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REGIONAL PHONOLOGICAL VARIANTS IN LOUISIANA SPEECH
By
August Weston Rubrecht
A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the
University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Dr. F. G. Cassidy, Jr., director of
the Dictionary of American Regional English, for permission to use
the tape recordings on which this study is based, and I want to
thank him and the Dictionary staff for doing what they could from
such a distance to make the field work as pleasant as possible.
I especially recall Mrs. Laura Ducker's cheering notes and letters,
and Dr. James Hartman's consideration in assigning additional
communities once those in Louisiana had been finished. The names
of all those in Louisiana who helped make the field work easier
and the field worker more comfortable would comprise a list too
long to give here. It would include all my informants, not just
those who made tapes, and all those who helped direct me to prospec-
tive informants,together with many others whose hospitality I
enjoyed. I am especially grateful to the William R. Van Ripers
at LSU in Baton Rouge and to Miller Williams, Thomas Preston,
and John Mosier and their families at Loyola in New Orleans for
their hospitality and assistance.
In the writing of the dissertation, I gratefully acknowledge
the advice and suggestions of my chairman, Dr. John Algeo, who has
helped me avoid or correct a great many errors, omissions, and
infelicitous turns of phrase. Committee members Dr. Richard Dwyer
and Dr. J. Wayne Conner also offered helpful suggestions which have
been incorporated into the dissertation. The many flaws which
remain are my own.
Mrs. Carolyn A. Lyons of the Professional Typing Service
deserves praise for her careful supervision of the typing and
collating necessary to bring the dissertation to its final form.
The drafting of tables and figures was done by Gary Sanders. No
one has been of more help than my wife,Lois, whose clerical
assistance and moral support have been indispensable in putting the
dissertation together and keeping me from falling apart.
I am sure that all those people just mentioned, however
learned or however skilled or however dear they may be, realize
that my fundamental debt of gratitude is owed to my informants.
Only the necessity of preserving their privacy prevents me from
thanking them each by name.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................. ii
LIST OF TABLES ................................................. v
LIST OF FIGURES ................ .............................. vii
KEY TO SYMBOLS ................................................ x
ABSTRACT ........................ ............................. xv
Chapter
I. THE BACKGROUNDS ....................................... 1
II. COMMUNITIES AND INFORMANTS ........................... 48
Northern Louisiana ............................... 57
Florida Parishes .................................. 78
French Louisiana .................................. 86
New Orleans ....................................... 98
Summary ......................................... 104
III. INDIVIDUAL SPEECH PATTERNS ........................ 109
IV. PHONOLOGICAL VARIANTS ................................ 147
Prosody .......................................... 147
Consonants ........................................ 149
Free Vowels ....................................... 165
Checked Vowels .................................... 193
Vowels Before the Retracted Consonant ............. 217
Unstressed Vowels ................................. 229
Summary and Conclusion ............................ 235
BIBLIOGRAPHY ................................................. 244
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH .......................................... 251
LIST OF TABLES
Table Page
1. Informants by Type and Age ............................ 105
2. The Vowel Quadrangle .................................. 111
3. LA 8, Lake Providence ................................. 119
4. LA 12, Vienna ......................................... 120
5. LA 17, Mansfield ...................................... 121
6. LA 2, Columbia ........................................ 122
7. LA 1, Columbia ........................................ 123
8. LA 10, Jonesville ..................................... 124
9. LA 11, Jonesville ..................................... 125
10. LA 14, Natchitoches ................................... 126
11. LA 15, LeCompte ....................................... 127
12. LA 16, LeCompte ....................................... 128
13. LA 29, DeQuincy ....................................... 129
14. LA 28, DeQuincy ....................................... 130
15. LA 3, St. Francisville ................................ 131
16. LA 5, St. Francisville ................................ 132
17. LA 7, Clinton ......................................... 133
18. LA 6, Clinton ......................................... 134
19. LA 40, Hammond ........................................ 135
20. LA 33, St. Martinville ................................ 136
21. LA 34, St. Martinville ................................ 137
LIST OF TABLES--Continued
Table Page
22. LA 25, Franklin ...................................... 138
23. LA 20, Donaldsonville ............................... 139
