‘CARRYING IT ON’

Students connect to their Cajun roots in Louisiana French classes

BY GABBY JIMENEZ @gvjimenezz

The number of Louisiana French speakers has been on the decline for decades. LSU classes are trying to change that.

Erin Segura, the director of Louisiana French Studies at LSU, began studying French in high school. She started going to French tables – a weekly gathering where people come together to speak French –where she learned from the native speakers who were excited to see a young person take interest in the language.

Segura has been teaching Louisiana French at LSU since 2018.

The exact term for the language spoken in Louisiana will depend on who you ask, Segura said. Historically, people in Louisiana have identified with just “French.” It wasn’t until around the 1950s and 1960s that Segura said people started identifying with “Cajun French.”

LSU’s classes are labeled as Cajun French; however there has been a recent effort to get the name changed to Louisiana French, which Segura said is more inclusive to a wider variety of ethnicities and cultures throughout the state.

The language is mainly spoken in Acadiana, a 22-parish region with a large French population that encompasses Lafayette and Opelousas.

There are some major differences between Louisiana French and International French, Segura said, notably the accent. Often, speakers in both languages can still communicate with each other despite the grammatical differences.

While there is not an exact number on how many Cajun French speakers there are in the state, there have been estimates. Sixty years ago, there were around 1 million French speakers in Louisiana. Today, there are only 120,000 French speakers, according to a 2023 article by The Advocate written by Segura’s father, and around 20,000 speak Cajun French.

There are many reasons for the decrease in French speakers throughout the state, Segura said. The decline is correlated to a 1916 Louisiana law mandating children go to school, which was Englishonly. The effects are still felt over a century later.

“People who spoke French in Louisiana became stigmatized for speaking French – it meant that you were poor, and that you were uneducated,” Segura said. “And so people have a lot of trauma from that, and they didn’t want to pass that trauma on to their children.”

LSU offers four Louisiana French classes, which are structured so students can be conversational in the language in preparation for their final project – interviewing a native speaker.

When the classes first started at LSU in the late 1990s, many students had a parent or grandparent who could speak the language fluently, Segura said. However, that’s often not the case anymore.

“It’s more and more difficult these days for students to find someone,” Segura said. “But that just shows me how much more important it is that we do this, because they are disappearing.”

Segura said the course offers students the unique opportunity to play an active role in preserving the language.

The Dictionary of Louisiana French, an in-depth book on the language published in 2009, took many sentences straight from LSU students’ final project interviews to use as examples within the definitions, Segura said.

“The woman who taught these classes, Amanda LaFleur, she taught these classes for about 16 years,” Segura said. She said that the dictionary of Louisiana French would not have been possible if it weren’t for LSU students.

Communication disorders sophomore Tommie Wilkins has taken all four Louisiana French classes offered by the university, all taught by Segura.

Wilkins is half Cajun, and decided to take Louisiana French as a way to connect with her mother.

“It was just kind of a way to get back to my roots, because my mom’s deceased, and I miss her very much,” Wilkins said. “And even though I’m only half Cajun, I grew up in the Cajun culture … And one of the things I have to say about [the classes] is it’s not just about the language. It has a lot about the culture. So it makes it very enriching.”

Wilkins said she wasn’t raised speaking Louisiana French, so she knew very little when she started the class. Her mom grew up in a time period where she wasn’t allowed to speak French in school, which caused her to lose knowledge of the language. The only French Wilkins said she was exposed to was through her grandparents and other family members.

“That was another good thing about the class – it kind of teaches the history of why that language started being lost in Louisiana … We should have that language here, it should be more prevalent, but it’s not, because of the history of what people like my mom were put through if they tried to speak it,” Wilkins said.

For her final project, Wilkins interviewed Shelton Leleux, a native speaker her family met at a Cajun supper club. Wilkins said the classes taught at LSU are important to encourage fluent speakers like Leleaux to continue speaking the language.

“It meant so much to him that LSU is interested in our native language … it caused him to want to speak it even more and just get back to his roots,” Wilkins said.

Like Wilkins, kinesiology senior Ali Smith has also taken every Louisiana French classes offered.

Smith, who is also Cajun, grew up living next door to her greatgrandparents, who she said “almost exclusively” spoke Louisiana French. She heard and sometimes spoke the language throughout her childhood and wanted to become fluent.

For her final project, Smith interviewed her great aunt, who she said is the last one in her family that can speak the language.

“She is somebody that kind of fueled my love for the language and the culture itself,” Smith said.

Now, Smith said she is fluent in the language, and has been working to pass the language on by teaching it to her sisters and nieces.

Smith said classes like the ones taught by Segura are important for keeping the language alive.

“This is such an important way to preserve our heritage and culture and language … [Segura is] so passionate about teaching and about preserving the language itself, and she’s been a huge influence on my carrying it on,” Smith said.

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