
in
the
pronunciation
of
words
like
 incroyable
/°~krwayab/
“unbelievable”
and
autre
/Št/
“other.”
In
addition,
syllable‐
 and
word‐final
voiced
stops
regularly
nasalize
when
preceded
by
a
nasal
vowel,
as
 in
the
words
lendemain
/lå~nm°~/
“next
day”
and
monde
/mŠ~n/
“world,”
“people,”
or
 “a
group
of
people”
(Papen
and
Rottet
1997
:
77).

 In
PACIT
French,
the
nasal
vowels
/å~/
and
/Š~/
are
sometimes
conflated,
 whereas
in
MEF
these
vowels
represent
distinct
phonemes.

In
MEF,
the
words
sang
 /så~/
“blood”
and
son
/sŠ~/
“sound”
constitute
a
minimal
pair,
which
is
defined
as
two
 words
which
differ
by
a
single
phoneme.

To
some
PACIT
French
speakers,
however,
 these
words
might
be
homophonous.

Also
interesting
to
note
is
the
free
nasalization
 of
mid
and
low
vowels
before
nasal
consonants
in
PACIT
French,
as
is
the
case
in
the
 words
vilaine
/vil°~n/
“ugly,
sordid,
evil”
and
Louisiane
/lwizå~n/
“Louisiana”
(Picone
 and
Valdman
2005
:151).

The
palatal
nasal
consonant
[Ê],
which
has
phonemic
 























































 19
This
is
also
attested
in
vernacular
MEF
and
in
many
Canadian
varieties
of
French.




52


status
in
MEF,
does
not
exist
in
PACIT
French.

Words
that
feature
[Ê]
in
MEF
are
 instead
pronounced
with
the
preceding
vowel
nasalized
and
followed
by
the
glide
 /j/,
as
in
the
PACIT
French
word
gavagner
/gavå~je/
“to
waste,
squander,
dissipate.”

 Another
instance
of
nasal
assimilation
is
the
commonly
heard
/mny/
for
the
past
 participle
venu
and
/mne/
for
the
imperfect
conjugation
venait
of
the
verb
venir.
 Many
of
the
morphological
features
of
PACIT
French
that
differentiate
it
from
 MEF
consist
of
regularization
of
features
that
are
irregular
in
MEF.

For
example,
 there
is
frequent
regularization
in
the
pronunciation
of
certain
irregular
plural
 nouns,
such
as
les
oeufs,
pronounced
/lezØ/
in
MEF,
but
/lezœf/
in
PACIT
French
 (Papen
and
Rottet
1997
:
79).


 Table
3.1
:
Conjugation
Chart
for
the
Verb
Aller
 
 Aller
“To
Go”
 
 
 MEF
 
 
 Je
vais

 ‘I
go’
 
 
 Tu
vas

 ‘you
go’
 
 
 Il/Elle/On
va

 ‘he/she/one/we
go’
 



 PACIT
French
 
 Nous
allons

 ‘we
go’
 
 
 Vous
allez

 ‘you
(plural)
go’
 
 
 Ils/Elles
vont
 ‘they
go’



 Je
vas
 ‘I
go’
 
 
 Tu
vas
 ‘you
go’
 
 
 Il/Elle/On
va
 ‘he/she/one/we
go’
 



 Nous­autres
va20
 ‘we
go’
 
 
 Vous­autres
va
 ‘you
(plural)
go’
 
 
 Eusse
va
 ‘they
go’


























































 20
The
first
person
plural
conjugation
for
aller,
‘allons,’
has
survived
only
in
the


hortative,
as
in
the
expression
allons
voir
‘let’s
see’




53
 The
leveling
of
verb
paradigms
is
also
a
widespread
feature
of
PACIT
French.



Most
verbs
in
present
tense
are
conjugated
in
the
third
person
singular
form,
as
 seen
in
Table
3.1.

There
are
some
notable
exceptions
to
this
verb
leveling,
most
of
 which
consist
of
more
common
verbs
conjugated
in
the
present
for
the
first
person
 singular
(e.g.
je
suis).


 Past
participles
are
also
commonly
regularized,
as
seen
in
the
example
of
 mettre
in
eusse
a
metté
(MEF
ils
ont
mis),
which
also
shows
paradigm
leveling
within
 the
auxiliary
“avoir.”

Notable
too
is
that
the
auxiliary
verb
for
the
compound
past
 tense
(passé
compose)
has
been
leveled
to
avoir
“to
have,”
whereas
in
MEF
certain
 verbs
of
motion,
such
as
venir
“to
come”
and
aller
“to
go,”
take
the
auxiliary
être
“to
 be.”
 These
examples
of
analogical
leveling
and
regularization
could
be
due
to
 language
death,
which
often
results
in
the
simplification
of
more
complex
features
of
 a
language
(Dorian
1977,
1978,
1981;
Rottet
1995,
Schmidt
1985;
Wolfram
2002).

 This
could
also
be
the
effect
of
contact
with
English,
a
language
with
a
notoriously
 simplified
verb
paradigm.

Or,
because
some
of
these
features
can
be
heard
in
 colloquial
MEF
as
well,
it
could
just
be
the
result
of
a
speech
community
existing
 without
normative
pressure
from
official
sources
such
as
schools.

Further
 complicating
the
issue
of
the
source
of
leveling
and
regularization
in
PACIT
French
 is
the
loss
of
the
subjunctive
mood,
which
could
also
be
the
result
of
either
language
 death
(the
absence
of
an
expected
grammatical
category,
see
Dorian
1977),
language
 contact
(since
English
has
almost
entirely
done
away
with
the
subjunctive
mood),
or




54


even
just
lack
of
normative
pressure.

These
contradicting
arguments
show
just
how
 difficult
it
is
to
pinpoint
the
exact
reason
for
the
development
of
certain
features
in
 PACIT
French.
 Other
features,
however,
are
much
easier
to
explain
as
examples
of
language
 contact,
in
particular
code‐switching,
which
is
prevalent
in
PACIT
French.

Picone
 (1997
:
128)
writes,
“code‐switching
is
rampant
among
bilinguals
in
Louisiana
at
 both
intersentential
and
intrasentential
levels…sometimes
code
choice
is
dictated
 by
the
partial
or
total
lack,
as
the
case
may
be,
of
available
vocabularies
for
 discussing
a
given
topic
in
French.”
Thus
topics
relating
to
technology
or
newer
 cultural
practices
may
not
exist
in
traditional
PACIT
French
and
English
words
must
 be
used
in
order
to
discuss
such
practices,
as
in
the
following
example
of
intra‐ sentential
as
well
as
intersentential
code‐switching.
 YFS7
:
Now
le
pont
icitte,
on
l’avait
pas
comme
ça,
c’était
différent,
c’était
en
 bois
 ‘Now
the
bridge
over
here,
we
didn’t
used
to
have
one
like
that,
it
was
 different,
it
was
made
of
wood.’
 KC
:
ah.
 YFS7’s
Brother
:
le
pont
en
bas
itou,
c’était
en
bois
 


‘The
bridge
further
down
too,
it
was
made
of
wood’


YFS7
:
uh‐huh,
ouais
parce
que
t’as—t’as
sauté,
t’as
sauté
!
(laughing)
 (BROTHER’S
NAME)
jumped
off
the
bridge
down
there,
he
wasn’t
supposed
 to,
and
oh
my
Daddy
fussed
him,
oh
(laughter)
it
was
a
wooden
bridge,
an
old
 wooden
bridge
 


‘uh‐huh,
yeah
because
you—you
jumped,
you
jumped
!
…’


KC
:
Quelle
âge
il
avait
?

Quand
il
a
fait
ça
?
 


‘How
old
was
he
?

When
he
did
that
?’




55
 YFS7
:
équand…
?
 


‘When…
?’


YFS7’s
Brother
:
uh,
dix
 


‘uh,
ten’


YFS7
:
Because
we
always—mon
et
lui
on
était
près
près,
on
restait
ensemble,
 on
faisait
tout
ensemble
 ‘Because
we
always—he
and
I
were
really
close,
we
were
always
 together,
we
did
everything
together.’
 
 Although
English
has
had
a
pronounced
effect
on
PACIT
French,
the
opposite
is
true
 as
well;
certain
traits
of
PACIT
French
have
shown
up
in
the
local
variety
of
English.

 For
example,
in
PACIT
English
one
often
hears
such
phrases
as
“him,
he
doesn’t
like
 that,
him,”
or
“me,
I
can’t
drive.”
This
left
dislocation
of
the
stressed
pronoun
is
most
 likely
the
influence
of
PACIT
French,
in
which
it
is
more
common
to
hear
“mon,
je
 connais
pas”
(‘me,
I
don’t
know’)
than
just
“je
connais
pas”
(‘I
don’t
know’).

This
also
 occurs
in
MEF
with
the
first
person
singular
tonic
pronoun
moi,
but
generally
only
in
 situations
where
one
is
emphasizing
the
subject.

In
his
1995
study
of
French
in
 Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes,
Kevin
Rottet
cited
this
increased
mon‐usage
as
 a
sign
of
language
death,
since
younger
speakers
use
it
much
more
frequently
than
 older
speakers,
and
often
in
non‐emphatic
contexts.

Indeed
for
some
semi‐speakers,
 mon
has
actually
replaced
je
entirely
as
the
subject
pronoun,
as
seen
in
the
following
 exchanges.
 KC
:
I
broke
my
leg.

 SS8
:
mon
a
cassé
mon
jambe
 




56
 
 
 KC
:
I
fixed
the
car
today.

 SS4
:
mon
a
arrangé
le
char
aujourd’hui



 This
construction
begins
to
resemble
Louisiana
Creole,
in
which
the
first
person
 pronoun
is
mo.

I
will
not
expound
on
the
theories
that
language
death
is
 comparable
to
pidginization
or
creolization
(see
Dressler
1977,
Dorian
1978,
and
 Schmidt
1985
for
some
arguments
offered
for
and
against
this
idea),
I
merely
point
 out
this
similarity
to
show
how
Louisiana
Creole
and
PACIT
French,
although
having
 no
contact
with
one
another,
have
arrived
at
this
same
end
by
different
means.

For
 PACIT
French
speakers
the
usage
of
mon
as
a
subject
pronoun
is
likely
the
result
of
 the
semi‐speakers’
reanalysis
of
the
two
processes
of
je‐dropping
and
left
 dislocation
of
the
stressed
pronoun
mon.

Given
that
mon
is
a
stressed
pronoun
and
 more
prominent
than
the
weaker
clitic
pronoun
je,
it
is
not
surprising
that
the
semi‐ speakers
would
substitute
mon
for
je.
21

Perhaps
contributing
to
this
process
is
the
 fact
that
the
first
person
singular
clitic
pronoun
je
has
taken
on
so
many
forms
of
 phonological
variation,
as
seen
in
Table
3.2.
 
 


























































 21
This
idea
will
be
revisited
in
the
semi‐speaker
portion
of
the
data
analysis,
since


this
phenomenon
is
most
relevant
to
their
data
set.




57
 Table
3.2
:
Pronoun
Table



 Table
from
p.
175
of
Rottet,
1995.


First
person
singular
je
can
be
expressed
by
any
one
of
[ع],
[¹],
[ß],
[z],
[s],
[h],
or
 can
be
dropped
entirely.

For
some
speakers,
PACIT
French
appears
to
be
turning
 into
a
pronoun‐dropping
language,
with
the
subject
pronoun
frequently
being
 dropped
altogether.

 


KC
:
She
is
still
as
pretty
as
when
she
was
young

 YFS6
:
Ø
est
aussi
jolie
/
comme
Ø
était
jeune
 KC
:
I
never
dive
into
the
bayou

 YFS6
:
Ø
saute
jamais
dans
le
bayou
 


Because
Table
3.2
was
not
made
specifically
to
describe
PACIT
French,
there
are
 some
key
differences
in
pronoun
usage.

To
begin
with,
the
“polite”
vous
is




58


practically
nonexistent
in
PACIT
French,
although
some
older
monolingual
French
 speakers
had
heard
of
it.

Tu
is
used
for
all
interlocutors
and
is
not
considered
rude
 or
forward—this
might
be
due
to
loss
of
domains
of
use,
as
the
language
is
barely
 ever
used
in
formal
contexts.

The
only
situation
where
I
have
consistently
heard
 vous
used
is
in
Catholic
prayers
memorized
by
older
PACIT
French
speakers;
 however
other
features
of
MEF
appear
in
these
prayers
as
well.

Second
person
 plural
is
expressed
by
vous­autres
/vuzŠt/,
as
shown
in
Table
3.2,
however
first
 person
plural
can
be
expressed
by
on
/Š~/
as
given
in
the
chart
or
by
nous­autres
 /nuzŠt/.

Sometimes
a
combination
of
these
two
pronouns
is
used,
as
in
“nous­autres,
 on
avait
pas
ça”
(‘us
we
didn’t
have
that‘),
offering
another
example
of
pronoun
 reiteration
in
PACIT
French.

PACIT
French
also
differs
from
Table
3.2
in
its
choice
of
 third
person
plural
pronouns,
for
which
eusse
/Øs/
is
most
commonly
heard,
with
 eux­autres
/ØzŠt/
and
the
MEF
form
ils
/i/,
/il/,
or
/iz/
used
very
rarely.

Ça
/sa/is
 generally
used
to
indicate
a
third
person
plural
subject,
and
it
is
sometimes
used
in
 PACIT
French
for
the
third
person
singular
subject,
as
well.

It
is
also
important
to
 note
that,
in
contrast
with
MEF,
gender
is
not
always
marked
on
the
third
person
 pronouns
in
PACIT
French.

It
is
never
marked
for
third
person
plural
pronouns,
and
 often
ça
and
il
are
used
for
all
genders
in
the
singular.

For
tonic
pronouns,
lui
is
 used
much
more
often
than
elle,
which
could
be
cited
as
the
effect
of
language
death,
 since
this
results
in
a
loss
of
gender
distinction
for
all
pronouns.

 Prepositions
denoting
possession
in
PACIT
French
offer
another
interesting
 deviation
from
MEF.

In
PACIT
French,
à
is
used
rather
than
de
to
denote
possession,
 as
in
le
char
à
ma
sœur

“my
sister’s
car”
which
would
be
la
voiture
de
ma
sœur
in




59


MEF.

This
brings
up
an
interesting
debate
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
due
to
the
fact
that
 a
nearby
island
is
named
Isle
de
Jean
Charles,
but
is
referred
almost
universally
as
 Isle
à
Jean
Charles.

This
problem
is
solved
by
many
people
just
calling
it
l’isle,
or
‘the
 island.’
 


A
syntactic
difference
between
PACIT
French
and
MEF
that
had
to
be
kept
in


mind
for
interviewing
is
the
fact
that
there
is
no
subject‐verb
inversion
in
PACIT
 French.

This
means
questions
cannot
be
formed
by
inverting
the
subject
and
the
 verb,
as
in
the
question
“quel
âge
as­tu?”
which
is
expressed
by
“équel
âge
que
t’as?”
 in
PACIT
French.

Also
important
in
question
formulation
is
the
fact
that
PACIT
 French
belongs
to
one
of
several
dialect
zones
within
Louisiana
in
which
qui
rather
 than
quoi
is
used
as
an
inanimate
interrogative
pronoun
(Dajko
2007);
in
MEF,
in
 contrast,
interrogative
qui
can
only
have
an
animate
referent.

Thus
the
word
quoi
is
 not
used
at
all
in
PACIT
French,
except
in
the
fixed
expression
du
quoi
‘stuff,
things.’
 One
of
the
most
common
and
notable
features
of
Louisiana
Regional
French
 is
the
use
of
après
plus
the
infinitive
to
express
the
present
progressive
tense
(e.g.
il
 après
manger
‘he
is
eating
[right
now]’).

This
form
has
been
attested
in
the
Creole
 French
language
spoken
in
Haiti,
in
the
Acadian
French
of
Canada,
and
in
certain
 dialects
of
regional
French
in
the
Atlantic
provinces
of
France
(Picone
1997
:
121).

 Another
feature
shared
with
some
of
these
francophone
regions
is
the
term
asteur,
 meaning
“now”
(MEF
maintenant).

Asteur
comes
from
the
French
phrase
à
cette
 heure,
which
means
“at
this
hour/time.”

This
lexical
item
has
been
attested
in
 northern
as
well
as
southern
dialects
in
France
(Chauveau
1995
:
171)
and
in




60


Acadian
French
(Base
de
Données
Lexicographiques
Panfrancophone
2005).

It
is
the
 universally
employed
term
for
“now”
in
the
regional
French
spoken
throughout
 Louisiana.