24. LA 31, Cameron ....................................... 140
25. LA 37, Grand Isle .................................... 141
26. LA 36, Grand Isle .................................... 142
27. LA 23, New Orleans .................................... 143
28. LA 22, New Orleans ................................... 144
29. LA 42, The Irish Channel ............................. 145
30. LA 46, The Irish Channel ............................ 146
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Page
1. Louisiana, showing topographical divisions and
some major towns, cities, and rivers ............... 5
2. Ratio of Catholics to Protestants ..................... 27
3. Previous dialect studies in Louisiana ................. 44
4. Communities studied ................................... 58
5. The initial consonant of such words as
the, those, and there .............................. 153
6. The initial consonant of such words as
thing, through, and three and the
final consonant of fourth .......................... 154
7. The initial consonant or consonant cluster
of such words as where, when, and whip ............. 156
8. The retracted consonant of such words as
here, marsh, and forty ............................. 161
9. The vowel of such words as me, street,
read, and people ................................... 166
10. The vowel of such words as way, make,
grade, and maybe .................................. 169
11. The vowel of such words as stir, church,
word, squirrel, and thirty ......................... 172
12. The syllabic nucleus of such words as
bar, start, and market ............................. 175
13. The vowel of such words as right,
wife, and nice ..................................... 177
14. The vowel of such words as I, fry,
time, and ride .................................... 178
LIST OF FIGURES---ontinued
Figure Page
15. The vowel of such words as boy,
choice, poison, and oysters ........................ 180
16. Mid central to low central beginning point
for the vowel of such words as point,
join, boil, and oil ............................... 181
17. The vowel of such words as plow,
loud, down, south, and powder ...................... 185
18. The vowel of such words as law,
dog, all, salt, and daughter ................... ..... 187
19. The vowel of such words as hoe,
road, both, and over .............................. 189
20. The vowel of such words as through,
boot, food, and school ............................. 192
21. The vowel of such words as bit, sick,
mill, in, and pickle ............................... 194
22. The vowel of such words as leg, head,
yes, tell, and better .............................. 196
23. The vowel of such words as bad, back,
pan, lag, and ladder .............................. 199
24. The vowel of such words as half,
grass, and chance .................................. 200
25. The vowel of such words as think,
thing, and finger .................................. 203
26. The vowel of such words as men,
ten, and center .................................... 204
27. The vowel of such words as lock,
pot, pond, and bother ............................. 208
28. The vowel of such words as up,
run, hush, jug, and hung ........................... 212
viii
LIST OF FIGURES-Continued
Figure Page
29. The vowel of such words as put,
bull, book, and sugar .............................. 216
30. The vowel nucleus of such words
as deer, here, and near ............................ 219
31. The vowel nucleus of such words
as chair, bear, and care ........................... 221
32. The vowel nucleus of such words
as horse and order ................................. 223
33. The vowel nucleus of such words
as door and coarse ................................. 224
34. The vowel in the final syllable
of such words as never and finger .................. 233
KEY TO SYMBOLS
Phonetic Symbols
Vowel Symbols
[Il
[ii
[I]
[e]
[e]
[A]
[31
[6]
[e]
[a]
[a]
[R]
[A]
[(]
[9]
[3]
[V]
[v]
Key Word (or Explanation)
fee
(centralized [i])
fix
(centralized [I])
French bli
wreck
bird
bird (in "r-less" speech)
(rounded [3])
sack
(between [le] and [a])
sock
(between [a] and [3])
stuck
(between [A] and [a])
(between [A] and [V])
hawk
French chaud
book
(centralized [V])
true
(centralized [U])
about
singer
Vowel diacritics
[U] after symbol
[<] after symbol
[A] after symbol
[v] after symbol
[:] after symbol
['] above symbol
[f] above symbol
[(] below symbol
Consonant Symbols
[p]
[b]
[d]
Modification indicated
backed
fronted
raised
lowered
lengthened
primary stress
secondary stress
lightly articulated
Key Word (or Explanation)
super
boy
stick
down
American English
butter
skip
go
glottall stop)
Spanish cabo
far
very
thick
bother
sing
zoo
shucks
vision
German ach
hope
choose
jury
more
now
sing
lit
cull
ring
wind
yes
Consonant diacritics
[:] after symbol
['] after symbol
[-] after symbol
Modification indicated
lengthened
aspirated
unreleased
[.] below symbol
[^] below symbol
[ ] below symbol
dental articulation
slight voicing added
syllabic consonant
Phonemic Symbols
Vowel Symbols
/I/
/e/
II/
/3/
131
/a/
/au/
/I/
/A/
/0/
/ /
/U/
Key Word
three
thick
bay
wreck
bird
back
park (in "r-less" speech)
sock
pike
boy
cow
law
truck
over
look
true
Consonant Symbols
The same symbols are used for consonant phonemes as for consonant phones,
except that they are enclosed in virgules // rather than brackets [] and
the symbols [ -, ?, ', 3, X] are omitted.
