Languages of Louisiana

At the time of French arrival, there were many different languages spoken in what is now Louisiana. These languages belonged to several language families, the largest of which was the Muskogean family, which includes languages such as Choctaw, Chicasaw, Coasati, Alabama, and Seminole; at the time of contact in Louisiana representatives of this family included Bayougoula and Houma. In the north of the state, Caddoan languages such as Natchitoches were spoken. There were also several language isolates (meaning these languages have/had no family relationship to any other known language) spoken in Louisiana. These included Chitimacha in the southeastern marshlands (including modern Lafourche Parish), Atakapa in the southwest, and Natchez in the Florida parishes. Some languages spoken in Louisiana in the historic period, such as those spoken by the Tunica, Biloxi, and Coasati, are more recent arrivals to the state; their speakers migrated to Louisiana following European contact.

Today, only a handful of speakers of indigenous languages remain; these include speakers of Coasati and Choctaw. Several tribes have begun language revival programs. The Tunica-Biloxi, for example, are working with linguists at Tulane University to breathe new life into their “sleeping” language.

One of the most important indigenous languages spoken in Louisiana was Mobilian Jargon, a pidgin (a trade language; a reduced code) that during the historic period came to be spoken widely across the South, as far east as Florida and possibly as far north as Illinois (Drechsel 1997: 251). Mobilian Jargon is also known as the Choctaw-Chickasaw trade language given its origins in these two very similar Muskogean languages (so similar that some would call them dialects of the same language). It is likely that the French helped to spread Mobilian beyond the areas in which it was already spoken at the time of contact (Drechsel 1997), but its origins are almost certainly pre-contact (Drechsel 1997). Mobilian Jargon was never acquired as a first language, but it was spoken widely by people from all walks of life: indigenous peoples and Old World inhabitants alike, from slaves to the rulers of the colony (Bienville was notably a speaker), men and women. It was also used for purposes such as ritual greetings within indigenous communities (Drechsel 1997: 262). Given its great importance, it is perhaps not surprising that it survived into the twentieth century, when it was no longer needed given widespread use of English.

The first European language to be established in Louisiana was French. This language is dealt with more fully in another course on this site “French-and Creole In-Louisiana” , so I will only discuss it very briefly here. Historically, linguists have recognized three varieties of French in Louisiana: Louisiana Regional French (often called Cajun French), Louisiana Creole, and Plantation Society French (also sometimes called Colonial French). Plantation Society French was a variety (now essentially extinct; if some speakers remain they are very few in number) introduced to Louisiana during the 19th century, when Louisiana saw an influx of bourgeois immigrants fleeing France for political reasons. It is this variety that is also the language of Louisiana’s rich literary tradition, including newspapers and theatre. Early immigrants to the colony, however, were most often speakers of nonstandard and/or regional dialects of French (Brasseaux 2005). Consequently, the French spoken in the early years of the colony, while it bore many resemblances to modern Reference French, was neither its direct ancestor nor the standard of the time. These speakers were joined by refugees from Acadia (today the Canadian province of Nova Scotia) between 1765 and 1785, also speakers of a non-standard (though closely related) version of French. All three of these French populations would eventually intermarry, particularly in the 19th century following the Civil War, and their dialects blend to create modern Louisiana Regional French; it is this variety — in itself regionally variable — that is most often still spoken in Louisiana today.

The other variety still spoken, though by fewer speakers, is Louisiana Creole. Louisiana Creole is the result of contact between speakers of African languages and the early immigrants to the colony — speakers of nonstandard French. It shares nearly all its lexicon with modern Louisiana Regional French, though it differs to some degree grammatically.

Despite the common terms “Cajun French” and “Creole,” LRF may be spoken by people who identify as Creole, and vice-versa. It is common for people to label their language in accordance with the way they identify ethnically, regardless of the linguistic features of that language.

Today, both of the remaining varieties of French in Louisiana are in grave danger of dying out; most speakers are over 60 years of age, and children no longer routinely learn these languages in the home. Efforts are underway across the state to keep the language alive. In any case, French is the language most often associated with Louisiana by outsiders given its historic importance and despite the overwhelming use of English today. French has also had an important influence on the English varieties spoken in Louisiana, a fact we will return to in later chapters.

While Spain ran the Louisiana colony for 40 years (vs. the 60-year French rule), the presence of the Spanish language in Louisiana has been much less visible than that of French. Still, Spanish has been spoken in Louisiana since the early days of the colony. A settlement at Los Adaes, a few miles from Natchitoches, was occupied from the 1720s until the 1770s, when France took the area over and the Spanish were forced westward. Some of the settlers from Los Adaes, however, resisted resettlement and moved only a short distance away to the Sabine river, where they founded a town they called Vallecito. The town is today called Zwolle-Ebarb, the Ebarb possibly deriving from Ybarbo, the name of the leader of the Spanish enclave.