A
dialectal
feature
found
in
Louisiana
as
well
as
in
Acadian
French
is
the
 phrase
rien
que
for
“only,”
which
is
an
archaic
form
of
the
popular
MEF
ne…que
 (Lavoie
1995
:
385).


 Many
words
are
shared
by
PACIT
French
and
MEF,
but
hold
different
 semantic
values
in
each
language.

For
example,
the
PACIT
French
word
for
“car”
is
 char,
which
is
the
word
for
“tank”
in
MEF,
whereas
the
MEF
word
for
“car,”
voiture,
 means
“horse‐carriage”
in
PACIT
French.

In
addition,
the
word
espérer
means
“to
 wait”
in
PACIT
French,
whereas
its
meaning
in
MEF
is
“to
hope.”

The
MEF
word
for
 “to
wait”
is
attendre,
which
means
“to
hear”
in
PACIT
French.

These
semantic
 differences
between
MEF
and
varieties
of
Louisiana
Regional
French
(LRF)
can
 sometimes
result
in
comical
situations,
as
in
the
often
told
story
of
Cajun
women
 going
to
France
to
shop
for
perfume
(essence
in
LRF)
and
getting
directed
to
a
gas
 station
(the
MEF
word
essence
means
“gasoline”).

LRF
lexical
items
can
vary
a
good
 deal
from
region
to
region,
as
well,
with
similar—at
times
amusing— misunderstandings
taking
place.
 These
similarities
and
differences
between
PACIT
French
and
other
dialects
 of
French
show
some
results
of
the
complex
relationship
between
regional
 movements,
diachronic
change,
language
contact,
and
the
sociolinguistic
value
of
 certain
features.

In
order
to
better
understand
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in




61


modern
PACIT
French,
some
of
these
processes
must
be
inspected
as
this
phonetic
 variation
is
traced
through
the
history
of
the
French
language.
 It
must
be
acknowledged,
first,
that
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
French
 is
not
a
new
development,
nor
is
it
limited
to
the
French
spoken
in
Terrebonne
and
 Lafourche
Parishes
in
Louisiana.

Sylvie
Dubois
(2005
:
291)
explains,
“…les
formes
 dites
innovatrices
ne
sont
en
fait
que
des
usages
en
vigueur
au
18e
siècle
en
France
qui
 ont
été
sanctionnés
par
les
grammairiens.“22

The
grammarians
were
the
main
 warriors
against
dialect
variation.

They
were
the
members
of
the
Royal
Academy
of
 France,
or
the
Académie
Française,
which
was
founded
in
1633
with
the
initial
 purpose
of
creating
a
standard
French
dictionary,
which
did
not
appear
until
1694
 (Tisch
1959
:
10).

There
is
proof
that
the
King’s
French—that
is,
the
French
spoken
 in
Paris—began
superseding
dialects
spoken
around
the
capital
as
early
as
the
 twelfth
century.

By
the
middle
of
the
sixteenth
century
the
King’s
French
had
 replaced
Latin
as
the
High
language
in
France,
with
regional
dialects
playing
the
role
 of
Low
languages,
creating
a
diglossic
(or
in
some
cases,
multiglossic)
situation
 throughout
much
of
France
(Lodge
1993
:
188).

However,
because
the
King’s
 French
was
used
primarily
for
High
functions
(government,
law,
literature,
and
so
 on),
dialects
continued
to
flourish
among
the
lower
class,
who
had
limited
contact
 with
affairs
that
required
extensive
knowledge
of
the
High
form
of
French.

In
 























































 22
“The
so‐called
innovative
forms
are
actually
nothing
more
than
popular
18th


century
usages
in
France
which
were
interdicted
by
the
grammarians.”

Although
 Dubois
mentions
that
the
dialectal
forms
brought
to
the
New
World
were
 commonplace
in
the
18th
century,
instances
of
/¹/
being
realized
as
/h/
were
 attested
in
Saintonge
as
early
as
the
16th
Century
(Horiot
1995
:
217).




62


particular,
rural
farmers
retained
dialects
simply
due
to
lack
of
exposure
to
the
 “standardized”
language
of
urban
settings.

Because
of
their
lower
station
in
France,
 these
farmers
were
often
the
first
to
immigrate
to
the
New
World,
in
search
of
a
new
 beginning.

So
many
of
these
dialectal
features
that
are
found
in
the
French
of
North
 America
and
the
Caribbean,
including
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/,
were
originally
 brought
over
by
these
speakers
of
various
regional
dialects
of
French.
 Figure
3.1
:
Distribution
Map
for
the
Substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
and
/ß/
in
Saintonge




 Map
from
p.
219
of
Horiot
and
Gauthier,
1995


In
order
to
properly
document
the
history
of
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
 French,
one
must
look
back
to
the
dialects
spoken
in
the
southwest
regions
of




63


France,
in
particular
those
of
Poitou
and
Saintonge.

In
fact,
in
much
of
the
literature
 on
the
subject,
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
is
called
the
“/¹/
Saintongeais.”

 As
can
be
seen
in
figure
3.3,
this
phenomenon
was
also
attested
in
Poitou,
 although
to
a
lesser
extent.

Also
interesting,
on
this
map
the
“/ß/
Saintongeais”
(that
 is
to
say
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/ß/)
is
also
marked;
however
it
is
clear
that
this
 substitution
was
not
nearly
as
common,
which
may
be
the
reason
that
this
 substitution
is
not
frequently
heard
in
PACIT
French.
 In
Le
Dictionnaire
du
Patois
Saintongeais,
the
allophone
substituted
for
/¹/
is
 described
as
“…comme
le
[sic]
jota
arabe
en
espagnol,
adouci…Il
faut
être
né
au
doux
 pays
de
Saintonghe
[sic]
pour
bien
saisir
cette
nuance
d’aspiration”23
(cited
in
Sheldon
 1887
:
217).

In
addition,
more
recent
recordings
have
captured
modern
speakers
of
 Saintonge
dialects
pronouncing
the
trademark
/¹/
saintongeais
(see
Gauthier
1995).
 In
her
1999
study
of
the
French
spoken
in
Abitibi,
Québec,
Chantal
 Boissonneault
looked
at
what
she
referred
to
as
the
“weakening”
(l’affaiblissement)
 of
/¹/
and
/ß/
(see
also
Bittner
1994).

Boissonneault
remarked
that
these
two
 phonemes
were
replaced
by
weakened
variants,
which
she
designated
as
/¹h/
and
 /ßh/,
claiming
a
separate
phoneme
for
each
variant.

Throughout
the
literature
on
 the
subject,
there
has
not
been
a
general
agreement
on
the
phoneme—or


























































 23
“…like
the
Arabic
jota
in
Spanish,
softened…one
must
be
born
in
the
soft/sweet


countryside
of
Saintonge
to
to
really
capture
this
nuance
of
aspiration”
(my
 translation)




64


phonemes—that
replaces
/¹/
and
/ß/ (and
in
the
region
I
studied,
/s/
and
/z/
to
a
 certain
extent);
/Ó/,
/¼/,
and
/¥/
have
also
been
presented
as
variants.


 Age
was
the
main
variable
in
Boissonneault’s
study,
which
examined
the
 speech
of
older
French‐speaking
women
and
that
of
their
daughters.

Boissonneault
 explained
that
she
decided
to
take
the
variables
of
sex
and
social
class
out
of
her
 study
because
men
and
those
of
lower
socioeconomic
standing
had
each
been
 shown
to
use
the
glottalized
variants
more
in
speech.

The
object
of
Boissonneault’s
 study
was
to
discover
if
phonetic
speech
variations
indicative
of
certain
regional
 dialects
survived
in
the
speech
of
more
recent
settlers
in
the
Abitibi
region—thus
it
 was
only
logical
to
compare
older,
more
conservative
speakers
to
younger
speakers,
 who
are
more
prone
to
embrace
innovative
forms.

It
is
important
to
note
that
 Boissonneault’s
study
took
place
in
a
“healthy”
language
area
in
Quebec,
in
which
 French
is
the
dominant
language
and
shows
no
signs
of
decline
in
number
of
 speakers.

The
effect
of
age
on
speech
within
this
environment
is
very
different
from
 its
effect
in
Louisiana,
where
the
French
language
is
dying
out,
thus
creating
a
larger
 disparity
between
the
speech
of
older
(sometimes
monolingual)
speakers
and
 younger
speakers,
who
do
not
use
French
as
frequently.

Also,
social
stratification
 and
the
effects
of
gender
in
this
healthy
language
area
would
be
more
apparent
than
 in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
(see
Carmichael
2007).

Boissonneault
identified
the
 glottalized
variants
of
/¹/
and
/ß/
as
stigmatized
speech
variants
indicative
of
older,
 less‐educated
individuals.

Other
studies
and
personal
communications
have
 revealed
similar
sentiments
in
Acadia
and
other
parts
of
Canada,
although
 interviews
I
conducted
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
indicated
that
this
allophonic




65


alternation
is
not
strongly
stigmatized
in
the
region.

So
while
comparisons
with
 studies
of
this
phenomenon
in
Canada
prove
interesting,
it
is
important
to
realize
its
 significance
within
the
speech
community
being
studied.
 


Beyond
France,
Canada,
and
Louisiana,
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
has


been
heard
in
the
French
spoken
in
Martinique
as
well
as
in
Creole
French
 languages
throughout
the
Caribbean
(see
Hull
1968),
and
showed
up
too
in
an
1887
 study
(Sheldon)
of
French
spoken
in
Maine.

Thus
it
is
clear
that
the
substitution
of
 /h/
for
/¹/
is
a
stable—albeit
relatively
rare—variation
within
the
French
language
 as
it
is
spoken
around
the
globe.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




66


4.
Fieldwork
and
Methodology

 Data
for
this
study
were
collected
starting
in
January
of
2007;
however
contact
with
 the
community
began
in
October
of
the
previous
year.

Having
experience
 interacting
with
speakers
of
PACIT
French
and
establishing
ties
within
the
 community
was
helpful
for
several
reasons.

To
begin
with,
getting
to
know
a
couple
 of
people
in
the
community
opened
doors
to
getting
to
know
their
family
members,
 who
were
more
willing
to
talk
if
their
mother/sister/brother/cousin
had
already
 spoken
with
me.

This
is
particularly
useful
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
which
consists
of
 a
small
number
of
different
families
that
have
intermarried
extensively,
creating
a
 clan‐like
community.

As
one
semi‐speaker
explained,
 Our
family
tree
is
funny…the
branches
didn’t
go
very
far…and
it
wasn’t
until
 like
our
generation
that
you
saw
it
starting
to
spread
out…on
Mama’s
side,
at
 that
point,
it
was
like
the
family
tree,
it’s
like
[speaker’s
maiden
name,
 speaker’s
maiden
name,
speaker’s
maiden
name,
speaker’s
maiden
name]— hey
do
we
have
any
other
relatives?
 
 Indeed,
almost
all
of
the
informants
for
this
study
were
related
to
several
other
 informants
at
least
by
marriage.


 Knowing
the
community
also
helped
make
for
a
more
relaxed
interview
 environment,
since
I
knew
which
topics
were
taboo
and
which
would
be
more
 readily
expounded
upon.

Attending
PACIT
meetings
and
socials
created
a
great
 opportunity
to
meet
possible
informants,
but
also
provided
me
with
the
chance
to
 spend
time
with
the
people
with
whom
I
had
already
spoken,
further
fostering
 friendships
with
community
members.




 


67
 The
subject
pool
for
this
study
consisted
of
twenty‐eight
informants
:
twelve


older
fluent
speakers
(who
were
bilingual
speakers
of
French
and
English),
eight
 younger
fluent
speakers,
and
eight
semi‐speakers.

Of
these,
half
of
the
speakers
in
 each
category
were
men,
and
half
were
women.

Gender
was
one
of
the
main
 variables
being
investigated
for
this
study,
the
other
being
attention
to
speech.

 Because
/¹/
was
established
as
the
more
prestigious
variant
in
Carmichael’s
2007
 study
of
older
fluent
speakers
of
PACIT
French
(the
results
of
which
will
be
 summarized
in
the
following
chapter),
this
study
attempts
to
ascertain
whether
the
 rate
of
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
remains
significantly
different
between
careful
 and
casual
speech
for
PACIT
French
speakers
of
different
generations
and
degrees
 of
fluency.

Since
some
of
the
sociolinguistic
variables
that
govern
variation
have
 been
shown
to
wield
less
power
over
isolated
minority
language
communities
 undergoing
language
death
(King
1989;
Dorian
1994),
these
variables—such
as
 socioeconomic
status
or
“social
stratification”
(Labov
1966)—were
not
included
in
 this
study.

Gender,
however,
has
been
proven
an
important
variable
in
 sociolinguistic
research
even
in
obsolescing
languages
(Dressler
and
Wodak‐ Leodalter
1977;
Schlieben‐Lange
1977),
so
the
data
will
also
be
analyzed
in
order
to
 see
if
there
is
a
significant
difference
in
/h/‐substitution
between
men
and
women
 in
each
group
of
speakers.


 Word
lists
and
reading
passages
are
commonly
used
to
obtain
examples
of
 careful
speech
from
linguistic
subjects
(Labov
1972).

However,
because
none
of
 those
interviewed
were
literate
in
French,
neither
word
lists
nor
reading
passages
 were
a
possibility.

I
opted
instead
for
verbal
sentence
translations
from
English
to




68


French,
which
would
still
direct
considerable
attention
towards
the
speech
of
the
 informants.

A
set
of
fifty
short
translation
sentences
was
engineered
specifically
to
 elicit
the
phoneme
/¹/
(or
its
allophone
[h]).

The
translation
sentences
generally
 took
five
minutes
to
half
an
hour
(depending
on
the
fluency
of
the
speaker),
and
 were
administered
after
about
forty‐five
minutes
to
an
hour
of
casual
conversation.

 I
chose
to
put
the
translation
sentences
after
the
informal
interviews
because
 starting
out
by
drawing
attention
to
the
informants’
manner
of
speaking
might
make
 them
more
speech‐conscious
during
the
informal
portion
of
the
interview.


 Although
the
informal
portion
of
the
interview
was
meant
to
elicit
 unmonitored
(or
less
monitored)
speech,
it
also
had
further
purpose
:
it
is
from
this
 part
of
the
interview
that
information
was
collected
on
the
background
of
each
 speaker.

The
informant’s
childhood,
occupation,
family,
language
background,
and
 information
about
the
tribe
and
region
were
all
discussed
during
this
time—all
 topics
with
which
the
informant
was
familiar
and
was
comfortable
speaking
about,
 and
all
topics
that
could
easily
be
expanded
and
made
to
flow
into
one
another.

 Following
a
technique
from
Labov’s
1966
New
York
Study,
I
also
questioned
my
 informants
about
somewhat
emotional
subject
matter,
such
as
past
instances
of
 discrimination
or
their
experience
with
the
recent
hurricanes
that
devastated
the
 coastal
communities
of
Louisiana.

Encouraging
emotional
involvement
directs
 attention
away
from
the
speech
of
the
interviewee,
stimulating
less
careful
speech
 that
is
more
representative
of
the
informant’s
natural
speaking
style
(Chambers
and
 Trudgill
1998
:
49).





 


69
 During
spring
of
2007
I
collected
interviews
with
older
fluent
speakers.

This


group
of
individuals
ranged
from
54
to
73
years
of
age,
with
those
speakers
on
the
 older
end
of
the
spectrum
generally
feeling
more
comfortable
speaking
French
and
 the
younger
speakers
preferring
English.

Many
of
these
interviews
were
set
up
in
 advance
using
a
list
provided
by
a
younger
council
member
very
active
in
the
tribe,
 however
some
interviewees
were
referred
by
others
and
were
thus
visited
without
 advance
notice
(this
is
referred
to
as
the
“friend
of
a
friend”
technique
in
Milroy’s
 1987
book,
Language
and
Social
Networks).

In
general
the
informants
contacted
by
 the
latter
technique
were
just
as
willing
to
be
interviewed
as
those
with
 appointments
set
up
in
advance;
the
community
was
incredibly
welcoming,
with
 many
informants
encouraging
me
to
return
and
visit.


 As
I
set
up
the
first
interviews
with
older
fluent
speakers,
I
attempted
to
 organize
interviews
with
more
than
one
speaker
at
a
time
(often
married
couples,
 whose
schedules
were
easiest
to
coordinate)
in
an
attempt
to
incite
conversation
 between
the
two
native
speakers
and
minimize
the
observer’s
paradox.