xiii
Other Symbols
/R/
Between items
zero
etymological /r/
varies to
Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the
University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements
for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
REGIONAL PHONOLOGICAL VARIANTS IN LOUISIANA SPEECH
By
August Weston Rubrecht
August, 1971
Chairman: Dr. John Algeo
Major Department: English
The study is based on tape-recorded conversations of twenty-
eight informants in eighteen Louisiana communities made for the
Dictionary of American Regional English. On the basis of settlement
history and previous dialect studies, dealing with vocabulary,
Louisiana is divided into four regions: northern Louisiana, the
Florida Parishes, French Louisiana, and New Orleans. The settlement
history of each community is briefly traced, and the family back-
ground, occupation, and approximate social standing of each informant
is given, together with some mention of outstanding speech charac-
teristics. All informants were native English speakers; they
ranged in age from eleven to eighty-eight years and in educational
level from grammar school to graduate school. Numerically, the
distribution of informants was weighted toward those sixty or older
and those with relatively little formal schooling. Tables are
provided illustrating the range of vowel articulations found on
the recording of each informant.
Discussion is largely limited to those segmental phonemes
which show significant variation; the aim is to describe phonetic
features characteristic of each region. Maps are included for all
stressed vowel phonemes and for a few consonants. In the absence
of phonological distinctions, northern Louisiana and the Florida
Parishes are classed together as Anglo Louisiana. The consonants
showing the greatest degree of variation are /0 / and / '/, the
initial consonant or consonant cluster in words like where and whip,
and postvocalic /r /, the treatment of which varies in most commu-
nities and many idiolects. Among the free vowels, the phonetic
realizations of / e, , o, K / are generally upglided diphthongs
in Anglo Louisiana and monophthongs in French Louisiana; New Orleans
speech shows characteristics of both regions. The vowel nuclei
/al, 0, aLu/ show varying degrees of regional variation.
Variation in /Q/ and /3 / is related to that in the treatment of
postvocalic /r/. Checked vowels show fewer differences between
speech regions than free vowels do. In Anglo Louisiana /A / is
relatively high and back; contrasts between front checked vowels
are reduced before nasals; and /ae / may have a rising and fronting
offglide in certain environments. The development of words which
in Middle English had short /3 / is inconsistent in a band across
south central Louisiana. To facilitate discussion, vowels in words
which etymologically have a vowel followed by /r/ are considered
to be in a separate subsystem. Vowel contrasts are reduced in that
environment, and usual articulatory placement is not the same as
before other consonants. The low back vowels present especially
difficult problems here. Most unstressed vowels fall naturally
into one of three groups: /I / or / / or / ,/, the last of which
is limited in its occurrence in the same way as postvocalic / /.
Additionally, a few distinct back vowels were found in unstressed
syllables.
Patterns characteristic of French Louisiana have not spread
far outside it; on the other hand, the speech of informants in
French Louisiana communities with a history of early settlement by
native English speakers includes many features characteristic of
Anglo Louisiana. In several respects, the English of New Orleans
follows the usage of French Louisiana; in others it is more like
that of Anglo Louisiana. Variation by age and social level is
difficult to abstract from the data; a few trends are tentatively
described, but it would require a larger number of informants to
separate them from regional trends. Overall, phonological patterns
in Louisiana are highly complex and subject to numerous exceptions.
CHAPTER I
THE BACKGROUNDS
Climate and the lay of the land have no direct effect on the
way people talk except insofar as they use different words for dif-
ferent topographical features or make comments appropriate to their
own kind of weather which may not fit someone else's weather at all.
