Language Shift and the Continued Importance of French to Bayou Identity

Abstract

This chapter considers the role that French plays for younger generations, people who do not speak the language. Again using perception exercises, this time a map-drawing activity for which participants were asked to discuss variation in English but very often instead invoked or directly described perceived variation in French, the chapter shows above all the strength of the connection of French with Bayou identity: French has become enregistered, intimately tied to the place. The process of language shift leading to language death is likely the catalyst of the process of enregisterment. While English has become the language of everyday life, French retains an important symbolic role: it is the authentic language of the community. The chapter presents evidence supporting the assertion that it is because place has been mapped onto the language that this is so.