The
term
 ‘observer’s
paradox’
was
coined
by
William
Labov
,
who
writes
of
this
dilemma
 (1972
:
209)
:

 The
aim
of
linguistic
research
in
the
community
must
be
to
find
out
how
 people
talk
when
they
are
not
being
systematically
observed;
yet
we
can
only
 obtain
these
data
by
systematic
observation.
 
 This
issue
is
especially
relevant
to
this
study;
since
I
am
not
a
native
speaker
of
 PACIT
French
it
is
even
more
difficult
to
create
an
environment
for
the
informants
 to
produce
natural,
unmonitored
speech.

In
setting
up
interviews
with
more
than




70


one
informant
at
a
time,
I
hoped
to
take
myself
out
of
the
conversation
entirely,
also
 lessening
the
possibility
of
the
informants
speaking
differently
than
they
normally
 would
in
order
to
accommodate
for
the
fact
that
I
am
not
a
native
speaker
(see
Giles
 1984
for
more
on
Speech
Accommodation
Theory).

However,
the
very
nature
of
an
 interview
demands
questions
and
answers,
which
made
dialogue
between
the
two
 interviewees
nearly
impossible
as
the
informants
directed
all
speech
towards
me,
 rather
than
towards
each
other,
except
when
verifying
facts
relating
to
their
stories.


 Although
the
original
strategy
of
removing
the
observer’s
paradox
was
not
 successful,
these
initial
attempts
did
indicate
that
a
group
environment
helped
 conversation
flow
more
freely
and
took
away
some
of
the
formality
of
the
strict
 question‐and‐answer
format
of
one‐on‐one
interviews.

It
is
for
this
reason
that
a
 second
interviewer
generally
accompanied
me
on
interviews.

One
of
the
helper
 interviewers
I
brought
with
me
was
another
researcher
performing
fieldwork
in
the
 region
who
had
already
been
embraced
by
the
PACIT
community.

She
attended
the
 PACIT
meetings
and
socials
with
me
and
was
able
to
introduce
me
to
several
 speakers.

The
other
interviewer
I
would
bring
was
a
French
speaker
who
lived
in
 Houma
and
was
thus
able
to
discuss
and
identify
with
local
phenomena.

This
latter
 interviewer
was
particularly
useful,
since
together
we
created
an
insider‐outsider
 dynamic.

This
meant
that
I
was
able
to
ask
questions
about
local
customs
and
 traditions
because
I
was
an
outsider,
after
which
my
fellow
interviewer
would
poke
 fun
at
my
lack
of
familiarity
with
traditions
and
history
of
the
region,
asserting
his
 “insider”
status
and
making
for
a
lighthearted,
friendly
interviewing
atmosphere.





71


This
dynamic
can
be
seen
in
the
following
interchange
during
an
interview
with
two
 older
fluent
speakers
:
 KC
:
Comment
faire
un
pirogue
?

 


‘How
do
you
make
a
pirogue
(canoe)
?’


OFS11
:
Un
pirogue
?

 


‘a
pirogue
?’


RM
:
Avec
du
bois
(laughter)
 


‘with
wood’



OFS11
:
Oui
c’est
du
bois
oui…avec
des
plywood.
J’ai
un
pa—

 


‘yeah
it’s
with
wood
yeah…with
plywood.

I
have
a
pa—‘


OFS8
:
Tu
as
pas
fait
ça
avec
xx
glace
?

 




‘you
didn’t
make
it
with
xx
ice
?’



 OFS11
continues
to
describe
in
detail
how
a
pirogue
(canoe)
is
made,
in
order
to
 introduce
me,
the
outsider,
to
the
technique.

By
playfully
answering
my
question,
 however,
the
other
interviewer
was
able
to
solidify
his
role
as
an
insider,
joking
with
 the
other
interviewee
OFS8
about
this
otherwise
straightforward
question
that
only
 insiders
and
experts
would
know
the
answer
to.

This
insider‐outsider
relationship
 between
the
interviewers
for
this
project
was
important
for
several
reasons.

As
 Wolfram
(1998
:
273)
explains,

 Although
the
members
of
a
research
team
may
assume
a
variety
of
 negotiated
roles
and
relationships
as
visitors,
friends,
and
researchers,
our
 initial
and
primary
status…[is]
framed
as
university‐based
language
experts.

 




72


In
showing
the
informants
that
I
was
just
as
susceptible
to
humor
as
anyone,
I
was
 taken
out
of
the
rank
of
detached
researcher
and/or
language
expert
and
placed
into
 a
more
approachable
position
within
the
conversation.

This
also
put
the
informants
 in
the
position
of
expert,
as
they
conversed
with
me
on
topics
with
which
they
were
 more
comfortable
than
I
was.

My
colleague’s
digs
had
the
secondary
purpose
of
 increasing
the
level
of
affiliation
with
the
informants
and
with
the
community
in
 general,
as
he
built
rapport
with
fellow
locals
(see
Raven
and
French
1958
for
more
 on
these
strategies).

So
while
the
informants
were
treated
like
“experts”
as
they
 explained
their
everyday
lives
to
an
outsider,
they
also
felt
a
certain
degree
of
 affiliation
and
familiarity
with
my
fellow
interviewer,
which
made
for
a
less
formal
 and
less
intimidating
interviewing
atmosphere.


 


Another
important
strategy
in
building
solidarity
with
the
informants
and


minimizing
linguistic
accommodation
was
to
attempt
to
speak
their
dialect
of
 French
rather
than
the
variety
of
French
(MEF)
that
I
had
learned
in
school.

 Because
PACIT
French
(and
LRF
in
general)
is
a
stigmatized
dialect
of
French,
 certain
dialectal
features
might
be
reduced
when
conversing
with
speakers
of
MEF,
 a
more
prestigious
dialect.

Although
Salmon
(2007)
shows
that
linguistic
 accommodation
occurs
when
Louisiana
French
speakers
interact
with
interviewers
 speaking
Modern
European
French,
Carmichael
(2007)
has
shown
that
it
is
possible
 for
a
non‐native
speaker
to
incite
more
casual,
unmonitored
speech
from
informants
 when
attempting
to
reproduce
the
local
dialect.

More
than
once
after
revealing
my
 hometown
I
was
asked
how
a
girl
from
Virginia
spoke
French
like
“around
here,”
 showing
that
at
least
on
some
level,
I
was
successful
in
producing
local
dialect
forms




73


and
not
giving
away
my
language
training
in
MEF.

Since
most
informants
identified
 me
as
a
native
speaker
of
English
who
had
acquired
French
through
schooling,
my
 mistakes
were
excused
as
errors
a
non‐native
speaker
might
make
rather
than
 evidence
of
speaking
a
more
prestigious
dialect.

So
once
again,
the
informant
was
 put
in
the
position
of
“expert,”
this
time
the
expert
on
their
language.


 


Partially
out
of
necessity
and
partially
out
of
convenience
for
the


interviewees,
all
interviews
were
held
in
the
homes
of
the
informants.

This
 provided
a
comfortable
and
familiar
context
for
the
interviewees,
putting
them
 more
at
ease
than
would
an
interview
in
a
different,
foreign
environment
such
as
a
 college
campus,
or
even
a
more
official
location
within
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.


 


In
fall
of
2007,
data
collection
began
for
semi‐speakers
of
PACIT
French.

I


had
originally
sought
the
younger
generation
of
semi‐speakers
in
order
to
compare
 them
to
the
older,
bilingual
generation
of
speakers,
however
during
my
fieldwork
I
 discovered
there
were
also
a
number
of
younger
fluent
speakers
of
PACIT
French.

 In
order
to
paint
a
more
complete
picture
of
the
linguistic
situation
of
PACIT
French,
 I
decided
to
collect
interviews
from
these
younger
fluent
speakers
as
well
as
from
 semi‐speakers.

Both
groups
fell
into
about
the
same
age
range,
semi‐speakers
 ranging
from
28
to
43
years
of
age
and
younger
fluent
speakers
ranging
from
30
to
 44.


 At
this
point,
it
becomes
necessary
to
formally
define
the
term
“semi‐ speaker”
as
it
is
being
used
in
this
study.

The
term
was
coined
by
Nancy
Dorian
in
 her
1973
paper
on
East
Sutherland
Gaelic
(ESG)
entitled,
“Grammatical
Change
in
a




74


Dying
Dialect.”
When
she
started
her
work
with
ESG,
Dorian
dismissed
what
she
 referred
to
as
“imperfect”
speakers,
opting
instead
to
study
the
speech
of
older
 fluent
speakers
(similarly,
my
2007
study
focused
on
the
older
fluent
generation
of
 speakers
of
PACIT
French).

Later
in
her
work
Dorian
became
interested
in
the
 younger
generation
who
had
less
exposure
to,
and
thus
less
command
of,
ESG,
 whom
she
dubbed
“semi‐speakers.”
Dorian
elaborated
on
the
definition
of
a
semi‐ speaker
in
her
extensive
1981
study
of
obsolescence
in
ESG.

She
writes,
 Unlike
the
older
Gaelic‐dominant
bilinguals,
the
semi‐speakers
are
not
fully
 proficient
in
Gaelic.

They
speak
it
with
varying
degrees
of
less
than
full
 fluency,
and
their
grammar
(and
usually
also
their
phonology)
is
markedly
 aberrant
in
terms
of
the
fluent‐speaker
norm…[m]ost
semi‐speakers
are
also
 relatively
halting
in
delivery,
or
speak
Gaelic
in
rather
short
bursts,
or
both;
 but
it
is
not
manner
of
delivery
which
distinguishes
them,
since
semi‐ speakers
of
comparable
grammatical
ability
may
speak
with
very
different
 degrees
of
confidence
and
“fluency.”
[quotes
in
original]
At
the
lower
end
of
 speaker
skill,
semi‐speakers
are
distinguished
from
near‐passive
bilinguals
 by
their
ability
to
manipulate
words
in
sentences.
[my
emphasis]
(107)
 
 It
is
clear
by
this
description
that
the
term
“semi‐speaker”
encompasses
a
wide
 range
of
linguistic
skill
that
falls
somewhere
between
fluency
and
passive
 bilingualism
(ability
to
understand,
but
not
produce,
the
language).

Dorian
further
 writes
that
in
identifying
semi‐speakers
it
helps
to
have
data
from
a
number
of
 speakers
to
compare,
in
order
to
identify
the
reduction
in
structure
that
is
apparent
 in
the
speech
of
semi‐speakers;
she
writes,
 If
even
the
youngest
fluent
speakers
[her
emphasis]
showed
notable
 grammatical
change
in
their
Gaelic
as
compared
with
the
oldest
fluent
 speakers,
then
the
semi‐speakers
would
presumably
show
still
more
radical
 departures
from
the
conservative
norm…
(1977
:
24)
 




75


As
for
examples
of
these
“radical
departures
from
the
conservative
norm,”
Dorian
 (1977
:
30)
cites

 …the
suspicious
absence
of
any
irregularity
[her
emphasis],
which
suggests
 vast
analogical
leveling;
or
the
puzzling
absence
of
an
expected
grammatical
 category,
such
as
some
[her
emphasis]
provision
for
expressing
the
sense
of
 the
conditional…
 
 Some
of
these
features
within
PACIT
French
were
mentioned
in
chapter
three,
and
 will
be
explored
in
the
analysis
of
semi‐speaker
data.

It
is
important
to
note
that,
as
 with
Dorian’s
data,
there
was
a
marked
difference
in
the
speech
of
semi‐speakers
in
 comparison
with
younger
and
older
fluent
speakers.


 Beyond
proficiency
in
the
language,
there
are
two
other
main
speaker
 classification
factors
Dorian
laid
out
in
her
1981
study:
dominance
and
attitude.

 Dominance
is
a
matter
of
which
language
one
feels
more
comfortable
speaking;
this
 is
often
(but
not
always)
the
language
most
spoken
at
home.

There
is
such
a
thing
as
 a
“balanced
bilingual,”
who
is
equally
comfortable
in
the
endangered
language
as
in
 the
replacing
language;
however
often
there
is
a
general
preference
for
one
over
the
 other.

This
brings
up
the
idea
of
attitude.

Attitude
towards
a
language
can
change
 as
a
result
of
external
factors,
for
example
causing
one
to
deride
the
less
prestigious
 language
because
those
in
position
of
authority
do
not
value
it.

So
although
one
may
 be
more
proficient
in
one
language,
one
may
choose
to
speak
only
the
other
because
 of
one’s
personal
attitude
towards
the
languages.

Thus
proficiency,
dominance,
and
 attitude
are
markers
of
the
relationship
between
the
endangered
language
and
the
 speaker,
which
can
thereby
classify
the
speaker’s
role
within
the
speech
community,




76


in
particular
helping
to
distinguish
semi‐speakers
from
younger
fluent
speakers
that
 simply
prefer
English.


 


Dorian
(1977)
showed
that
the
speech
community
was
generally
able
to


make
this
distinction
and
identify
imperfect
speakers
of
the
minority
language;
in
 fact
part
of
the
definition
of
a
semi‐speaker
is
that
their
deviations
from
the
older
 fluent
norm
are
noticed
and
looked
upon
as
mistakes,
unlike
those
of
the
younger
 fluent
speakers
(Rottet
1995).

So
while
searching
for
semi‐speakers,
I
asked
 community
members
for
names
of
people
they
considered
to
speak
“baroque”
 (‘broken,
strange’)
or
“manière
drôle”
(‘sort
of
funny’)
or
just
“pas
bien”
(‘not
well’).

 These
leads
were
followed
and
although
in
many
cases
they
led
to
passive
 bilinguals,
there
did
seem
to
be
a
small
number
of
semi‐speakers
of
PACIT
French.

 Many
of
the
speakers
themselves
even
acknowledged
their
lack
of
fluency
in
PACIT
 French
:




 


SS6
:
I
speak
some
French
but
I
don’t
know
everything


Another
semi‐speaker,
when
a
sibling
threatened
to
make
fun
of
her
during
the
 interview,
quipped,
“I
don’t
care,
because
I
know
I
don’t
speak
it
well.”
Many
also
 stated
that
they
spoke
more
fluently
when
they
were
younger,
when
they
had
more
 reason
to
speak
the
language,
often
with
grandparents
or
other
monolingual
 relatives
:
 SS4
:
I
mean
I
used
to—I
thought
I
spoke
a
little
bit
better
what
I
do
now,
but
 my
grandma
died
like
two
or
three
years
ago
and
I
don’t
really
talk
French
to
 anybody
else
 




77
 SS5
:
j’étais
parler
mieux
français
quand
j’étais
petit.

Et
j’as
resté
avec
ma
 grand­mère
là.

Elle
a
mouri,
après
de
ça,
j’ai
pas
parlé
français
avec
personne
 ‘I
spoke
French
better
when
I
was
little.

And
I
lived
with
my
grandma
 then.

She
died,
after
that,
I
didn’t
speak
French
with
anyone.’
 


Besides
the
testaments
of
fluent
speakers
in
the
community
and
of
the
semi‐ speakers
themselves,
having
over
a
year
of
experience
in
the
speech
community
also
 helped
the
primary
and
secondary
interviewers
for
this
project
identify
semi‐ speakers.

In
some
cases
judgment
calls
had
to
be
made
and
if
a
speaker’s
data
were
 called
into
question,
their
data
were
not
used
for
this
study.
 


Interviewing
semi‐speakers
for
this
project
brought
up
some
important


issues
in
methodology,
since
the
interviewing
procedure
was
kept
constant
for
older
 and
younger
fluent
speakers
and
semi‐speakers.

In
some
cases,
it
was
clear
that
the
 semi‐speakers
were
not
proficient
enough
to
provide
fluid,
casual
speech;
however
 several
high‐end
semi‐speakers
were
able
to
tell
entire
stories
in
French
while
only
 resorting
to
English
occasionally.

In
order
to
obtain
comparable
data,
I
needed
to
 enforce
the
same
definition
of
“informal
speech”
for
semi‐speakers
as
I
did
for
older
 and
younger
fluent
speakers.

This
definition
is
as
follows:
 The
times
at
which
the
speakers
became
most
lively
and
involved
in
what
 they
were
talking
about—thus
speaking
more
and
requiring
less
direct
 questioning
from
the
interviewer—were
generally
the
best
examples
of
 casual
speech.

Therefore
one
of
the
requirements
to
establish
“informal
 speech”
was
that
most
vocalizations
be
on
the
interviewee
and
not
the
 interviewer
side
of
the
conversation
[emphasis
in
the
original].

Another
 requirement
was
that
speech
be
free‐flowing,
without
many
pauses
or
 extreme
topic
changes.

This
makes
it
so
that
the
interviewee
is
focusing
on
 the
subject
at
hand
rather
than
their
speech
or
that
of
the
interviewer.