But the speech of people who live on high ground is no more nor less
nasal, on the average, than that of people who live in swamps, nor
do people in warm climates invariably drawl. We talk the way we do
because we do our best to sound like the people around us-at the very
least enough like them to be understood, and preferably enough like
them not to be laughed at. In our very early years, the years when
basic speech patterns are formed, the people around us are our parents,
brothers, sisters, neighbors, grandparents, and so forth, but chiefly
our parents. Later on we include teachers and classmates among those
around us, though we do not accord them all equal importance; in
general, we would rather sound like our classmates than like our
teachers. Later still we include the people with whom we work,
trade, and attend social and civic functions. All of those people
learned to talk from the people around them, chiefly their parents,
who learned to talk chiefly from their parents before them, and so
forth. If two groups, therefore, whose speech is noticeably different
establish two communities between which there is little or no
- 1 -
- 2 -
communication, the ancestral differences will be preserved, and the
speech of those communities will remain different as long as they
remain isolated from each other and from any normalizing outside
influence.
On the other hand, although our imitation of our parents is
nearly always good enough to pass muster, it is never perfect, and
over a period of generations enough drift can take place that the
speech of great-grandchildren is noticeably different from the speech
of great-grandparents in some respects even though the great majority
of speech characteristics are preserved. So if two groups whose
speech is the same establish two communities between which there is
little or no communication, enough ancestral similarities will remain
that it will be possible to recognize a relationship between them
generations later. However, the drift away from perfect imitation of
the original group will not be the same in both communities as long
as they remain isolated, and it is likely that there will be noticeable
differences in their speech after a few generations. The language of
any speech community at any one time, then, is a development of the
speech brought to that community by its linguistic ancestors as it
has been modified by successive generations and as it has been influ-
enced by late arrivals and by contact with other speech communities.
Strictly speaking, it is possible and often desirable to study
the speech of a particular area, large or small, without regard for
any factors other than the language itself. But in a study devoted
- 3 -
primarily to regional language differences, it is helpful to relate
those differences to the factors which caused them or allowed them
to develop. Those factors depend on settlement history, and settlement
history depends on politics, climate, and the lay of the land.
Therefore, this study of the English language spoken in
Louisiana begins with a general description of the land within the
state boundaries. The land may have no direct effect on the language,
but it does help to determine where successive groups of newcomers
settle and what routes they take to get there. Rivers serve as
avenues along their length, speeding commerce and promoting communi-
cation between settlements along their banks. On the other hand,
very often they form barriers to travel across them, isolating commu-
nities away from their banks on opposite sides. Rich land easily
reached commonly attracts the first immigrants available. Poor land
difficult of access may be settled only when a later wave of immigration,
perhaps from a different source, creates a new demand for homesites.
To these geographical factors, government adds political ones, encour-
aging settlers from one source, banning those from another, and
assigning a particular area to those from a third. Out of the balance
of these trends and influences comes what might be termed the
character of the population of a given region; language both influences
and is influenced by that character.
The State of Louisiana lies in the south central United States
at the southern end of the great Mississippi Valley. Shaped roughly
-4 -
like a boot with the toe pointed eastward (see Figure 1), it is
bounded on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the west by Texas,
on the north by Arkansas, and on the east by Mississippi. The
richest and generally the most thickly populated areas of the state
are the river valleys. The flood plain of the Mississippi extends
from the northeastern corner of the state southwards through New
Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico, and that of the Red River runs from
the northwest corner of the state southeastwards to join the
Mississippi near the midpoint of its course through the state, forming
a broad, slanting Y of rich, silty land that is renewed every time
the rivers flood. Native timber in the river bottoms is cypress,
gum, and oak, but most of the timber has been cleared now to make
room for crops, and levees have been erected to hold back the floods.
In the southern part of the state, where the climate is warm enough,
sugar cane is the principal crop on this kind of land. Further north,
where cotton was once almost the only crop, soybeans now cover as much
acreage as cotton and seem to be gaining in importance. This kind
of land was cultivated most profitably in colonial times by slave
labor, and the plantation style of agriculture became dominant there.
Although machines have now taken over much of the work formerly done
by slaves and mules, large plantations still take up a substantial
percentage of farming land and Negroes still outnumber whites in
most parts, so that the delta land is often called Louisiana's Black
Belt.
-5-
e0 Swamp and River Bottom
M Piney Woods
Q Marshland
Q Prairie
Figure 1. Louisiana, showing topographical
divisions and some major towns, cities, and
rivers.