During the Spanish period, the most important group of hispanophone settlers to arrive in Louisiana were Canary Island refugees known as the Islenos. Two major Isleno settlement areas, one in southernmost St. Bernard Parish, and the other in Assumption Parish at the split of the Lafourche from the Mississippi River. The former are most often simply called “Islenos” and the latter “Brules” (from the French brulé “burnt”). Distinct differences exist in the language as it is (or was) spoken in these two communities. The Islenos are perhaps best known for their tradition of singing decimas, songs that could be either serious or mocking, and used to recall important historical events or to tease local residents. Today these songs are often sung in English rather than Spanish.

In the 20th century, Spanish continued to enter the state of Louisiana. Settlers from Mexico joined those at Zwolle, and in New Orleans, immigrants from Honduras and other Central American countries formed an important immigrant population. Despite the numerous different waves of Spanish-speaking arrivals, historic varieties of Spanish are all in a state of decline in Louisiana, if not already extinct. Spanish was spoken by only a handful of people, all over the age of 50, in Zwolle in the 1980s. Likewise, only very few semi-speakers of Isleno Spanish remain in either St. Bermard Parish or Assumption Parishes.

Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, New Orleans again saw a Spanish influx; the linguistic effect of this influx has yet to be fully studied.

African languages made their way to Louisiana with the arrival of the first slave ships in 1719. During the French period, most Africans arrived in the colony between 1719 and 1731, with most of the passengers from the Senegambia region of West Africa. We cannot be sure of the exact origin of the people brought to Louisiana in this manner, but we can guess at their origins from records of the port from which slave ships departed with their cargo. While many of the languages Africans likely brought with them were related to each other and were sometimes mutually intelligible (notably, many were likely speakers of Manding languages, in particular Bambara)(Midlo-Hall 1992), they nonetheless introduced dozens of languages to Louisiana’s linguistic mix. During the Spanish period (1762-1800), Louisiana underwent a re-Africanization as the Spanish brought in new waves of enslaved people from the west coast of Africa. This time, the new arrivals were more often natives of areas slightly further south on the coast, and included important numbers of speakers of such languages as Yoruba and Fon. Given the relative mobility of enslaved people during non-working hours in Louisiana under the French and Spanish regimes, it is possible that many people continued to speak their native languages even as they picked up French and created Louisiana Creole. There is evidence that African languages continued to be spoken into the 19th century (Midlo-Hall 1992). Only a handful of words of African origin made their way into the European languages of Louisiana, however. The most notable examples, still in regular use today, are gumbo and gris gris. African stories, such as the stories of Compère Bouki and Compère Lapin (Br’er Fox and Br’er Rabbit in the English-speaking South; Bouki means “hyena” in Wolof), on the other hand, survive to the present. The influence of African music on modern American music is also well known.

Although most attention has been focused on French in Louisiana, several other European languages have also been very influential in Louisiana’s development. German has been present since the early days, the first settlers being a few hundred people from the Palatinate region who settled upriver from New Orleans in the early 1720s on what was called the German Coast (the Côte des Allemands). During the 19th century, millions of Germans passed through New Orleans on their way to the Great Plains, and many thousands decided to stay. During this period German theatres and social aid societies flourished. A later German settlement was established in Roberts Cove, near Rayne, in the late 1880s.

The German language is in fact a grouping of many related dialects and can be divided roughly into High (from the inland highland) and Low (from the low country) varieties. Standard German is a type of High German, as are Yiddish and Amish German. Low German exists on a continuum with Dutch; the dialect spoken traditionally in Berlin is a form of Low German. Both High and Low German were brought to Louisiana — the earliest settlers from the Palatinate spoke High German, and the settlers who established Roberts Cove were primarily Low German speakers. Just which dialect the bulk of the settlers to New Orleans spoke is hard to establish, but family names on tombs in the city suggest that some Low German speakers were represented in the sample. German heritage continues to be celebrated in Louisiana, particularly via annual Oktoberfest celebrations in Roberts Cove and at the Deutches Haus in New Orleans.

Another important immigrant group that is often footnoted in the story of Louisiana is the Irish. Irish immigration began in the early 19th century; large numbers of Irish immigrants fleeing the Famine settled in New Orleans mid-century, and would have a significant impact on the cultural scene. Today there is still a neighborhood known as the Irish Channel. These immigrants were largely literate (Kelley 2004), and while they quite possibly spoke Gaelic, they also brought with them a distinct variety of English, contributing to the ongoing Anglicization of Louisiana.