In
 addition,
this
sort
of
fluid,
less‐structured
discussion
simulates
true




78
 conversation
better
than
the
strict
question‐and‐answer
technique
of
most
 formal
interviews.
(Carmichael
2007:
47‐48)



 These
standards
were
upheld
for
the
semi‐speakers
who
were
able
to
produce
more
 fluid
discourse,
of
which
three
to
five
minutes
were
transcribed
and
analyzed
for
 instances
of
/h/
and
/¹/.

Three
to
five
minutes
from
the
most
informal
parts
of
 conversation
with
older
and
younger
fluent
speakers
were
also
transcribed
and
 analyzed
for
the
tokens
of
each
allophone.

These
numbers
were
then
compared
to
 the
frequency
of
each
allophone
in
the
translation
sentences,
and
a
Chi‐square
test
 of
significance
was
run
in
order
to
see
if
there
was
a
significant
difference
between
 the
casual
portion
of
the
interview
and
the
careful
portion
(translation
sentences)
 for
each
group.

These
data
were
also
inspected
for
differences
between
men
and
 women,
since
women
have
been
shown
to
utilize
more
prestige
forms
in
speech
 than
men
(Labov
1966,
Wolfram
1969,
Trudgill
1972).
 In
many
situations
of
language
death,
women
are
the
first
to
abandon
the
 minority
language
for
the
language
of
prestige
(Dressler
1977;
Schlieben‐Lange
 1977).

This
seems
to
be
true
of
PACIT
French
speakers,
with
younger
fluent
men
 much
easier
to
find
than
younger
fluent
women.

Conversely,
female
semi‐speakers
 were
easier
to
locate
than
male
semi‐speakers,
and
those
found
were
higher‐end
 (that
is,
more
proficient)
semi‐speakers
than
many
of
the
men.

Female
semi‐ speakers
were
also
five
years
older,
on
average,
than
their
male
counterparts.

So
it
 appears
that
in
most
cases,
women
are
indeed
the
first
to
abandon
PACIT
French,
 perhaps
because
many
of
them
have
married
outside
the
tribe
and
moved
up
the




79


bayou
to
less
francophone
communities
like
Montegut
and
Bourg.

As
one
younger
 fluent
woman
explained
:


 
 YFS4
:
je
pense
eusse
parle
plus
en
français
là
qu’eusse
parle
icitte,
quand
je
 parle
au
monde
d’icitte
là
j’parle
plus
en
anglais,
de
à
la
Pointe,
ça
fait.

Je
 connais
pas,
peut­être
c’est
ça
que
c’est,
peut­être
équand
on
a
quitté
la
Pointe,
 eh
ben
là
on
après
quitter
notre…le,
le
français
là­bas
 ‘I
think
they
speak
more
in
French
there
[Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes]
than
 they
speak
here
[Montegut/Bourg],
when
I
talk
to
people
from
here,
 well,
I
speak
more
in
English
than
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.

I
don’t
know,
 maybe
that’s
what
it
is,
maybe
when
we
left
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
well
 we
are
leaving
our…the,
the
French
[language]
there’
 
 Men,
in
contrast
with
women,
appear
either
to
speak
fluently
or
not
at
all.

Only
a
 small
proportion
of
men
could
be
considered
semi‐speakers
of
the
language.
24


 Geography
becomes
important
when
looking
at
the
language
preferences
and
 abilities
of
the
speakers.

As
seen
in
Tables
4.1‐3,
six
of
the
older
fluent
speakers
 lived
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
at
the
time
of
their
interview,
four
in
upper
 Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
and
two
further
up
the
bayou
in
Bourg
and
Montegut.

Only
 three
younger
fluent
speakers
lived
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
with
the
others
 























































 24
Dorian
(1977)
noted
that
all
the
semi‐speakers
she
found
were
also
women,


although
there
were
male
semi‐speakers
she
had
heard
of
who
were
merely
 unwilling
to
participate
in
her
study.

This
could
show
another
possible
reason
that
 female
semi‐speakers
were
easier
to
locate
than
men
:
since
I
am
a
female
 researcher,
perhaps
women
felt
more
comfortable
“making
mistakes”
and
struggling
 with
the
language
when
speaking
to
me
than
male
semi‐speakers
did.

More
 research
is
needed
in
order
to
claim
decisively
that
the
gender
of
the
researcher
was
 a
factor
in
the
difficulty
of
finding
male
semi‐speakers
in
both
Dorian’s
study
and
my
 own.
 




80


living
further
up
the
bayou
or
in
Lafourche
Parish
(Grand
Bois).

None
of
the
semi‐ speakers
lived
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
although
half
of
them
lived
in
upper
 Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.


 
 Table
4.1
Older
Fluent
Speakers
 Alias


Gender


Age


Current
Place
of
Residence


OFS1


F


55


L.
PAC


OFS2


M


64


L.
PAC


OFS3


M


59


U.
PAC


OFS4


F


60


L.
PAC


OFS5


F


54


U.
PAC


OFS6


F


73


L.
PAC


OFS7


M


57


L.
PAC


OFS8


F


55


U.
PAC


OFS9


M


63


Montegut


OFS10


F


66


Bourg


OFS11


M


58


U.
PAC


OFS12


M


67


L.
PAC
 
 
 
 




81
 Table
4.2
Younger
Fluent
Speakers
 Alias


Gender


Age


Current
Place
of
Residence


YFS1


M


39


L.
PAC


YFS2


F


37


Grand
Bois


YFS3


F


35


Grand
Bois


YFS4


F


44


Montegut


YFS5


M


42


L.
PAC


YFS6


M


30


Houma


YFS7


F


34


L.
PAC


YFS8


M


43


Bourg
 


Table
4.3
Semi­Speakers
 Alias


Gender


Age


Current
Place
of
Residence


SS1


F


43


Montegut


SS2


M


28


U.
PAC


SS3


F


36


U.
PAC


SS4


F


41


Grand
Bois


SS5


M


36


U.
PAC


SS6


M


33


Houma


SS7


M


39


U.
PAC


SS8


F


38


Houma



 In
the
younger
generation
(fluent
speakers
and
semi‐speakers),
almost
three‐ quarters
of
those
informants
living
in
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
were
men,
showing
that
 women
were
more
likely
to
move
away
from
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.

This




82


disproportion
in
the
number
of
women
living
outside
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
can
also
 be
seen
in
the
last
names
of
female
speakers.

Since
all
the
women
in
this
study
were
 married,
it
is
easy
to
discern
who
has
married
outside
the
tribe
(since
it
was
 mentioned
in
chapter
two
that
there
are
four
last
names
that
are
most
prevalent
in
 PACIT
families).


Of
the
older
fluent
speakers,
not
one
informant
had
a
non‐ traditional
PACIT
last
name.

Three‐quarters
of
the
younger
fluent
women
and
all
of
 the
female
semi‐speakers
had
non‐traditional
PACIT
last
names,
in
most
cases
 having
married
a
Cajun
man
and
moved
from
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.

Indeed,
the
only
 younger
woman
who
had
married
within
the
tribe
was
also
the
only
woman
still
 living
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
a
fluent
speaker
of
PACIT
French.
 


In
this
sociolinguistic
study
comparing
the
rate
of
the
substitution
of
/h/
for


/¹/
in
the
speech
of
older
fluent
speakers,
younger
fluent
speakers
and
semi‐ speakers
of
PACIT
French,
many
considerations
must
be
taken
into
account.

Since
 each
group
represents
a
different
type
of
speaker,
it
became
a
challenge
to
apply
the
 same
methodology
and
standards
to
each
group.

Some
of
the
issues
in
data
 collection
and
interpretation
will
be
further
addressed
in
the
following
chapters
as
 the
results
for
each
group
are
separately
analyzed
and
discussed.
 
 
 
 
 
 




83


5.
Results
:
Older
Fluent
Speakers
 The
two
variables
investigated
within
each
group
of
speakers
were
gender
and
 attention
to
speech.

Within
the
group
of
older
fluent
speakers,
the
results
showed
 that
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
occurs
more
frequently
during
the
informal
 portion
of
the
interview
than
during
the
translation
sentences,
when
more
attention
 was
directed
to
the
speech
of
the
informants.

Table
5.1
shows
the
raw
numbers
for
 the
older
fluent
speakers
in
casual
and
careful
speech.
 
 Table
5.1
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
OFS
 















/h/
















/¹/












Casual
Speech














118








94












(56%)







(44%)




Careful
Speech









239















808














(23%)







(77%)



























 It
can
already
be
seen
in
the
percentages
given
that
the
variant
/h/
appears
more
 frequently
in
casual
speech
than
in
careful
speech,
however
a
visual
representation
 in
Figure
5.1
helps
to
illustrate
this
fact.
 




84


Figure
5.1
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
OFS



 Chi‐square
tests
reveal
that
the
difference
in
rate
of
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
 between
casual
and
careful
speech
is
statistically
significant
(χ2
(1,
N=1259)=93.6,
p
 
.05).


 Figure
5.2
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Speech






91



 At
first
it
appears
that
this
similarity
in
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
between
men
and
 women
could
be
the
effect
of
language
death
leveling
out
the
differences
between
 men
and
women’s
speech.

However,
in
looking
at
the
frequency
of
the
variant
/h/
 within
just
the
informal
portion
of
the
interview,
the
numbers
appear
to
follow
the
 expected
gender
patterns
shown
in
sociolinguistic
studies
of
gender
variation.

 While
women
seem
to
have
approximately
equal
usage
of
each
variant
within
 informal
speech
(with
slightly
more
/¹/‐usage),
men
show
a
slight
preference
for
 the
less
prestigious
variant
/h/.
 
 Table
5.3
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Casual
Speech

 















/h/
















/¹/












Men
 
















64








35














(65%)







(35%)




Women











54















59














(48%)







(52%)























 






92


Figure
5.3
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Casual
Speech



 Indeed
the
difference
in
allophone
choice
between
older
fluent
men
and
women
is
 statistically
significant
(χ2
(1,
N=212)=6.08,
p

.05).




93


Table
5.4
:
/h/­Substitution
in
OFS
Men’s
and
Women’s
Careful
Speech

 















/h/
















/¹/












Men
 
















126








397














(24%)







(76%)




Women











114















414














(22%)







(78%)

























 In
the
following
chapters
these
patterns
of
usage
of
the
variants
/h/
and
/¹/
 within
casual
and
careful
speech
will
be
inspected
in
the
younger
generation
of
 fluent
speakers
and
semi‐speakers.

This
will
offer
a
more
complete
view
of
the
 sociolinguistic
status
of
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
PACIT
French
as
the
 language
is
used
less
and
less.25

 
 
 
 























































 25
For
further
analysis
of
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
older
fluent
speakers
of


PACIT
French,
see
Carmichael
(2007,
2008).

 




94


6.
Results
:
Younger
Fluent
Speakers
 The
younger
fluent
speakers
for
this
study
ranged
from
thirty
to
forty‐four
years
of
 age,
with
most
informants
in
their
thirties.

Unlike
the
older
fluent
speakers,
who
 were
raised
speaking
PACIT
French
with
no
exposure
to
English
until
starting
 school,
many
of
the
younger
fluent
speakers
were
raised
bilingual,
learning
English
 at
the
same
time
as
French.

Several
younger
fluent
speakers
reported
that
their
 earliest
exposure
to
English
was
through
older
siblings
who
had
already
begun
 school,
with
French
still
the
language
used
most
frequently
at
home
(some
were
 even
raised
by
monolingual
French‐speaking
parents).

Unlike
the
semi‐speakers
for
 this
study,
the
younger
fluent
speakers
were
not
lacking
in
continued
exposure
to
 the
language,
speaking
with
friends
and
family
members
as
children,
and
continuing
 to
speak
at
least
with
relatives
once
they
got
older.

About
half
of
the
younger
fluent
 speakers
had
married
French‐speakers,
although
of
these
most
reported
speaking
 very
little
French
with
their
spouses.
 
 YFS3
:
Asteur,
on
parle
pas
assez
en
français,
j’pense,
mon
et
[my
husband].

De
 temps
en
temps
on
parle
en
français,
mais
pas
tout
le
temps.
 
 


‘We
don’t
speak
enough
in
French
now,
I
think,
[my
husband]
and
me.

 Sometimes
we
speak
in
French,
but
not
all
the
time.’



 
 YFS7:
tu
vois,
mon
mari
parle
français,
mais
mon
et
lui
parle
pas
français,
à
l’un
 à
l’autre.

On
parle
anglais.
 ‘you
see,
my
husband
speaks
French,
but
he
and
I
don’t
speak
French
 to
each
other.

We
speak
English.’
 




95
 KC
:
tu
parles
français
dans
la
maison?
Avec—avec
lui?
(motions
to
small
child
 playing
nearby)
 


‘Do
you
speak
French
at
home?

With—with
him?’


YFS8
:
mm‐mm,
mm‐mm
 KC
:
c’est
jamais
français
dans
la
maison?
 


‘Never
French
at
home?’


YFS8
:
mm­mm,
nope.

Ma
femme
parle
français.

Mais
on
parle
pas
français
 l’un
à
l’autre
 ‘Mm‐mm,
nope.
My
wife
speaks
French.

But
we
don’t
speak
French
to
 each
other.’
 
 
 Because
these
speakers
have
consistently,
if
not
continuously,26
participated
in
the
 PACIT
French
speech
community,
one
would
expect
that
the
social
values
of
 linguistic
variables
such
as
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
would
remain
salient
in
 the
speech
of
these
younger
fluent
speakers,
even
if
they
no
longer
spoke
the
 language
very
often.

This
is
indeed
the
case—the
younger
fluent
speakers
show
a
 statistically
significant
difference
in
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
between
casual
and
 careful
speech
(χ2
(1,
N=769)=40.7,
p

 .05).

These
percentages
and
raw
counts
can
be
found
in
table
6.2.
 So
while
some
younger
fluent
speakers
do
not
feature
the
substitution
of
/h/
 for
/¹/
at
all,
others
surpass
the
OFS
norm,
providing
higher
rates
of
/h/‐usage
than
 the
older
fluent
speakers.

This
extensive
phonological
variation
between
speakers
 is
often
cited
in
studies
of
language
death,
as
speakers
who
use
the
language
less
 lose
some
of
the
social
value
of
different
phonological
variants
(Dressler
1972;
 Campbell
and
Muntzel
1989;
King
1989;
Dorian
1994;
Rottet
1995).

These
four
/h/‐ substituting
speakers
may
be
approximating
the
OFS
rate
of
/h/‐substitution,
but
 (perhaps
due
to
lack
of
exposure
to
the
language)
they
end
up
employing
the
/h/




102


variant
at
a
slightly
higher
frequency
than
the
OFS—in
careful
as
well
as
in
casual
 speech.

It
is
important
to
note,
however,
that
the
drop
in
/h/‐substitution
is
 comparable
between
older
and
younger
speakers
in
careful
speech,
so
on
some
level
 the
idea
of
the
variant
/¹/
as
the
more
prestigious
variant
has
been
passed
down.
 
 Table
6.2
:
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
of
/h/­substituting
YFS

















/h/
















/¹/












Casual
Speech














50








32












(61%)







(39%)




Careful
Speech









76















228














(25%)







(75%)



























 Another
issue
that
arises
with
younger
fluent
speakers
which
is
not
as
relevant
with
 the
older
generation
is
the
teaching
of
Modern
European
French
in
schools,
and
the
 possibility
of
exposure
to
MEF
affecting
speech
in
PACIT
French.
Because
MEF
does
 not
feature
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/,
it
is
possible
that
the
younger
fluent
 speakers
are
responding
to
the
“standard”
pronunciation
learned
and
reinforced
 through
school.

Almost
all
of
the
younger
fluent
speakers
had
taken
one
year
of




103


French
in
school.29

Most
reported
not
doing
well,
not
enjoying
the
class,
and
 quitting
very
soon
after.

When
asked
if
they
could
read
French,
none
reported
 having
this
ability;
however,
simply
being
exposed
to
written
French
(in
which
 words
that
in
PACIT
French
feature
the
variation
between
/h/
and
/¹/
represent
the
 sound
with
an
orthographic
‘j’
and
‘ge’)
might
make
speakers
more
likely
to
opt
for
 one
variant
over
the
other.

While
it
is
possible
that
this
exposure
to
MEF
could
have
 affected
different
speakers
differently
(causing
some
to
opt
for
the
more
“standard”
 /¹/
pronunciation,
and
others
to
perform
the
more
dialectal
/h/),
it
would
seem
 strange
that
most
of
those
opting
for
/¹/
should
be
men,
since
according
to
Labov
 (2001):

 For
stable
sociolinguistic
variables,
men
use
a
higher
frequency
of
 nonstandard
forms
than
women.