-6 -
South and west of New Orleans, the Black Belt is widened
considerably by a number of streams leading away from the Mississippi
on their own branching courses toward the gulf and by independent
bayous whose banks rise far enough above the surrounding swamps to
support agriculture. An odd feature of the landscape, more noticeable
the farther south you go, is that the land slopes away from the river-
bank, so that very often cultivation is possible only within a half
mile or so of the river or bayou on either side. After that the
land becomes too swampy for crops and since the water level in the
swamp is almost as variable as that in the streams, the fields are
protected from flooding by levees on both sides. Outside these
cultivated areas, the swamps of southern Louisiana are as truly
wilderness as any area in the country.
In the northern part of the state, between the limbs of the
Y formed by the flood plains of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, is a
roughly triangular area of fairly high ground. The land is sandy
and rolling, with red clay subsoil. It was originally forested with
pine or a mixture of oak and pine. All the virgin timber has been
cut, but much of the area has been reseeded to longleaf, loblolly,
and slash pines, so that forestry is still important there. Land
not covered by extensive government- or corporation-owned forests
is given over to small farms. Plantations were never profitable
there although a great deal of cotton was grown on homesteads other-
wise devoted to subsistence farming.
A similar stretch of piney woods forms an irregular crescent
along the Texas border from near Shreveport, in the northwest corner,
to just northwest of Lake Charles, near the southwest corner. Pine
forests in this section were logged so thoroughly that the parishes
(corresponding to counties in other states) along the Sabine River
are often called the "cut-over parishes." They have been reseeded,
though, and by 1968 they were mostly piney woods again. Some areas
are still bare enough to be used as pasture for sheep and cattle,
and large farms in this section are called "ranches," not "plantations."
Subsistence farming was the way of life of most of the first settlers.
South and southeast of this stretch of piney woods lies an
extensive prairie which reaches from the Texas line just north of
Cameron Parish eastward to the Mississippi flood plain some forty
miles west of Baton Rouge. This area is laced with cypress swamps
and river bottoms, but stretches of plain grassland are surprisingly
wide. The whole area is suitable for grazing, and has long been one
of the chief rice-producing areas of the country.
South of this, in a wide swath along the coast, are coastal
marshes so nearly level that their gradient must be measured in
inches rather than feet, even for distances of several miles. Around
the edges of the fan-shaped Mississippi Delta south of New Orleans,
extending roughly from the Atchafalaya Bayou eastward and northward
around to Lake Pontchartrain, these marshes are built up from recent
alluvial deposits and stretch farther into the sea every year. Like
- 8 -
land in the swamps further north, the ground slopes away from stream
banks, and may be built up enough along the Mississippi and the
larger bayous to support the cultivation of sugar cane. Otherwise
the inhabitants of the marshlands support themselves by catching and
selling muskrats, nutria, and crawfish in the marsh and by guiding
duckhunters through it. West of the Atchafalaya, the alluvial
deposits are older and have been augmented by the action of waves
on the gulf, which has left long, low ridges in the marsh, called
cheniares because they were originally covered with oaks, called
ch1nes in French. Cultivation of crops is not practical here, but
cattle grazewidely on the marsh grass. All along the gulf coast,
shrimp, oyster, and menhaden fishing are important occupations, and
oil, salt, and gas deposits are contributing to increased industri-
alization.
North of New Orleans lies Lake Pontchartrain, and north of
Lake Pontchartrain and east of the Mississippi River lies another
stretch of rolling ground originally forested with a mixture of oak
and pine. In this area plantations and small farms may be found
side by side--neither system seems to dominate, although some of
Louisiana's finest antebellum plantation homes may be found there.
Around the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain truck farming is
common. The whole area was once a part of the province of West
Florida and is consequently usually called the Florida Parishes.
-9 -
Such a rich and varied land, lying at the mouth of one of the
largest rivers in the world, was sure to attract explorers and adven-
turers eager to claim its wealth for themselves and their countrymen.
The remnants of Hernando de Soto's Spanish expedition were probably
the first white men to enter the region now know as Louisiana, but
it was Pierre de La Salle, a Frenchman, who claimed it for his
country. Since then, men of many other lands have come, either to
establish permanent homes or to get rich and leave, and the governments
which have ruled the land have been almost as varied as the people
who settled it.
It was in 1682 that La Salle, on behalf of France, laid claim
to the land drained by the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers,
together with territory encompassing the present states of Alabama
and Mississippi, the western half of Georgia, and the northwest third
of Florida. The area of this original claim was almost half that of
the present contiguous United States. Actual French settlement of
this vast territory was confined almost entirely to the southeastern
third of the present state of Louisiana, however.
