Language Attrition in Louisiana Creole French

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LANGUAGE ATTRITION IN LOUISIANA CREOLE FRENCH 14 In instances where languages decline over a prolonged period of time (and not all at once through the rapid deaths of their speakers), social factors contribute to the decline in the numbers of speakers. Generally, speakers of a certain language realize that societal stigmas exist about the language they speak. They learn that in order to become more successful economically, they need to learn the superstrate language because it receives more prestige in the society. Because of this realization, parents who speak the substrate language generally try to teach their children both languages. This next generation achieves bilingualism in both the super- and substrate languages. If the social environment remains the same or increasingly stigmatizes the substrate language, substrate speakers will find fewer opportunities to use the language. As the language is used less frequently, elements of the lexicon and syntax are gradually lost, until the language either dies out completely. Dalby has defined language death in three ways (2002). It is important to note that all of these definitions are precipitated by the deaths of human speakers of the language. According to Dalby‟s first definition, a language disappears when everyone who “knows anything significant about the language” has died (2002, 219). However this characterization of language death is problematic because no set rule exists for quantifying how much of a language a speaker must know in order to have “significant” knowledge. Furthermore, although languages can be said to still survive in part through their words that are borrowed out, a language is much more than just a few
LANGUAGE ATTRITION IN LOUISIANA CREOLE FRENCH 15 examples from its lexicon. A language includes its lexicon, morphology, syntax, and socio-linguistic usage norms, not just a few fixed phrases or words. The second definition ties the death of the language to the death of its last fluent speaker; when the latter dies, the former dies as well. This definition also poses problems. First, when only one fluent speaker of a language lives, that person can no longer communicate with anyone else, and the language has already effectively died. Additionally, a language with only one fluent speaker has been in a state of attrition for generations. This gradual loss has caused a gradual condensing of language, and this change from the earlier form to one with fewer structures could also be described as the death of the language. Language death can also be defined as the moment in which conversations in that language cease to take place. At this point, there no longer exists a linguistic marketplace in which to exchange ideas about the language. Any living speakers of the language have restricted access to communicating with one another. Through this definition, the cessation of a language‟s use becomes a more accurate way of describing what has been known as „language death.‟ LCF is currently a moribund language; it is fast approaching extinction. Unlike the Californian languages, LCF‟s decline has been gradual because the decline of its speakers has been extended over a long period of decades, not a few weeks.
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Language Attrition in Louisiana Creole French

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