 
 Since
three
out
of
the
four
younger
fluent
men
for
this
study
did
not
feature
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
at
all,
it
is
not
necessary
to
perform
a
Chi‐square
test
on
 the
data
from
younger
fluent
men
and
women
to
see
that
there
is
a
marked
 difference
in
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
between
the
two
sexes.

In
order
to
explain
this
 higher
rate
of
the
variant
/h/
in
women,
it
may
help
to
look
at
some
linguistic
 changes
within
PACIT
French
that
could
have
had
an
effect
on
this
variation.


























































 29
Some
speakers
reported
this
year
occurring
around
second
grade,
since
French


was
taught
at
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
Elementary
School
for
a
few
years.

Others,
 however,
were
not
exposed
to
MEF
until
high
school.

No
one
reported
multiple
 years
of
study
in
French
and
none
of
these
speakers
had
traveled
abroad
to
French‐ speaking
countries.




104
 In
his
1995
dissertation,
Kevin
Rottet
noted
an
increase
in
usage
of
tonic
or


“stressed”
pronouns
in
place
of
clitics
(mon
‘me’
for
je
‘I’
;
lui
‘him’
for
il
‘he’)
in
the
 French
of
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes.

As
mentioned
in
Chapter
Three,
the
 combination
of
pronoun‐dropping
and
left
dislocation
of
the
stressed
pronoun
has
 been
reanalyzed
by
semi‐speakers,
resulting
in
sentences
such
as
the
following,

 SS1
:
Lui
croit
c’est
bon
 




‘him
thinks
it’s
good’



 


SS2:
Mon
a
mangé
comme
une
pig






‘me
ate
like
a
pig’


According
to
Rottet
(1995
:
178),
these
kinds
of
structures
pattern
with
age
and
 proficiency,
with
younger
and
less
proficient
speakers
producing
these
structures
 more
frequently
than
older
fluent
speakers.

Since
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
 occurs
frequently
in
the
first
person
singular
clitic
pronoun
je
(Boissonneault
1999;
 Carmichael
2007),
in
dropping
the
pronoun
je,
these
speakers
lose
one
of
the
main
 environments
in
which
/h/‐substitution
occurs.

This
would
result
in
making
this
 sound
variation
less
salient
to
those
acquiring
PACIT
French,
thus
perpetuating
the
 loss
of
variation
between
/h/
and
/¹/.30


 Besides
je‐dropping,
there
are
some
cases
in
which
the
phoneme
/¹/
is
dropped
 completely
without
being
replaced
by
/h/—most
notably
in
the
word
jusqu’à
‘until,’
 























































 30
This
would
mean
that
there
should
be
a
higher
rate
in
je‐dropping
for
semi‐

speakers,
which
was
the
case
in
Rottet’s
1995
study,
and
which
will
be
investigated
 for
the
semi‐speakers
for
this
study
in
the
following
chapter.




105


which
is
pronounced
/uska/
by
older
and
younger
fluent
speakers
alike.

 Additionally,
one
of
the
YFS
who
did
not
feature
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
was
 heard
pronouncing
toujours
as
/tuŠr/
rather
than
/tu¹Šr/
or
/tuhŠr/.

If
/h/
had
 been
improperly
acquired
as
Ø
by
this
speaker,
one
would
expect
a
high
rate
of
je‐ dropping.

However,
this
speaker
features
no
instances
of
je‐dropping
in
his
 speech.31

In
fact,
the
only
YFS
who
featured
a
significant
level
of
je‐dropping
was
 YFS6,
the
youngest
semi‐speaker.

Unlike
many
other
younger
fluent
speakers
who
 would
dislocated
the
tonic
or
stressed
pronoun
mon
to
the
left
of
the
verb
phrase,
 YFS6
never
features
this
construction,
simply
presenting
verbs
without
subject
 pronouns,
as
in
the
following
examples
from
YFS6’s
translation
sentences.
 KC
:
I
eat
eggs
and
ham
for
breakfast
 YFS6
:
Ø
mange
des
œufs
et
du
jambon
dans
le
matin
 KC
:
I
listen
to
the
radio
every
day
 YFS6
:
Ø
écoute
le
radio
tous
les
jours
 KC
:
I
will
never
change
my
mind
 YFS6
:
Ø
vas
jamais
changer
mon
idée
 KC
:
I
will
never
forget
my
first
day
of
school
 YFS6
:
Ø
vas
jamais
oblié
ma
première
journée
à
l’école
 
 This
construction
was
surprisingly
rare
within
Rottet’s
(1995)
corpus;
however
its
 usage
once
again
patterned
with
younger
and
less
proficient
speakers.

Other
than
 heavy
pronoun‐dropping
(even
outside
of
first
person
singular),
YFS6’s
speech
is
 























































 31
This
speaker
is
the
only
YFS
for
this
study
to
feature
no
instances
of
je‐dropping.




106


fluent
and
errorless,
so
this
does
not
appear
to
be
a
sign
that
YFS6
is
in
fact
an
 imperfect
speaker
of
PACIT
French;
rather
this
simplified
construction
that
is
 strongly
correlated
with
age
is
probably
another
sign
of
language
death
in
the
PACIT
 French‐speaking
community.

As
fewer
speakers
use
the
language
in
fewer
domains,
 it
becomes
simplified
as
certain
structures
are
reduced
(Dressler
1972;
Dorian
 1977,
1981;
Picone
1997).


 Returning
to
the
issue
of
the
effect
of
gender,
in
Rottet’s
1995
dissertation
je‐ dropping
was
more
frequent
with
men,
which
might
explain
the
lack
of
/h/‐ substitution
for
younger
fluent
men
within
this
study.

Indeed,
within
the
translation
 sentences
there
was
a
significant
difference
in
rate
of
je‐dropping
between
men
and
 women
(χ2
(1,
N=201)=8.34,
p

.05),
men
still
featured
je‐dropping
 more
in
their
speech
than
women.

Also
notable
within
the
semi‐speaker
data
is
the
 rate
of
left
dislocation
of
mon
at
the
beginning
of
a
verb
phrase,
producing
sentences
 like
the
following
(the
first
featuring
just
left
dislocation
of
mon,
the
second
 featuring
both
left
dislocation
of
mon
and
je‐dropping).
 KC
:
I
walked
until
my
legs
hurt.

 SS3
:
Mon
j’ai
marché
until
mon
jambe
fait
mal.
 




116
 


KC
:

I
already
paid
the
young
man.





SS2
:
Mon
a
donné
la
‘tit
bougre
la
nargent.



 Nearly
two‐thirds
of
the
constructions
featuring
a
first
person
singular
subject
 within
the
translation
sentences
featured
left
dislocation
of
mon,
whether
or
not
the
 actual
subject
pronoun
je
was
dropped.

This
could
be
due
to
the
fact
that
the
 stressed
pronoun
mon
was
more
salient
to
the
semi‐speakers
while
they
were
 acquiring
PACIT
French,
especially
as
rates
of
je‐dropping
and
left
dislocation
of
 mon
increased
with
younger
generations.

Rottet
(1995
:
181)
explains,
 It
is
possible…that
these
features
[je‐dropping
and
usage
of
mon
as
subject
 pronoun]
are
developmental
stages
that
children
pass
through
even
in
 healthy
language
acquisition.

The
salient
aspect
of
the
language
death
 context
would
then
be
that
children
get
stuck
at
such
developmental
stages,
 due
presumably
to
inadequate
input,
and
simply
never
move
out
of
them.

 
 This
explanation
seems
to
fit
the
process
of
incomplete
language
acquisition
that
 most
semi‐speakers
appear
to
have
gone
through
before
switching
to
the
dominant
 language,
English.

It
is
also
possible
that
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
actually
 exacerbated
the
je‐dropping
phenomenon,
as
those
speakers
with
little
exposure
to
 the
language
misinterpreted
the
/h/
as
Ø;
however
research
into
this
phenomenon
 in
the
speech
of
LRF‐speakers
elsewhere
in
Louisiana
(where
the
substitution
of
/h/
 for
/¹/
does
not
occur)
would
be
necessary
in
order
to
make
such
a
statement.

Still
 another
possibility
is
that
because
in
English
the
phonemes
/h/
and
/¹/
are
not
 allophones,
this
variation
between
the
two
sounds
did
not
survive.

Campbell
and
 Muntzel
(1989)
remark
that
many
Pipil
speakers
have
lost
contrastive
vowel
length




117


because
this
differentiation
does
not
occur
in
Spanish,
the
dominant
language.

They
 further
cite
Tuxtla
Chico
Mam
as
merging
the
post‐velar
(uvular)
/q/
with
the
velar
 /k/,
eliminating
a
sound
which
does
not
exist
in
Spanish.

So
the
effects
of
the
 dominant
language
cannot
be
overlooked,
especially
when
examining
the
speech
of
 semi‐speakers,
who
are
English‐dominant.
 


Since
humans
are
pattern‐seeking
beings,
some
semi‐speakers
appear
to


have
analyzed
the
stressed
pronoun
mon
as
the
subject
pronoun,
and
thus
appear
to
 be
unaware
of
the
process
of
je‐dropping.

This
became
especially
apparent
during
 translation
sentences
when
semi‐speakers
were
having
trouble
and
were
given
 sentences
one
word
at
a
time
to
translate
:
 KC
:
I
will
never
forget
my
first
day
of
school.

 RM
:
There’s
that
‘never’
again
[since
this
speaker
had
had
trouble
translating
 the
word
‘never’
in
other
sentences]
 SS2
:
I
don’t
know
 KC
:
You
can
just
say—
 RM
:
I
will
not
forget—
 KC
:
yeah
 RM
:
My
first
day
of
school
 SS2
:
I
don’t
know
 RM
:
Aw
come
on,
give
it
a
try.

‘I’
 SS2
:
Mon
 
 This
excerpt
shows
that
when
prompted
to
offer
the
first
person
singular
subject
 pronoun,
SS2
offered
mon.

That
means
for
this
speaker
the
stressed
pronoun
mon
is




118


equivalent
to
the
subject
pronoun
‘I’
in
English.

SS2
was
not
the
only
speaker
who
 appeared
to
have
analyzed
mon
as
such;
many
of
the
semi‐speakers
showed
this
 one‐to‐one
relationship
between
the
English
subject
pronoun
‘I’
and
mon.
 KC
:
I
was
ashamed
to
speak
French
at
school.

 SS6
:
I
don’t
even
know…mon
est—mon
après…I
don’t
know
how
to
say
 ‘ashamed’…and
school’s
l’école
 KC
:
Mm‐hm
so—how…even
if
you
don’t
know
how
to
say
‘ashamed’
you
can
just
 say,
you
know,
in
French
everything
except
for
that
word.

I
was
ashamed
to
 speak
French
at
school.
 SS6
:
All
right.

I
was
ashamed
to
speak
French
à
l’école
 KC
:
Do
you
know
how
to
say
‘speak
French’?
 SS6
:
Oh
speak
French,
parler
français
à
l’école
 KC
:
Do
you
know
how
to
say
‘I
was’?
 SS6
:
Mon
était?
 


 These
two
speakers
were
two
of
the
lowest‐end
(that
is,
least
proficient)
semi‐ speakers,
who
had
difficulty
translating
many
of
the
sentences
given.

Perhaps
the
 fact
that
they
had
had
even
less
exposure
to
the
language
than
the
other
semi‐ speakers
explains
why
they
appear
to
have
analyzed
mon
as
the
subject
pronoun,
 while
other
semi‐speakers
seemed
at
least
to
be
aware
of
the
possibility
of
using
the
 subject
pronoun
je—they
just
opted
not
to
most
of
the
time.
 


These
semi‐speakers’
difficulty
with
translating
the
sentences
during
the


portion
of
the
interview
meant
to
capture
careful
speech
brings
up
the
issue
of
 whether
or
not
someone
working
so
hard
to
produce
a
fluent
sentence
in
PACIT
 French
could
possibly
produce
unmonitored
speech
in
that
language.

Michael




119


Picone
(1997
:
129)
addressed
this
issue,
claiming
that
“it
is
something
of
an
 oxymoron
to
speak
of
the
vernacular
or
even
“casual
speech”
for
a
semispeaker,
 since
the
semispeaker
may
never
be
entirely
comfortable
operating
in
his
or
her
less
 fluent
code.”
This
was
indeed
a
problem
for
this
study,
since
such
low‐end
semi‐ speakers
as
SS2
and
SS6
were
not
at
any
point
able
to
produce
fluid
speech
which
 qualified
as
informal
or
casual
according
to
the
standards
set
out
by
Carmichael
 (2007).

However,
some
higher‐end
semi‐speakers
such
as
SS1
and
SS5
were
able
to
 hold
the
entire
interview
in
French,
rarely
resorting
to
English
in
order
to
express
 themselves.


Indeed,
SS1,
the
oldest
and
most
proficient
semi‐speaker
in
the
group,
 was
the
only
SS
to
feature
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/.

As
the
oldest
in
a
large
 family,
SS1
does
not
fit
Dorian’s
mold
of
the
usual
semi‐speaker,
who
are
often
the
 youngest
child
in
a
large
family
(Dorian
1981).

Two
of
SS1’s
younger
siblings,
also
 semi‐speakers,
were
interviewed
for
this
study,
and
did
not
feature
the
substitution
 of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
their
speech.

This
supports
the
theory
that
this
variation
is
not
 being
picked
up
by
younger,
less
proficient
speakers,
even
speakers
within
the
same
 family
who
are
only
separated
by
a
few
years.

Because
SS1’s
younger
siblings
also
 featured
much
higher
rates
of
je‐dropping
and
left
dislocation
of
mon,
it
appears
that
 there
may
indeed
be
a
connection
between
higher
rates
of
these
features
and
lower
 rates
of
/h/‐substitution
by
younger,
less
proficient
speakers.

The
percentages
of
 each
feature
within
the
translation
sentences
are
given
for
these
three
siblings,
all
 women,
in
Table
7.1.


 




120


Table
7.1
:
/h/­Substitution,
Je­dropping,
and
Left
Dislocation
of
Mon
 Percentages
within
Translation
Sentences
for
Three
Semi­Speakers
 














/h/‐substitution









je‐dropping




Left
Dislocation
of
mon












SS1
(43
years­old)







23%




14%
 





19%


SS4
(41
years­old)








0%










62%
 





81%







70%














SS8
(38
years­old)








0%











79%
 























 
 A
marked
pattern
is
noticeable
here—as
rates
of
left
dislocation
of
mon
and
je‐ dropping
increase,
the
rate
of
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
not
only
decreases,
this
 feature
completely
falls
out
of
these
speakers’
repertoire.


 


Since
SS1
is
the
only
semi‐speaker
featuring
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in


her
speech,
her
numbers
will
be
separately
examined
and
compared
to
the
YFS
and
 OFS
rates
of
/h/‐substitution.

SS1’s
rates
of
each
variant
in
careful
and
casual
 speech
are
shown
in
Table
7.2.
 
 
 




121


Table
7.2
:
SS1’s
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech
 















/h/
















/¹/












Casual
Speech














4








14












(22%)







(78%)




Careful
Speech









20















68














(23%)







(77%)



























 SS1’s
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
is
almost
identical
between
casual
and
careful
speech
 (actually
slightly
increasing
in
careful
speech!),
which
could
be
the
result
of
a
few
 factors.

To
begin
with,
it
could
simply
mean
that
SS1
does
not
differentiate
between
 careful
and
casual
speech,
or
that
she
does
not
possess
a
casual
register,
which
 would
corroborate
Picone’s
(1997)
theory
that
semi‐speakers
are
incapable
of
 producing
unmonitored
speech.

It
could
also
imply
that
SS1
does
not
attach
social
 meaning
to
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/,
thus
she
does
not
employ
either
variant
 more
in
different
speech
situations.

This
would
corroborate
King’s
(1989)
work
on
 variation
within
Newfoundland
French,
about
which
she
explains,
 A
great
deal
of
variation
remains
in
Newfoundland
French,
despite
its
decline
 in
status,
restriction
in
contexts
of
usage,
and
loss
of
speakers.

However,
this
 variation
does
not
appear
to
carry
the
social
meaning
one
finds
in
healthier
 speech
communities.

(King
1989
:
146)




122



 However,
a
further
possibility,
in
looking
at
SS1’s
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
in
 comparison
to
that
of
the
OFS
(see
Figures
7.1
and
7.2),
is
that
SS1
is
approximating
 the
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
in
the
careful
speech
of
the
older
fluent
generation
of
 speakers.
 