On November 3, 1762, Louisiana was ceded to Spain. At the
same time Great Britain acquired the rights to all of the original
claim lying east of the Mississippi River. Details of the trans-
action were kept secret until 1764 and no Spanish governor was
provided until 1766. When the United States gained independence in
1783, the new nation acquired that part of the original claim then
- 10 -
held by Great Britain except for a strip along the gulf coast south
of latitude 31, which was ceded back to Spain; this area was called
West Florida, and extended from the River of Palms, south of the
present site of Tampa, westward to the Mississippi River. In 1800
Spain retroceded to France all of the colony of Louisiana, except
for West Florida, by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. Terms of
this treaty were not made known until just before the famous
Louisiana Purchase of 1803, by which the United States acquired the
colony of Louisiana. After the West Florida Rebellion of 1810 that
part of West Florida between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers was
added, later to be divided among the states of Alabama, Mississippi,
and Louisiana. Subsequent boundary settlements established the
northern boundary of the state of Louisiana at 330 north latitude and
extended its western border to the Sabine River. Statehood was
granted in 1812.1
IMost of the information in this paragraph and the one
preceding it can be found in concise form in Frank Bond, Historical
Sketch of "Louisiana" and the Louisiana Purchase (Washington, 1912).
See also Binger Hermann, The Louisiana Purchase and Our Title West
of the Rocky Mountains (Washington, 1900). Detailed accounts may be
found by checking under relevant dates in Alcee Fortier, A History of
Louisiana (New York, 1904), and other standard histories. A good
general view is presented in Edwin A. Davis, Louisiana the Pelican
State (Baton Rouge, 1959). For details relating to West Florida,
see especially Frederick William Williamson and George T. Goodman,
Eastern Louisiana: A History of the Watershed of the Ouachita River
and the Florida Parishes, eds. Frederick William Williamson and
George T. Goodman (Louisville, Ky., Historical Record Association, n. d.).
- 11 -
The present borders of the state, then, enclose only a
fraction of LaSalle's original claim, and only a slightly larger
fraction of the American Louisiana Purchase. But the original areas
of heavy French settlement are all within the state, together with
some very old English-speaking settlements and large expanses of
land that were settled in the general westward migration of Americans
from the thirteen original colonies. Furthermore, the metropolis of
New Orleans has always attracted more immigrants from foreign countries
than any other city in the South, and the southern, predominantly
French part of the state generally has been hospitable to European
immigrants. Before tracing the settlement history and cultural
contributions of each immigrant group, it would be well to define
some of the terms that are applied to them.
Louisiana's French-speaking population is from two chief
sources: Colonists direct from France, and Acadian refugees from
British persecution in Nova Scotia. There is some confusion over
these two elements even in Louisiana and to some extent there has
been a fusion of the two. But in general, the colonists from France
came to the colony with the hope of advancing themselves either as
planters or as merchants. Many of the planters were cadet--younger
sons of prominent French families--who established large riverfront
plantations worked by great numbers of slaves. They attempted to
maintain the same elegant mode of life in America as in France, and
to a large extent they succeeded after the lean initial years of the
- 12 -
colony's establishment were passed. Louisiana's merchants were
largely drawn from the merchant class of France; most of them lived
in New Orleans, which became the trade and cultural center of the
colony not long after it was founded in 1718 and has remained so from
that time forward. The merchants sent their sons to school not only
to learn the mercantile skills of writing and ciphering, but to give
them a little polish; most of the merchants hoped to acquire land
and become planters, but, failing that, they hoped at least that
their sons would do so.
Descendants of any of these French immigrants are called
Creoles, a term that is properly applied to the later Spanish colonists
as well. In popular usage Creole also means a person of mixed blood
descended from Latin colonists and Negro slaves, and outside French
Louisiana the word is applied loosely to anything frenchified in the
southern part of the state. In this study, however, the word will
be reserved for white descendants of French and Spanish colonists,
since that is the definition preferred by historians, museum guides,
newspaper editors, and others who pretend to some learning. Where
distinctions are appropriate, the terms French Creole and Spanish
Creole and Creole Negro may be used.
The term Acadian, the colloquial or derisive form of which
is Cajun, will be reserved for those colonists who settled first in
what was then called Acadia but is now called Nova Scotia. They fled
to Louisiana after being driven out of Canada by the British. The
- 13 -
adjective French will apply loosely to both Acadians and French
Creoles when distinctions between the two are unimportant, as in
French Louisiana, which includes all the areas where the French
language and French customs were predominant, whether most of the
settlers came from France, the French West Indies, or Nova Scotia.
