Language Attrition in Louisiana Creole French

LANGUAGE ATTRITION IN LOUISIANA CREOLE FRENCH 38
LCF, is viewed as an “inadequate and inferior form of speech, a marker of low
social and educational evolution,” fit only for informal, everyday situations
(Carrington 1984, 5). Parents therefore generally insist upon their children
speaking English, the superstrate language, so that this next generation can
use English to achieve upward social mobility. SLC‟s viability was further
harmed by the educational system, whose teachers “actively discouraged the
use of [SLC] on school premises” through physical punishment and verbal
reprimands up to the middle of the twentieth century (Carrington 1984, 5-6).
Despite these attempts to quell the spread of SLC, the language has
survived, thanks in part to efforts to reverse the methods used to restrict the
language. A policy enforced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and
Cultural Organizations stated that “no educational policy should tend to
eradicate local languages” (although a Barbadian Educational Officer on St.
Lucia allegedly said that directive was inapplicable to SLC because it was not a
language) (Carrington 1984, 6). Regardless of the effectiveness of that specific
policy, sentiments towards SLC were reversing in the 1960s; in fact, many
educators found the language extremely useful for teaching children. In
Louisiana, the exact opposite is happening: educational policies and laws
encourage the revival of other francophone variants over LCF, as will be
discussed in a later section
In addition, just as in Haiti, St. Lucians began to associate SLC not with
a negative memory of slavery, but with increasing nationalist sentiments. This
population began to view SLC as “[representing] the soul of the St. Lucian