Figure
7.1
:
SS1’s
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech




 In
comparing
Figure
7.1
and
Figure
7.2,
one
notices
that
SS1’s
rate
of
/h/‐ substitution
in
casual
and
careful
speech
is
actually
about
the
same
as
the
OFS
rate
 of
/h/‐substitution
within
careful
speech.

Although
it
is
doubtful
that
SS1
was
only
 exposed
to
the
careful
speech
of
the
older
fluent
generation
of
speakers,
since
PACIT
 French
is
mostly
spoken
in
informal
situations
and
is
very
rarely
used
for
formal
 occasions,
it
does
seem
notable
that
these
rates
should
be
so
close
to
one
another.

 Perhaps
rather
than
showing
that
SS1
is
reproducing
the
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
in




123


OFS’s
careful
speech,
it
is
more
likely
that
she
is
attempting
to
approximate
the
OFS
 norm
and
due
to
lack
of
exposure
to
the
language,
she
is
unsuccessful
in
 reproducing
actual
OFS
rates
of
/h/‐substitution.
 Figure
7.2
:
OFS
/h/­Substitution
in
Casual
and
Careful
Speech




 So
it
seems
that
although
SS1’s
speech
still
features
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/,
 this
variation
no
longer
carries
the
same
social
meaning
as
it
does
for
the
older
 fluent
speakers
and
some
of
the
younger
fluent
speakers.

Because
of
this,
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
is
not
a
stylistic
marker
in
SS1’s
speech.

Furthermore,
it
 is
unclear
whether
SS1
differentiates
between
careful
and
casual
speech,
since
as
a
 semi‐speaker
she
has
less
exposure
to
different
registers
of
PACIT
French,
and
less
 of
a
variety
of
situations
in
which
she
might
employ
the
language.






124
 Due
to
the
fact
that
SS1
is
the
only
semi‐speaker
who
features
the


substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/,
the
variable
of
gender
cannot
be
examined.

However
it
is
 notable
that
SS1
is
a
woman,
which
follows
the
pattern
set
out
by
the
YFS
of
female
 speakers
carrying
on
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
longer
than
men.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 




125


8.
Conclusions
 The
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
is
a
stable
form
of
variation
in
PACIT
French.

For
this
 study,
I
looked
at
how
attention
to
speech
and
gender
of
speaker
affected
the
rate
of
 appearance
of
each
variant.

The
variables
of
gender
and
attention
to
speech
were
 looked
at
in
three
different
groups
of
varying
age
and
proficiency
in
PACIT
French
:
 older
fluent
speakers
(OFS
:
+
age,
+
proficiency),
younger
fluent
speakers
(YFS
:
‐
 age,
+
proficiency),
and
semi‐speakers
(SS
:
‐
age,
‐
proficiency).

Within
literature
on
 language
death
it
is
commonly
said
that
there
is
stylistic
shrinkage,
or
a
tendency
 towards
monostylism,
in
the
minority
language
as
it
becomes
used
in
fewer
domains
 (Dressler
1972;
Dressler
and
Wodak‐Leodalter
1977;
Dorian
1981;
Gal
1989;
 Hoenigswald
1989;
Rottet
1995),
and
that
the
variation
that
remains
in
a
speech
 community
undergoing
language
death
has
less
meaning
than
within
healthy
 language
communities
(King
1989;
Mougeon
and
Beniak
1989).

 As
shown
in
chapter
five
and
in
Carmichael
(2007,
2008),
the
older
fluent
 generation
has
retained
the
social
meaning
attached
to
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
 /¹/,
presenting
the
more
prestigious
variant
/¹/
in
higher
frequency
than
the
 variant
/h/
within
careful
speech.

Additionally,
within
casual
speech
men
present
 the
less
prestigious,
more
‘nonstandard’
form
/h/
more
frequently
than
women,
 which
confirms
Labov’s
(2001)
principle
on
gender
and
variation
:
 
For
stable
sociolinguistic
variables,
men
use
a
higher
frequency
of
 nonstandard
forms
than
women.

 




126


For
careful
speech,
men’s
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
approached
that
of
the
female
 OFS;
the
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
dropped
for
both
genders
within
careful
speech,
 showing
that
the
variant
/¹/
carries
more
social
prestige
within
PACIT
French
than
 its
allophone/h/.


 Thus
the
older
fluent
speakers
of
PACIT
French
appear
to
feature
stylistic
 and
sociolinguistic
variation
that
resembles
the
variation
one
might
find
in
a
healthy
 language
community.

This
can
probably
be
explained
by
the
fact
that
the
older
 generation
of
fluent
speakers
were
not
only
raised
speaking
French,
without
 learning
English
until
a
later
age,
but
they
also
still
have
a
fairly
active
speech
 community
of
peers
centrally
located
in
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes.


 The
younger
generation
of
fluent
speakers
does
not
really
have
a
speech
 community
of
peers,
since
many
of
these
speakers
only
interact
in
French
with
 members
of
the
older
generation
and
some
relatives
of
the
same
age.

Not
having
a
 speech
community
of
peers
makes
it
harder
for
these
younger
speakers
to
continue
 to
enforce
any
kind
of
‘norms’
within
PACIT
French,
which
leads
to
less
socially
 meaningful
variation,
or
even
a
complete
lack
of
linguistic
variation
(as
in
the
case
of
 the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
the
speech
of
some
YFS
and
SS).

In
their
study
of
 Cajun
English,
Dubois
and
Horvath
(2000
:
306)
noted
of
the
younger
generation,

 If
identity
is
to
be
signaled
by
language,
then
it
is
left
to
English
to
accomplish
 this
task
because
most
younger
speakers
interact
with
outsiders
as
well
as
 with
their
friends
and
immediate
family
members
in
English.

They
use
 French
only
with
some
of
the
older
members
of
their
extended
family.
 




127


Because
of
a
loss
of
domains
in
which
PACIT
French
is
used,
these
younger
speakers
 do
not
see
enough
varied
situations
to
get
a
complete
picture
of
what
certain
forms
 of
variation
mean.

Since
these
speakers
interact
mostly
in
English,
that
is
where
 meaningful
sociolinguistic
variation
occurs.

Schmidt’s
1985
study
of
Dyirbal
 speakers
in
North
Queensland,
Australia
showed
that
although
the
younger
 speakers
did
not
interact
much
with
the
older
generation,
there
was
a
good
amount
 of
interaction
in
Dyirbal
within
the
younger
generation,
which
constituted
their
own
 speech
community
separate
from
the
older
speakers.

So
although
the
older
fluent
 norm
was
not
followed,
the
younger
generation
set
their
own
norms
and
followed
 the
rules
of
this
reduced
system.

Younger
PACIT
French
speakers,
however,
rarely
 choose
to
speak
French
with
each
other.

Especially
for
those
younger
speakers
who
 have
moved
to
communities
outside
of
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes,
where
many
of
their
 neighbors
are
Anglophones,
English
is
the
language
of
choice
for
peer
interaction.

 As
this
younger
fluent
woman
living
up
the
bayou
from
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
in
 Montegut
explains,
 YFS4
:
c’est
comme
notre
voisin
drette
là,
(JOHN),
eh
ben
lui
vient
de
la
 Pointe
et…là
je
connais
pas
si
il
parle
plein
du
français,
c’est
sûr
qu’il
 comprend,
mais
je
connais
pas
s’il
parle
plein
de
la…du
français.

Mais
c’est
 sûr
qu’il
comprend
parce
que
sa
mame
et
son
pape,
quand
eusse
parle,
les
 deux,
eusse
parle
français.

Mais
uh
quand
qu’on
parle
à
lui,
eh
ben
on
parle
 tout
le
temps
nanglais,
on
parle
pas
français.
 ‘It’s
like
our
neighbor
right
there,
(JOHN),
well
he
comes
from
Pointe‐ Aux‐Chênes
and…well
I
don’t
know
if
he
speaks
fluent
French,
I’m
 sure
he
understands
but
I
don’t
know
if
he
speaks
fluently...in
French.

 But
I’m
sure
he
understands
because
his
mom
and
his
dad,
when
they
 talk,
both
of
them,
they
speak
French.

But
uh
when
we
speak
to
him,
 well
we
always
speak
English,
we
don’t
speak
French.’
 




128


Within
the
PACIT
French
speaking
community,
it
is
clear
that
more
‘vertical’
(inter‐ generational)
than
‘horizontal’
(between
peers)
interaction
occurs.

Dorian
(1981)
 also
cites
‘vertical
communication,’
or
communication
between
younger
and
older
 speakers,
as
the
most
frequent
form
of
interaction
in
East
Sutherland
Gaelic.

 Unfortunately,
interaction
between
older
and
younger
speakers
does
not
ensure
the
 continuation
of
PACIT
French,
since
once
the
older
speakers
are
gone
there
will
be
 no
natural
speech
community
left
and
thus
no
need
to
continue
speaking
the
 language.

Also,
as
one
YFS
explains,
many
older
speakers
are
already
wary
of
 addressing
people
of
the
younger
generation
in
French
since
there
is
no
longer
a
 guarantee
that
younger
people
will
know
French:
 KC
:
Si
c’était
quelqu’un
qui
parlait
français
et
nanglais
et
t’as
pas
parlé
avec
 eusse
avant,
qui
langage
tu
choisis
pour
parler
avec
eusse?
 ‘If
[you
encountered]
someone
who
spoke
French
and
English,
and
 you
had
never
spoken
to
them
before,
what
language
would
you
 choose
to
speak
to
them
in?’
 YFS3
:
c’est
selon
qui
eusse
après
parler.

Si
c’est
que
eusse
sort
avec
le
français,
 mon
je
parlais
le
français,
si
c’est
qu’eusse
commence
en
nanglais,
ben
c’est
en
 nanglais.

Mais
plus
le
monde
qu’on
se
rencontre,
c’est
plus
tout
en
nanglais
 asteur.
 ‘[I
choose]
according
to
what
they
are
speaking.

If
they
come
out
with
 French,
me
I
speak
French,
if
they
begin
in
English,
well
it’s
in
English.

 But
most
of
people
that
you
meet,
it’s
more
all
in
English
now.’
 KC
:
même
les
vieux?
 


‘Even
the
older
speakers?’


YFS3
:
même
les
vieux
 


‘Even
the
older
speakers.’


K:
parce
qu’ils
connaissait
pas
si
tu
connais
français?
 


‘Because
they
don’t
know
if
you
know
French?’




129
 YFS3
:
right.
 


As
more
speakers
of
PACIT
French
opt
to
interact
in
English,
it
seems
inevitable
that
 the
social
meaning
of
certain
features
in
the
language,
such
as
the
substitution
of
/h/
 for
/¹/,
would
be
less
salient
for
the
younger
generation.

In
spite
of
this,
younger
 fluent
speakers
featured
the
same
overall
patterns
of
variant‐usage
between
casual
 and
careful
speech
as
did
the
older
generation
of
fluent
speakers,
presenting
a
 higher
rate
of
/h/‐substitution
in
casual
speech
than
in
careful
speech.

In
a
strange
 twist,
however,
this
variation
was
not
present
at
all
in
the
speech
of
most
of
the
 younger
fluent
men
interviewed.

This
lack
of
variation
between
/¹/
and
its
 allophone
/h/
appears
to
be
related
to
increased
je‐dropping,
since
the
first
person
 singular
subject
pronoun
je
is
one
of
the
environments
with
the
highest
rate
of
/h/‐ substitution
due
to
its
frequent
usage
(Boissonneault
1999,
Carmichael
2007).

This
 lack
of
/h/‐substitution
as
well
as
a
drastic
increase
in
je‐dropping
carried
on
to
the
 semi‐speakers
of
PACIT
French,
of
which
only
one
we
interviewed
featured
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
at
all.

Dressler
(1972)
argues
that
the
frequency
of
 certain
phonological
mutations
in
Breton
had
an
effect
on
whether
or
not
these
 mutations
survived
in
the
speech
of
the
younger
generation
of
Breton‐speakers,
 with
mutations
that
occurred
less
frequently
in
speech
more
easily
abandoned
by
 younger
speakers.

Since
je‐dropping
results
in
a
quite
extreme
loss
of
environments
 for
this
variation
(the
phoneme
/¹/
is
not
otherwise
very
common
in
PACIT
French),
 the
variation
itself
loses
its
saliency
and
simply
drops
out
of
the
language
for
 imperfect
speakers,
and
even
for
some
YFS.

Dressler
(1972
:
452)
further
writes,
“if




130


a
rule
is
optional
with
the
older
generation
which
has
a
full
and
varied
command
of
 a
still
vigorous
language
system,
it
is
lost
in
the
disintegrating
language
of
a
younger
 generation.”

Dressler
reports
this
process
as
happening
very
quickly
within
Breton,
 and
indeed
within
one
generation
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
PACIT
French
 goes
from
a
significant
stylistic
marker
to
nonexistent
for
many
younger
fluent
 speakers
and
almost
all
semi‐speakers
interviewed
for
this
study.


 


The
only
semi‐speaker
that
featured
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
did
not


differentiate
between
rates
of
each
variant
in
careful
versus
casual
speech,
 presenting
almost
identical
rates
of
/h/‐substitution
between
casual
conversation
 and
the
translation
task.

Of
Newfoundland
French
speakers
who
are
undergoing
the
 same
process
of
language
shift
towards
English,
King
(1989
:
148)
writes,
 Linguistic
variation
in
Newfoundland
French,
though
strongly
correlated
 with
age,
does
not
carry
the
weight
of
social
meaning
which
variation
carries
 in
healthy
speech
communities.

 

 As
languages
decline,
the
social
meaning
of
variation
also
declines.

So
because
of
 her
incredibly
limited
exposure
to
the
language,
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
did
 not
function
as
a
stylistic
marker
for
SS1
as
if
did
for
the
younger
and
older
fluent
 speakers.

It
is
also
possible,
however,
that
as
a
semi‐speaker,
SS1
was
incapable
of
 producing
truly
unmonitored
speech,
meaning
that
rather
than
being
unable
to
 differentiate
between
careful
and
casual
speech,
this
speaker
may
not
have
had
a
 casual,
unmonitored
register
to
begin
with.

Either
way,
it
is
clear
that
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
does
not
carry
social
meaning
for
semi‐speakers
of
PACIT
 French,
and
is
only
a
relevant
form
of
variation
in
the
speech
of
about
half
of
the




131


younger
fluent
speakers.

Interestingly
enough,
most
of
the
younger
speakers
who
 have
retained
this
substitution
were
women,
which
brings
up
the
question
of
 gender.
 


Although
it
was
in
fact
the
rate
of
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
that
patterned


according
to
gender
for
the
older
fluent
speakers,
it
became
more
a
question
of
who
 featured
this
variation
at
all
for
the
younger
fluent
speakers
and
semi‐speakers.

All
 four
younger
fluent
women
featured
/h/‐substitution
at
least
in
casual
speech;
 however
only
one
of
the
younger
fluent
men
featured
this
substitution.

Among
the
 three
men
who
did
not
feature
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/,
neither
age
nor
 location
of
residence
(closer
to
or
farther
from
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes)
seemed
to
 correlate
with
this
lack
of
/h/‐substitution.

Rate
of
je‐dropping,
however,
was
 higher
overall
for
these
three
speakers
than
for
the
rest
of
the
speakers,
supporting
 the
theory
that
increased
je‐dropping
is
leading
to
a
lack
of
/h/‐substitution
in
the
 speech
of
younger
speakers.

It
is
unclear
whether
or
not
je‐dropping
has
more
or
 less
prestige
than
/h/‐substitution
within
the
first
person
singular
subject
pronoun
 in
PACIT
French;
however
that
would
prove
an
interesting
direction
for
further
 study,
since
younger
men
seem
to
employ
je‐dropping
more
than
younger
women,
 and
younger
women
clearly
feature
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
more
frequently
 than
younger
men.

Whether
or
not
one
feature
holds
more
social
prestige
than
the
 other,
it
must
be
acknowledged
that
younger
female
PACIT
French
speakers
are
in
 fact
producing
more
of
the
variant
/h/
than
men,
which
is
the
exact
opposite
of
the
 pattern
noted
within
the
older
fluent
norm.

According
to
Hill
(1987
:
121),




132
 Women
are
more
conservative
than
men
in
cases
of
stable
variation
but
are
 more
innovative
in
cases
of
change
in
progress,
particularly
if
the
change
is
 an
assimilation
toward
an
elite
norm.

 


If
women
are
more
conservative
than
men
in
cases
of
stable
variation
and
the
 substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
is
considered
a
stable
form
of
variation
within
PACIT
 French,
why,
then,
would
women
appear
to
have
retained
this
variation
longer
than
 men,
rather
than
assimilating
toward
the
‘elite
norm’?