The term Anglo as used in this study will apply to English-speaking
groups and the cultural features associated with them, whether they
originated in Ireland, England, the English colonies, or the United
States. Each of these groups has added something to the character
of Louisiana's population; the settlement history of each group,
together with some account of the way of life they followed in the
colony, will be discussed in turn, beginning with the earliest.
Frenchmen began to arrive in Louisiana at the time of the
first settlements at Biloxi and Mobile in 1699. They found the land
already occupied, though somewhat sparsely, by tribes of Indians.
There were about twenty separate tribes, but only six distinct lin-
guistic groups. The boundaries of their respective territories
cannot be traced with precision, but in general the Chitimachas
inhabited the gulf coastal region from fifty miles west of the mouth
of the Mississippi to Vermilion Bay. The Atakapas lived west of
there along the coast into what is now Texas. The Caddos occupied
northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southeastern Arkansas.
The Tunicas lived on both sides of the Mississippi above the mouth
of the Yazoo River. Most of the Siouian tribes lived to the north,
- 14 -
outside the limits of French settlement, but there were isolated groups
of them at Biloxi and near the Tunicas. The territory of the Musk-
hogeans included land on both sides of the Mississippi from its mouth
up to the junction of the Yazoo River and extended eastward to the
Carolinas.1
The Indian tribes have left no linguistic descendants and
very few genetic ones. During the settlement of Louisiana by people
of European descent, the tribes were either exterminated or transported
to the Indian Territory. Those individuals who remained intermarried
with people of other races, so that two groups of mixed lineage,
Redbones and Sabines, constitute the lineal descendants of Louisiana's
original inhabitants. Sabines seem to be mostly Negro and Indian
with some trace of Caucasian blood; Redbones are thought to represent
a more nearly even mixture of the three races.2 None of the Indian
languages are spoken any longer in Louisiana, and though they have
contributed hundreds of place names and a few loan words to the state's
vocabulary, they have had no discernible effect on its phonology.
The French and Acadians, on the other hand, established their
language as the official one for the territory, maintained its use
even after the colony was taken over first by Spain and then by the
1Paul A. Kunkel, "The Indians of Louisiana, About 1700-
Their Customs and Manner of Living," The Louisiana Historical
Quarterly, 34 (1951), 176.
2Thomas Lynn Smith and Homer L. Hitt, The People of Louisiana
(Baton Rouge, 1952), p. 45.
- 15 -
United States, and have influenced the English of Southern Louisiana
to such an extent that it is considered a separate dialect. Their
history is long and complex.
For the first dozen years or so, colonization of the new
territory was carried out under the direct supervision of the French
Government. Then, in 1712, Antoine Crozat was granted a commercial
franchise over the entire colony, with the responsibility for its
development and the right to its wealth. At that time, the population,
including 100 French and 75 Canadian soldiers, 28 families of colonists,
20 Negroes, and sundry officials and clerics, was about 400.1 The
difficulty of recruiting more colonists of suitable temperament and
training was one of the factors which caused Crozat to fail to turn
a profit. The very early immigrations included a high percentage of
soldiers and adventurers, an insufficient number of farmers, and a
very low percentage of women. In order to bring about a more favorable
balance between the sexes, the French Government sent a number of
recruits from the brothels of Paris, together with ladies guilty of
petty thefts and other misdemeanors. In fact, one historian declares
that "of the 1,215 women who had come to Louisiana from October, 1717,
to May, 1721, most of them were nothing, alas! but 'fallen women' or
little better. . ,"2
1Charles Gayarrd, Histoire de la Louisiane (New Orleans,
1846), I, 96.
2Translated from Emile Lauvriere, Histoire de la Louisiane
Frangaise, 1673-1939 (Baton Rouge, 1940), p. 210.
- 16 -
The practice of recruiting miscreants was seen to be
unhealthful for the colony, however, and disappointing to the male
colonists, who in many cases preferred to go on consorting with the
Indians. A happier, if partial, solution to the problem was the
importation of a group of orphan girls, each provided with a small
casket containing clothes and personal items, who were entrusted to
the care of the Ursuline Nuns in New Orleans until such time as they
were married. These ninety-eight files de la cassette were
commonly accounted to be of unimpeachable virtue, and must have been
fabulously prolific, for descendants of these girls have spread all
over southern Louisiana, whereas it is practically impossible to find
anyone who traces his ancestry back to one of the much more numerous
files perdues.
