Robert A. Papen

A Structural Sketch of the Cajun French Spoken in Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes

Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes together constitute a former delta of the Mississippi River known as the Lafourche Basin. Geographically, the area is crossed by a number of bayous, and the Gulf Coast is in fact extensive marshland. Undoubtedly due to the relative geographic isolation of much of the area, the levels of retention of Cajun French (CF) are reported to be higher here than in most other parts of Acadiana (Trepanier, 1989), with retention reaching its highest point in the communities of small-scale fishermen (Larouche, 1979) and among the Houma Indians of the coastal marshes. The Houma Indians, who have inhabited the area since the late 18th century, have embraced in large part the lifestyle and language of their Cajun neighbors, and in some Indian families, the children still receive their primary socialization in French. This is not the case in the vast majority of Cajun families, among whom the language is in serious decline and is no longer the language of homes in which there are young children. Although there are no studies on the CF of the Houma Indians, it is regarded by the community as being the same as or very similar to that of the Cajuns.

Hybrid Languages in Canada Involving French: The Case of Michif and Chiac

Valdman et al. (2005) claims there exist two mixed languages involving French in North America: Michif – a blend of French and Cree – and Chiac – a blend of French and English. The purpose of this article is to compare the sociolinguistic history as well as the linguistic structures of these two linguistic entities in order to show that even though there are a number of interesting similarities between the two, their histories, and more importantly their structures, show that Michif and Chiac are not to be considered as belonging to the same linguistic class. Michif is a true Bilingual Mixed Language (Thomason, 1997) while Chiac has not yet attained the status of an independent language and should more rightly be considered as a “fossilized mixed code” (Winford, 2003).