In
this
situation
of
language
 shift
in
which
PACIT
French
is
the
minority
language
used
by
a
small
group
of
 speakers
(in
which
social
stratification
is
not
particularly
pronounced),
the
‘elite
 norm’
is
in
fact
the
dominant
language,
English.

And
indeed,
as
described
in
chapter
 four,
many
women
have
adopted
English
as
their
language
of
choice,
opting
to
move
 away
from
lower
Pointe‐Aux‐Chênes
and
not
take
part
in
the
PACIT
French
speech
 community.

This
means
that
the
women
who
have
continued
to
speak
French,
 especially
those
who
were
willing
to
take
part
in
this
study,
probably
take
pride
in
 their
ability
to
speak
French,
keeping
a
close
connection
to
the
tribe
and
PACIT
 French
speech
community.

As
expected,
five
out
of
the
eight
(semi‐speaker
and
 fluent)
younger
women
interviewed
either
hold
positions
in
the
tribe
or
have
 siblings
that
are
highly
active
in
tribal
matters.

Younger
women
were
also
more
 likely
than
younger
men
to
be
aware
of
the
efforts
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
 Tribe’s
attempts
to
attain
federal
acknowledgement,
and
showed
interest
in
tribal
 meetings
and
affairs
even
if
they
did
not
regularly
attend
PACIT
functions.

Out
of
all
 the
younger
men,
only
YFS8
was
active
in
the
tribe
(he
is
listed
on
the
website
as
 part
of
the
membership
committee).

YFS8
was
also
the
only
younger
man
to
feature




133


the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/.

So
although
many
younger
women
do
indeed
opt
to
 speak
only
the
more
prestigious
language,
English,
those
women
who
have
 continued
to
speak
French
can
be
looked
at
as
upholders
of
tradition,
who
thus
 retain
/h/‐substitution
perhaps
as
more
of
a
marker
of
solidarity
and
support
of
the
 PACIT
community
than
as
a
nonstandard,
stigmatized
variant.38

 Despite
the
current
situation
of
language
endangerment,
Picone
(1997)
has
 cited
the
Indians
of
Terrebonne
Parish
as
the
speech
community
that
has
best
 preserved
the
French
language
in
Louisiana.39

Picone
(1997
:
144)
writes
that
for
 Terrebonne
Indians
such
as
the
members
of
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe,
 “conservation
of
French,
which
displaced
their
indigenous
language
long
ago,
has
 value
for
maintaining
group
identity.”
This
is
true
to
a
certain
extent—while
the
 French
language
is
an
integral
part
of
the
identity
of
older
fluent
speakers,
younger
 speakers
have
expressed
less
identification
with
PACIT
French.

Especially
since
 many
younger
tribe
members
do
not
speak
PACIT
French,
it
is
losing
its
strength
as
 an
identity
marker.
 YFS4
:
t’es
pas,
t’es
pas
un
moins
indien
si
c’est
que
tu
parles
pas
français
que
si
 c’est
que
tu
parles
français.
 























































 38
See
Carmichael
2007
who
cites
the
substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
PACIT
French
as


an
example
of
a
speech
community
assigning
covert
prestige
to
a
certain
type
of
 variation.

Covert
prestige
can
be
assigned
to
speech
variants
that
do
not
conform
to
 the
accepted
norm,
but
which
still
confer
a
certain
amount
of
status
to
their
users
 (in
many
cases
marking
these
speakers
as
members
of
their
local
community,
in
 contrast
with
“outsiders”).
 39
Picone
specifically
cites
the
Houma
of
Terrebonne;
however
it
must
be
kept
in


mind
that
until
very
recently
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe
was
taken
under
the
 umbrella
of
the
United
Houma
Nation.






134
 ‘You’re
not,
you’re
not
less
of
an
Indian
if
you
don’t
speak
French
than
 if
you
do
speak
French’
 


Part
of
the
problem
with
PACIT
members
using
French
as
a
marker
of
identity
is
the
 lack
of
‘ownership’
of
the
language,
since
Cajuns
also
speak
French.

Although
many
 younger
fluent
speakers
lamented
the
loss
of
the
French
language,
others
seemed
 unconcerned
since
it
had
never
been
the
Indians’
own
language
to
begin
with.

Even
 the
label
for
the
language,
as
it
is
often
referred
to
as
‘Cajun’
French,
claims
it
as
an
 entity
that
belongs
to
another
cultural
group.
 KC
:
et
tu
appelles
le
français
que
tu
parles,
c’est
le
français
cadien
ou
c’est
juste
 le
français,
c’est…?
 ‘and
you
call
the
French
that
you
speak,
it’s
‘Cajun
French,’
or
it’s
just
 ‘French,’
it’s…?’
 YFS2
:
non,
français
cadien
 


‘no,
Cajun
French.’


KC
:
français
cadien
 


‘Cajun
French’


YFS2
:
mm‐hm
 RM
:
tu
l’appelles
pas
le
français
indien?
{laughter}
 


‘You
don’t
call
it
‘Indian
French’
?’



 As
with
Breton‐speakers
in
France,
“language
is
but
one
cultural
marker
 of…identity”
(Kuter
1989
:
87)
for
the
Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians.

As
younger
PACIT
 members
assimilate
more
into
the
culture
of
the
Américains,
they
mark
their
Indian
 identity
in
non‐linguistic
ways,
often
decorating
their
homes
with
dream‐weavers,
 baskets
(or
other
items
traditionally
woven
with
palmetto
leaves),
and
pictures
and




135


sculptures
depicting
Indians.40

Thus
the
French
language
in
itself
is
not
enough
to
 identify
oneself
as
Indian,
nor
is
it
necessary
in
order
to
self‐identify
as
such.


 


Because
speaking
French
is
no
longer
an
important
identity
marker
for
the


Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indians,
the
future
of
PACIT
French
is
unsure.

The
patterns
of
 language
loss
from
the
older
generation
to
the
younger
generation
are
common
 within
languages
that
are
on
the
decline,
and
without
any
revitalization
programs
in
 place,
PACIT
French
may
become
an
extinct
language
in
the
next
few
generations.
 Unfortunately,
this
would
not
present
a
new
situation
for
the
Indians
of
Pointe‐Aux‐ Chênes,
Louisiana,
who
lost
their
original
language
over
a
century
ago
to
the
very
 language
that
is
currently
facing
the
same
prospect.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 























































 40
It
should
be
noted
that
items
such
as
dream‐weavers
are
not
traditional
to
the


Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe,
rather
they
are
the
result
of
the
pan‐Indian
 movement
in
the
United
States,
and
many
PACIT
members
use
these
items
that
are
 synonymous
with
the
typical
American
characterization
of
“Indians”
in
order
to
 show
their
membership
in
the
overall
North
American
indigenous
ethnic
group.




136
 Bibliography



 Base
de
Données
Lexicographiques
Panfrancophone.
CÔTÉ,
Myriam
et
al.

 http://www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/bdlp/
2005.
 
 BITTNER,
Michèle.

“Réalisation
des
Constrictives
“ch”
et
“j”
en
Parler
Saguenéen,
 Étude
Acoustique.”

(Masters
Thesis
for
Université
Laval
and
Université
du
 Québec
à
Chicoutimi).

1994.
 
 BODIN,
Catherine
C.

“The
Dialectal
Origins
of
Louisiana
Acadian
French.”
 (Dissertation
for
the
University
of
North
Carolina
at
Chapel
Hill)
UMI:
Ann
 Arbor,
Michigan.

1988.
 
 BOISSONNEAULT,
Chantal.

«
Le
Français
de
l’Abitibi:
Caractéristiques
Phonétiques
et
 Origine
Socio‐Géographique
des
Locuteurs.
»

(Masters
Thesis
for
Université
 Laval)
UMI:
Ann
Arbor,
Michigan.
1999.
 
 BRADLEY,
David.

“The
Disappearance
of
the
Ugong
in
Thailand.”
Pp.
33‐40
in
 Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

 Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

 1989.
 
 BRASSEAUX,
Carl
A.

French,
Cajun,
Creole,
Houma:
A
Primer
on
Francophone
 Louisiana.
Louisiana
University
Press:
Baton
Rouge,
Louisiana.
2005.


 
 BRENZINGER,
Matthias
et
al.

Language
Vitality
and
Endangerment.
Document

 submitted
to
the
International
Expert
Meeting
on
UNESCO
programme
 safeguarding
of
Endangered
Languages.

Paris
10‐12
March
2003.
 http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/files/13584/10978272855languagevit alityendangerment.pdf/languagevitalityendangerment.pdf





137



 BROWN,
Cecil
H.
and
HARDY,
Heather
K.
“What
Is
Houma?”

International
Journal
of
 American
Linguistics.
The
University
of
Chicago
Press:
Chicago,
Illinois.
2000.


 
 Bureau
of
Indian
Affairs
Website
:
http://www.doi.gov/bia/ofa.html

 
 CAMPBELL,
Lyle,
and
MUNTZEL,
Martha
C.

“The
Structural
Consequences
of
Language
 Death.”
Pp.
181‐196
in
Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
 Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
 Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.
 
 CARMICHAEL,
Katie.
“The
Substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
Louisiana
French,
and
its
 
 
 


Relation
to
Register.”
Honors
Thesis
for
Tulane
University.

2007


‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Katie.

“Gender
Differences
in
the
Substitution
of
/h/
for
/¹/
in
a
Formal
 Register
of
an
Endangered
Dialect
of
Louisiana
French.”

Southern
Journal
of
 Linguistics.

31.2
:
1‐27.

2008.
 
 CHAMBERS,
J.K.
and
TRUDGILL,
Peter.

Dialectology:
Second
Edition.

Cambridge
 University
Press
:
New
York,
New
York.
1998.
 
 CHAMBERS,
J.K.
and
TRUDGILL,
Peter
and
SCHILLING‐ESTES,
Natalie
(ed).

The
Handbook
 


of
Language
Variation
and
Change,

Malden,
MA:
Blackwell
Publishing.
2002.



 CHAUVEAU,
Jean‐Paul.

“Les
Parlers
du
Nord‐Ouest.”
pp.
145‐186
in
Francais
de
 France
et
Francais
du
Canada
:
Les
Parlers
de
l’Ouest
de
la
France,
du
Québec
 et
de
l’Acadie.

Imprimerie
St.
Joseph
SARL
:
Lyon,
France.

1995.
 




138


CODOFIL
(Council
for
the
Development
of
French
in
Louisiana)
Website
:
 http://www.codofil.org

 
 CRYSTAL,
David.

Language
Death.

Cambridge
University
Press
:
Cambridge,

 England.

2000.
 
 DAJKO,
Nathalie.

«
French
in
the
Cane
River
Region
:
Implications
for
Louisiana
 French
Dialectology.
»
Paper
presented
at
the
Southeastern
Conference
on
 Linguistics.

April
12,
2007.
 
 DENISON,
Norman.
“Language
death
or
language
suicide?”
International
Journal
 of
the
Sociology
of
Language
12
:
13‐22.

1977.
 
 DIMENDAAL,
Gerrit
J.
“On
Language
Death
in
Eastern
Africa.”
Pp.
13‐31
in
 Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

 Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

 1989.
 
 DITCHY,
Jay.

Les
Acadiens
Louisianais
et
Leur
Parler.

Librairie
E.
Droz
:
Paris,
 France.
1932.

 
 DORIAN,
Nancy
C.

“Grammatical
Change
in
a
Dying
Dialect.”

Language.

49
:
413‐38.


 1973.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Nancy
C.

“The
problem
of
the
semi‐speaker
in
language
death.”
 International
Journal
of
the
Sociology
of
Language
12
:
23‐32.
1977.
 
 




139


‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Nancy
C.

“The
fate
of
morphological
complexity
in
language
death.”
 Language
54
:
590‐609.
1978.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Nancy
C.
“Language
shift
in
community
and
individual:
The
phenomenon
of
 the
laggard
semi‐speaker.”
International
Journal
of
the
Sociology
of
Language
 25
:
85‐94.

1980.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Nancy
C.
Language
Death
:
The
Life
Cycle
of
a
Scottish
Gaelic
Dialect.

 University
of
Pennsylvania
Press
:
Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

1981.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Nancy
C.
(ed)

Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language

 Contraction
and
Death.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

 1989.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Nancy
C.
“Varieties
of
Variation
in
a
Very
Small
Place
:
Social
Homogeneity,
 Prestige
Norms,
and
Linguistic
Variation.”
Language
70
:
631‐696.

1994.
 
 DRESSLER,
Wolfgang.
“On
the
Phonology
of
Language
Death.”
Pp
448‐457
in
 Peranteau,
Paul
M.,
Levi,
Judith
N.,
and
Phares,
Gloria
C.
(ed).
Papers
from
the
 Eighth
Regional
Meeting
:
Chicago
Linguistics
Society.

Chicago
Linguistic
 Society
:
Chicago,
Illinois.

1972.
 
 DRESSLER,
Wolfgang
and
WODAK‐LEODALTER,
Ruth.
“Language
Preservation
and
 Language
Death
in
Brittany.”

International
Journal
of
the
Sociology
of
 Language
12:33‐‐44.

1977.
 
 DUBOIS,
Lise.

“Le
Français
en
Acadie
des
Maritimes.”

Pp.
81‐98
in
Valdman,
Albert
;
 Auger,
Julie
;
and
Piston‐Hatlen,
Deborah
(ed.).

Le
Français
en
Amérique
du
 Nord
:
Etat
Présent.

Les
Presses
de
l’Université
Laval:
Saint‐Nicolas,
Québec,
 Canada.
2005.




140
 


DUBOIS,
Sylvie.

“Un
Siècle
de
Français
Cadien
Parlé
en
Louisiane:
Persistance
 Linguistique,
Hétérogénéité
Géographique
et
Evolution.”

Pp.
287‐305
in
 Valdman,
Albert
;
Auger,
Julie
;
and
Piston‐Hatlen,
Deborah
(ed.).

Le
Français
 en
Amérique
du
Nord
:
Etat
Présent.

Les
Presses
de
l’Université
Laval:
Saint‐ Nicolas,
Québec,
Canada.
2005.
 
 DUBOIS,
Sylvie
and
HORVATH,
Barbara.

“When
the
Music
Changes,
You
Change
Too
:
 Gender
and
Language
Change
in
Cajun
English.”

Language
Variation
and
 Change
11
:
287‐313.
 
 FASOLD,
Ralph
W.

The
Sociolinguistics
of
Language.

Basil
Blackwell
Publisher
 Limited
:
Oxford,
England.

1990.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Ralph
W.

The
Sociolinguistics
of
Society.

Basil
Blackwell
Publisher
Limited
:
 Oxford,
England.

1984.
 
 GAL,
Susan.

Language
Shift
:
Social
Determinants
of
Linguistic
Change
in
Bilingual
 Austria.

Academic
Press
:
New
York,
New
York.

1979.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Susan.

“Lexical
Innovation
and
Loss
:
the
Use
and
Value
of
Restricted
 Hungarian.”
Pp.
313‐331
in
Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
 Language
Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

Cambridge,
 England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.
 
 GAUTHIER,
Pierre.

«
Les
Parlers
du
Sud‐ouest.
»
pp.
187‐249
in
Francais
de
France
et
 Francais
du
Canada
:
Les
Parlers
de
l’Ouest
de
la
France,
du
Québec
et
de
 l’Acadie.

Imprimerie
St.
Joseph
SARL
:
Lyon,
France.
1995.
 
 




141


‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Pierre.

«
Traits
Phonétiques
Communs.
»
pp.
27‐67
in
Francais
de
France
 Et
Francais
du
Canada
:
Les
Parlers
de
l’Ouest
de
la
France,
du
Québec
et
de
 l’Acadie.

Imprimerie
St.
Joseph
SARL
:
Lyon,
France.
1995.
 
 GEDDES,
James
Jr.

«
Comparison
of
Two
Acadian
French
Dialects
Spoken
in:
The
 north‐east
of
North
America
with
the
Franco‐Canadian
dialect
spoken
at
Ste.
 Anne
de
Beaupré,
Province
of
Quebec.
III.»


Modern
Language
Notes,
Vol.
9,
 No.
2.
(Feb.,
1894),
pp.
50‐58.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
James
Jr.

Study
of
An
Acadian‐French
Dialect
Spoken
on
The
North
Shore
of
 the
Baie
des
Chaleurs.

Max
Niemeyer
Verlag
:
Tübingen,
Germany.
1908.
 
 GILES,
H.
(ed).