Finally, around the turn of the 20th century, New Orleans saw an important Italian immigration. Italian appears to have lingered in the New Orleans area well into the 20th century (Shane Lief, personal communication November 20, 2012). The linguistic effects of these three major immigrations are hard to firmly establish; Reinecke (1985: 60) suggests that the use of “by” as “to be at” in the New Orleans expression “by my mama’s” is the result of German influence. It is possible that the working class New Orleans dialect known as Yat is the result of the influence of these three immigrations, much as the similar dialect spoken by working class New Yorkers, which resembles it, was the result of a similar mixing of ethnicities . Another possibility for this similarity, however, suggested by Labov (2007), is that the similarity between these two dialects is the result of contact between these two cities via their ports.

Major immigration of English speakers begins with Louisiana statehood in 1812. Shift from other languages, in particular French, to English began as early as the mid-19th century; however, serious decline of the language began in the 20th century, and is likely due to many factors, in particular the change to the state constitution in 1921 that banned any language other than English for instruction in public schools. Today, English has replaced French as the state’s dominant language, though French often retains a symbolic status and may be used by young (often Anglophone) people in limited domains, such as music. The varieties of English spoken in south Louisiana, however, are often influenced by French. They retain French lexical items (e.g. bouder “to pout,” honte “ashamed,” envie “a desire,” and classically parrain “godfather,” cher(e) “dear,” couillon “stupid,” and the marker mais “but”) and sometimes also pronunciations. Syntax may also be affected, as in the use of object pronouns (me, you, him) for stress: “I’m not hungry, me.” Yes and no may also be used as tags, often in conjunction with stressed object pronouns: “Mais, I’m not hungry, me, no.”

Speakers of Cajun and Creole Englishes, especially those who have had many years of exposure to Standard American English via the school system, may use the two dialects interchangeably for effect. Moreover, there has been a recent rise in the use of Cajun English by younger generations, particularly among males, who may see social and economic value in its use (Dubois & Horvath 1998).

English is also the native language of most New Orleanians today. Some claim that up to five dialects are or have been spoken in the city — and some residents even claim they can tell where someone comes from down to the street — but the exact boundaries of variation have never been empirically established; there is much work still to be done on New Orleans English. Still, at the very least, linguists generally accept that there is an an upper-class dialect (usually referred to as the Garden District accent), a working class white dialect (known colloquially as Yat and often likened to Brooklynese), and a working class black dialect. Whether a separate Creole dialect exists today or existed in the past is undetermined. Similarly, some have suggested that the distinction between Yat and the working class black dialect is not linguistic but rather the phenotype of the speaker; this also has not been empirically confirmed. Many people in New Orleans today, particularly those who have had many years of education, speak a dialect that differs little from the standard American English spoken in the north of the country.

New Orleans’ rich linguistic history is evident in the particularities of its dialects. Many features are shared (or were shared) across communities: classically, the expression “Where y’at?” (the correct response to which is, of course, “Fine”) gave the Yat dialect its name and can still be heard today among African American residents of the city. Other classic New Orleans expressions include the use of neutral ground for a large grassy median in a road and wrench your dishes in the zink. New Orleans English is marked by contact with the other languages that have occupied the city historically. Possible German influence exists in the use of by in the expression “by my mama’s”, as noted in Chapter 5. The importance of French is perhaps the most notable, having left many words (e.g. banquette “sidewalk,” parrain “godfather”, beaucoup “a lot, very”) and expressions (make groceries “to go grocery shopping,” pass the mop).

New Orleans English has become a source of pride for locals; the commodification of the language’s particularities on t-shirts and bumper stickers attests to the importance of language in asserting authenticity and identity.

One of the most interesting linguistic phenomena in New Orleans is that of the chanting of the Mardi Gras Indians. For centuries, African Americans have recognized and honored an indigenous element of their ancestry by parading as Mardi Gras Indians. Dozens of groups (often known as tribes) with hierarchical memberships parade the streets of New Orleans on set dates several times a year (notably, Mardi Gras day and St. Joseph’s night). Typically a tribe consists of a Big Chief, the Big Chief’s queen, a wild man, a flag boy, and a spy boy, though some tribes may be missing one or more of these positions, and some may have additional subsidiary chiefs and queens as well. When one tribe encounters another, they engage in a ritual exchange. Once violent, today these exchanges are displays of visual and verbal acuity. Most notable in these exchanges is the use of words of indeterminate origin, most famously “Jackimo Fina Ne” (as made famous by the song “Iko Iko”) and “Tuway packyway” (note that there is no generally-accepted way to spell these terms and various different idiosyncratic orthographies have been used) the use of which likely dates to the origins of the tradition. Over the years, various hypotheses have been put forward, with some attributing at least some of the words variously to Mobilian Jargon (Drechsel 1997: 249), to African languages, to French (Hinshaw 2009). Given the potential for mutations in pronunciation over time, particularly by non-speakers of the source languages, it may be impossible to conclusively determine the origins of these words — if, indeed, they are not pure invention . It is quite possible that the mysterious words used by Mardi Gras Indians may be a mix of words from various sources and as such represent the culmination of Louisiana’s rich linguistic history.