Language Attrition in Louisiana Creole French

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LANGUAGE ATTRITION IN LOUISIANA CREOLE FRENCH 22 1726 1731-1732 Slave Free Ratio Slave/Free Slave Free Ratio Slave/Free Bas du Fleve 857 194 4.4 New Orleans 118 793 0.2 267 626 0.4 East bank between N.O. and Chapitoulas 15 41 0.36 283 37 7.7 Chapitoulas (east bank) 396 42 9.4 452 54 8.4 West bank opposite Chapitoulas 214 106 2 1227 237 5.2 Cannes Brulées (east bank) 56 29 1.9 196 46 4.3 West bank opposite Cannes Brulées 66 35 1.9 Point Coupee (west bank only) 0 21 0 56 75 0.8 Total population along the Mississippi from its mouth through Point Coupee 1147 1468 0.8 3395 1095 3.1 Figure 2 Slave and Free Populations Along the Mississippi in 1726 and 1731-1732 (Klingler 2003, 12). The size of the plantation and the duties of the slaves contributed directly to slaves‟ contact with the French language. On large, agricultural habitations, slaves formed the majority of the population, and most of those slaves worked as farmhands and had limited contact with the French-speaking masters and overseers. Slaves with more specialized skills (such as in sugar boiling, wagon construction, and blacksmithing), however, received greater social status for these abilities. They maintained more extensive contact with the white owners than the slaves in the field. Nevertheless, the slaves with the greatest contact with the dominant white culture worked inside the house as domestic servants. They interacted constantly with the white population and thus, out of the entire enslaved community, had the greatest access to the French language.
LANGUAGE ATTRITION IN LOUISIANA CREOLE FRENCH 23 Slaves who lived on smaller habitations had more regular contact with the French. On these smaller plantations, African slaves constituted the minority of the population. They typically worked with white indentured servants and workers, providing the displaced Africans with even greater access to French. Additionally, on these smaller plantations, slaves travelled more often outside of the plantation to acquire equipment and perform work for the owners. This travel allowed slaves from different plantations and different originating countries greater contact with one another—until the mid-1700s, when new government policies were enforced specifically to restrict slaves‟ movement out of fears of uprisings and increased contact with whites (Klingler 2003, 15). This contact with the greater world through physical movement enabled slaves to be exposed to the French language (whether spoken by upper-class overseers or the poor whites with whom they interacted outside of the plantations) and also to the different languages and norms of communication of other African slaves. Another important factor in the formation of LCF was the prevalent ethnic mixing among the white population and the African or Native American population. White men, whether overseer or colonist, frequently engaged in sexual relations with enslaved African and Native American women. These relationships “were sometimes fleeting, but […] often very enduring, as is attested by evidence of interracial marriage in New Orleans as early as 1723” (Klingler 2003, 16, referencing Hall 1992a, 128). The mixed-race children of these unions generally were of higher status than the African population, even
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Language Attrition in Louisiana Creole French

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