“The
Dynamics
of
Speech
Accommodation.”

International
Journal
of
 the
Sociology
of
Language.

46
:
1‐155.

1984.
 
 GILMORE,
H.
W.
“Social
Isolation
of
the
French
Speaking
People
of
Rural
Louisiana.”
 Social
Forces.

University
of
North
Carolina
Press.
1933.
 
 GORDON,
Raymond
G.,
Jr.
(ed.),
Ethnologue:
Languages
of
the
World,
Fifteenth
edition.
 Dallas,
Tex.:
SIL
International.
Online
version:
http://www.ethnologue.com/.
 2005.
 
 GRIMES,
Barbara
F.
“Global
Language
Viability
:
Causes,
Symptoms
and
Cures
for
 Endangered
Languages.”

Pp
45‐68
in
Osamu
Sakiyama
(ed.),
Endangered
 languages
of
the
Pacific
rim:
lectures
on
endangered
languages
2;
From
 Kyoto
conference
2000.
ELPR
Publication
Series
C002.
Osaka,
Japan:
ELPR.

 2001.
 
 GRIOLET,
Patrick.

Cadjins
et
Creoles
en
Louisiane:
Histoire
et
Survivance
d’une
 Francophonie.

Payot,
Paris
:
Paris,
France.
1986.




142



 GUILBEAU,
John.
A
glossary
of
variants
from
Standard
French
in
La
Fourche
Parish.

 


(Master’s
thesis,
Louisiana
State
University,
Baton
Rouge).

1936.

 


‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
John.

The
French
spoken
in
Lafourche
Parish,
Louisiana.

(Dissertation
for
the
 University
of
North
Carolina
Chapel
Hill).
1950.

 
 HILL,
Jane
H.

“Women’s
Speech
in
Modern
Mexicano.”
Pp.
121‐160
in
Language,
 Gender
&
Sex
in
Comparative
Perspective.

Philips,
Susan
U.;
Steele,
Susan;
 and
Tanz,
Christine
(eds).

Cambridge
University
Press
:
New
York,
NY.

1987.
 
 HILL,
Jane
H.,
and
HILL,
Kenneth.
“Language
death
and
relexification
in
Tlaxcalan

 Nahuatl.”
International
Journal
of
the
Sociology
of
Language
12:55‐‐69.

1977.
 
 HOENIGSWALD,
Henry
M.

“Language
Obsolescence
and
Language
History
:
Matters
of
 Linearity,
Leveling,
Loss,
and
the
Like.”
Pp.
347‐367
in
Investigating
 Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
 Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.
 
 HORIOT,
Brigitte
and
GAUTHIER,
Pierre.

«
Les
Parlers
du
Sud‐Ouest.
»
pp.
187‐249
in
 Francais
de
France
et
Francais
du
Canada
:
Les
Parlers
de
l’Ouest
de
la
 France,
du
Québec
et
de
l’Acadie.

Imprimerie
St.
Joseph
SARL
:
Lyon,
France.
 1995.
 
 HULL,
Alexander
1968.
“The
origins
of
New
World
French
Phonology.”

 
 
 
 


Word
24:
255‐269.





143


KING,
Ruth.

“On
the
Social
Meaning
of
Linguistic
Variability
in
Language
Death
 Situations
:
Variation
in
Newfoundland
French.”
Pp.
139‐148
in
Investigating
 Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
 Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.
 
 KING,
Ruth
and
BUTLER,
Gary.

“Les
Franco‐Terreneuviens
et
le
franco‐terreneuvien.”
 pp.
169‐185
in
Valdman,
Albert
;
Auger,
Julie
;
and
Piston‐Hatlen,
Deborah
 (ed.).

Le
Français
en
Amérique
du
Nord
:
Etat
Présent.

Les
Presses
de
 l’Université
Laval
:
Saint‐Nicolas,
Québec,
Canada.
2005.
 
 KLINGLER,
Thomas
A.

«
Le
Problème
de
la
Démarcation
des
Variétés
de
Langues
en
 Louisiane:
Etiquettes
et
Usages
Linguistiques.
»

pp.
349‐367
in
Valdman,
 Albert
;
Auger,
Julie
;
and
Piston‐Hatlen,
Deborah
(ed.).

Le
Français
en
 Amérique
du
Nord
:
Etat
Présent.

Les
Presses
de
l’Université
Laval
:
Saint‐ Nicolas,
Québec,
Canada.

2005.
 
 KUTER,
Lois.

“Breton
vs.
French
:
Language
and
the
Opposition
of
Political,
Economic,
 Social,
and
Cultural
Values.”
Pp.
75‐89
in
Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
 Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

 Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.
 
 LABOV,
William.

The
Social
Stratification
of
English
in
New
York
City.

Center
for
 Applied
Linguistics
:
Washington,
DC.
1966.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
William.

Sociolinguistic
Patterns.

University
of
Pennsylvania
Press
:
 Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania.

1972.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
William.

“Objectivity
and
Commitment
in
Linguistic
Sciene
:
the
Case
of
the
 Black
English
Trial
in
Ann
Arbor.”
Language
in
Society.
26
:
161‐201.

1982.
 
 




144


‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
William.

Principles
of
Linguistic
Change
:
Social
Factors.

Blackwell
 Publishers,
Incorporated.

Malden,
Massachussetts.

2001.
 
 LAVOIE,
Thomas.

«
Le
Français
Québécois.
»
pp.
345‐398
in
Francais
de
France
et
 Francais
du
Canada
:
Les
Parlers
de
l’Ouest
de
la
France,
du
Québec
et
de
 l’Acadie.

Imprimerie
St.
Joseph
SARL
:
Lyon,
France.
1995.
 
 LE
MENESTREL,
Sarah.

La
Voie
des
Cadiens
:
Tourisme
et
Identité
en
Louisiane.

 Belin
:
Paris,
France.

1999.


 
 LECOMPTE,
Nolan
Philip,
Jr.

A
word
atlas
of
Terrebonne
Parish.

(Master’s
thesis,
 Louisiana
State
University,
Baton
Rouge).

1962.

 
 LODGE,
R.
Anthony.

French
:
From
Dialect
to
Standard.

Routledge
:
London,
England.
 1993.
 
 MASSIGNON,
Geneviève.

Les
Parlers
Français
d’Acadie,
Tomes
I
et
II.

Librairie
C.
 Klincksieck
:
Paris,
France.
1962.
 
 MENN,
Lise.

“Some
People
Who
Don’t
Talk
Right
:
Universal
and
Particular
in
Child
 Language,
Aphasia,
and
Language
Obsolescence.”
Pp.
335‐345
in
 Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

 Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

 1989.
 
 MERTZ,
Elizabeth.

“Sociolinguistic
Creativity
:
Cape
Breton
Gaelic’s
Linguistic
Tip.”
 Pp.
103‐116
in
Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
 Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
 Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.




145


MILROY,
Lesley.

Language
and
Social
Networks.

Basil
Blackwell
Publisher,
ltd
:
 Oxford,
England.
1987.
 
 MILROY,
Lesley
and
GORDON,
Matthew.

Sociolinguistics
:
Method
and
Interpretation.

 Basil
Blackwell
Publisher,
ltd
:
Oxford,
England.
2003.
 
 MOUGEON,
Raymond,
and
BENIAK,
Edouard.

“Language
Contraction
and
Linguistic
 Change
:
The
Case
of
Welland
French.”
Pp.
287‐312
in
Investigating
 Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
 Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.
 
 NETTLE,
Daniel
and
ROMAINE,
Suzanne.
Vanishing
Voices.
The
Extinction
of
the
 World's
Languages.
Oxford
et
al:
University
Press,
2000.

 
 NEUMANN‐HOLZSCHUH,
Ingrid,
et
al.

«
Le
Français
Acadien
au
Canada
et
en
Louisiane
:
 Affinités
et
Divergences.
»
pp.
479‐503
in
Valdman,
Albert
;
Auger,
Julie
;
and
 Piston‐Hatlen,
Deborah
(ed.).

Le
Français
en
Amérique
du
Nord
:
Etat
 Présent.

Les
Presses
de
l’Université
Laval
:
Saint‐Nicolas,
Québec,
Canada.
 2005.
 
 OUKADA,
Larbi.

Louisiana
French:

A
linguistic
study
with
a
descriptive
analysis
of
 Lafourche
Dialect.

(Dissertation,
Louisiana
State
University).
1977.

 
 PAPEN,
Robert
A.
and
ROTTET,
Kevin
J.

“A
Structural
Sketch
of
the
Cajun
French
 Spoken
in
Lafourche
and
Terrebonne
Parishes.”

Pp.
71‐108
in
Valdman,
 Albert
(ed.).

French
and
Creole
in
Louisiana.

Plenum
Press:
New
York,
New
 York.

1997.
 
 PICONE,
Michael
D.
“Enclave
Dialect
Contraction:
An
External
Overview
of
Louisiana
 French.”
American
Speech,
Vol.
72,
No.
2.
(Summer,
1997).




146



 PICONE,
Michael
D.
and
VALDMAN,
Albert.

“La
Situation
du
Français
en
Louisiane.”

Pp.
 143‐165
in
Valdman,
Albert
;
Auger,
Julie
;
and
Piston‐Hatlen,
Deborah
(ed.).

 Le
Français
en
Amérique
du
Nord
:
Etat
Présent.

Les
Presses
de
l’Université
 Laval:
Saint‐Nicolas,
Québec,
Canada.
2005.
 
 Point­Au­Chien
Indian
Tribe
Submission
for
Federal
Acknowledgment.
1997.


 
 Pointe‐Au‐Chien
Indian
Tribe
Website
:
http://pactribe.tripod.com/

 
 POIRIER,
Pascal.

Le
Parler
Franco‐Acadien
et
ses
Origines.
Imprimerie
Franciscaine
 Missionnaire:
Québec,
Canada.
1928.

 
 Proposed
Finding
Issued
Against
the
United
Houma
Nation—Summary
Under
the
 Criteria.
1994.
 
 PYE,
Clifton.

“Language
Loss
Among
the
Chilcotin.”
International
Journal
of
the
 Sociology
of
Language
93
:
75‐86.

1992.
 
 RAVEN,
Bertram
H.
and
FRENCH,
John
R.,
jr.

“Legitimate
Power,
Coercive
Power,
and
 Observability
in
Social
Influence.
“
Sociometry.

21/2
:
83‐97.
1958.
 
 READ,
William
A.

Louisiana‐French.

Louisiana
State
University
Press:
Baton
Rouge,
 Louisiana.

1931.


 
 ROTTET,
Kevin
J.

Language
Shift
and
Language
Death
in
the
Cajun
French‐Speaking
 Communities
of
Terrebonne
and
Lafourche
Parishes,
Louisiana
 (Dissertation)

UMI
Company:
Ann
Arbor,
Michigan.

1995.






147



 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Kevin
J.

“Variation
et
Etiolement
en
Francais
Cadien:
Perspectives
 Comparées.”
pp.
243‐260
in
Valdman,
Albert
;
Auger,
Julie
;
and
Piston‐ Hatlen,
Deborah
(ed.).

Le
Français
en
Amérique
du
Nord
:
Etat
Présent.

Les
 Presses
de
l’Université
Laval
:
Saint‐Nicolas,
Québec,
Canada.

2005.
 
 SALMON,
Carole.

“Français
Acadien,
Français
Cadien:
Variation
Stylistique
et
 Maintenance
de
Formes
Phonétiques
dans
le
Parler
de
Quatre
Générations
de
 Femmes
Cadiennes.”
(dissertation
for
the
Louisiana
State
University).

2007.
 
 SCHLIEBEN‐LANGE,
Brigitte.
“The
Language
Situation
in
Southern
France.”
 International
Journal
of
the
Sociology
of
Language
12
:
101‐108.

1977.
 
 SCHMIDT,
Annette
Young
People's
Dyirbal
:
An
example
of
language
death
 from
Australia.
Cambridge
University
Press
:
Cambridge,
England.

1985.

 
 Senate
Concurrent
Resolution
No.
105
by
Senator
Dupre.

Regular
Session,
2004.


 SLS
04‐352.
 
 SHELDON,
Edward
S.
“Some
Specimens
of
a
Canadian
French
Dialect
Spoken
in
 Maine.”
Transactions
and
Proceedings
of
the
Modern
Language
Association
of
 America,
Vol.
3,
Transactions
of
the
Modern
Language
Association
of
America
 1887.
(1887),
pp.
210‐218.

 
 SOLET,
Kimberly.

Rita
Deals
Pointe­Aux­Chenes
a
Catastrophic
Blow
in
the
Houma
 Courier.

Friday,
September
30,
2005.


 
 Sovereign
Nation
of
Chitimacha
Website
:
http://www.chitimacha.gov/
 




148


TISCH,
Joseph
LeSage.

French
in
Louisiana:
A
Study
of
the
Historical
Development
of
 the
French
Language
in
Louisiana.

A.F.
Laborde
and
Sons:
New
Orleans,
 Louisiana.

1959.

 
 TRUDGILL,
Peter.

“Sex,
covert
prestige
and
linguistic
change
in
the
urban
British
 


English
of
Norwich.”
Language
in
Society

1
:
179‐195.

1972.



 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Peter.

On
Dialect:
Social
and
Geographical
Perspectives.

Basil
Blackwell
 Publisher,
ltd
:
Oxford,
England.
1983.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Peter.

Sociolinguistics:
An
Introduction
to
Language
and
Society.

Pelican
 Books
:
Middlesex,
England.
1983.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Peter.

Introducing
Language
and
Society.

Penguin
Books,
ltd
:
London,
 England.
1992.
 
 TSITSIPIS,
Lukas
D.

“Skewed
Performance
and
Full
Performance
in
Language
 Obsolescence
:
The
Case
of
an
Albanian
Variety.”
Pp.
117‐137
in
Investigating
 Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
 Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

1989.
 
 UNESCO
(United
Nations
Educational,
Scientific,
and
Cultural
Organization)
Website
 :
http://www.unesco.org/

 
 WALL,
Bennett
H.
et
al.

Louisiana
:
A
History
(Second
Edition).

Forum
Press,
Inc:
 Wheeling,
Illinois.

1990.


 
 




149


WATSON,
Seosamh.

“Scottish
and
Irish
Gaelic
:
The
Giant’s
Bedfellows.”
Pp.
41‐55
 in
Investigating
Obsoloescence
:
Studies
in
Language
Contraction
and
Death.

 Ed.
By
Nancy
C.
Dorian.

Cambridge,
England
:
Cambridge
University
Press.

 1989.
 
 WEISS,
L.

Louisiana
Coastal
Wetlands
:
A
Resource
at
Risk.

U.S.
Geological
Survey
 Marine
and
Coastal
Geology
Program
Online
Fact
Sheet.

 http://marine.usgs.gov/fact‐sheets/LAwetlands/lawetlands.html
Last
 updated
November
3,
1995.
 
 WOLFRAM,
Walt.

A
Sociolinguistic
Description
of
Detroit
Negro
Speech.
Washington,
 


DC:
Center
for
Applied
Linguistics.

1969.



 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Walt.

“Ethical
Considerations
in
Language
Awareness
Programs.”

Issues
 In
Applied
Linguistics.
4:
225‐255.

1993.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Walt.

“Scrutinizing
Linguistic
Gratuity:
Issues
from
the
Field.”

Journal
of
 Sociolinguistics.
2/2:
271‐9.

1998.
 
 ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐,
Walt.
“Language
death
and
dying.”

Pp.
764‐787
in
The
Handbook
of
 Language
Variation
and
Change,
ed.
by
J.
K.
Chambers,
Peter
Trudgill
and
 Natalie
Schilling‐Estes,
Malden,
MA:
Blackwell
Publishing.
2002.
 
 WOLFRAM,
Walt
and
SCHILLING‐ESTES,
Natalie.

American
English:
Second
Edition.

 Blackwell
Publishing:
Malden,
Massachusetts.

2006.
 
 WOLFRAM,
Walt
and
THOMAS,
Eric.

The
Development
of
African
American
English.

 Blackwell
Publishing:
Malden,
Massachusetts.

2002.
 




150
 Biography


Katie
Carmichael
completed
her
Bachelors
Degree
at
Tulane
University
in
2008,
 with
honors
in
French
and
linguistics.

Although
she
was
born
in
New
Orleans,
Katie
 was
raised
in
Alexandria,
Virginia;
she
has
made
up
for
lost
time
in
New
Orleans
 since
beginning
her
work
at
Tulane
in
2003.

Katie’s
academic
interests
within
the
 field
of
linguistics
include
language
variation
and
change,
language
death,
language
 contact,
and
dialect
assimilation.
 
 
 


Suggest Documents