The heart of early French settlement is New Orleans, but the
French spread, mostly along rivers and bayous, over a considerable
portion of that part of the original colony which has become the
state of Louisiana. They established plantations along both sides
of the Mississippi from the first solid land upstream from Manchac,
on the east bank west of Lake Pontchartrain. From there the river
was largely unsettled until the vicinity of Pointe Coup4e, on the west
side of the river above Baton Rouge. Many traveled up the Red River
past Natchitoches as far as what is now the southern part of DeSoto
Parish. They spread, somewhat thinly, up the Black and Ouachita
Rivers toward the present Arkansas line. In much greater concentrations,
- 17 -
they spread south from New Orleans along the bayous running away from
the Mississippi on their independent routes to the gulf; the two main
routes were the Atchafalaya and the LaFourche. And spreading westward
from there, some crossed the Atchafalaya basin to the upper reaches of
the Teche, around St. Martinville. Immigrants from France outnumbered
all others during the French dominationr-that is, until 1766-and they
continued to come in during the Spanish period. The Spanish were
liberal in their immigration quotas, and admitted large numbers of
Acadians and English-speaking immigrants as well as Spanish settlers,
along with colonists from France and the French Caribbean colonies.
After the United States took possession in 1803, immigrants from
France came in fewer numbers than from other colonies.
In the northern parts of their area of settlement, the Creole
culture which the French established has been overwhelmed by the
Anglo; in the western parts it has blended with the Acadian; and even
south and east of New Orleans, where it was once dominant, the
tradition of French literacy and culture once so proudly maintained
has died out. Some idea of what the Creole culture was like in its
prime may be gained from a description made by the Spanish official
Don Francisco Bouligny to his government in 1776:
After the first ten leagues from the mouth of the river, the
lands on both sides are cultivated, and the concessions are
generally from 500 to 600 yards front, by 2400 yards in depth.
The planters generally cultivate their land only 600 or 800
yards from the river, leaving the rest for pasture, and
contenting themselves with cutting the wood that abounds in
the rear.'
'Fortier, II, 27.
- 18 -
And later in the report, after speaking of the robustness, skill in
agriculture, and extreme courtliness of Creoles in general, Don
Francisco goes on to say:
The greater number of the planters who live in the vicinity
of New Orleans are the most refined people in this country.
Many of them were officers during the French domination,
and some are decorated with the cross of St. Louis; the
others are merchants also, who, having earned a certain
wealth, have invested it in Negroes and a patch of ground.
.Generally, the people prefer to live in the country .
New Orleans schools taught in almost nothing but French in
1788, and in the country parishes-that is, everywhere except New
Orleans and its suburbs-absolutely nothing but French was spoken
except in isolated communities inhabited by cohesive groups of
immigrants from other European countries, notably Germany and Spain.
Even so, most of them learned French in order to trade with their
Creole and Acadian neighbors.
The second group of French-speaking immigrants, the Acadians,
began to arrive in appreciable numbers about 1764. Originally, most
of them seem to have come from Normandy and Brittany. They left there
in the early days of the French colonization of Canada, beginning
with the colony of New France in 1603, and settled in what is now
Nova Scotia, which the French colonists called Acadie. After the
British took possession of Canada they found the presence there of
French-speaking Catholics objectionable. British officials called
1Fortier, II, 34.
- 19 -
meetings of Acadian heads of families at Grand Prd and at Ft. Edward
on September 2, 1755, confiscated their arms, and arrested them.
Then they began a policy of expulsion.1 It seemed to make little
difference to the British where the exiles went, and they seem to have
made positive efforts to disrupt communal and personal ties among
them. Not only were lovers separated, as in Longfellow's "Evangeline,"
but families too were split apart, some never to be rejoined. Some
of them went to the New England colonies and further south, where
they fared a little better than in Canada and eventually were absorbed
into the population of what was to become the eastern United States.
Some returned to France, others went to the Caribbean. But a sizable
number made their way to Louisiana, where their own language was
spoken and their own religion practiced. Although by the time they
began to arrive in peak numbers, Louisiana was a Spanish colony, they
were welcomed and given land; they settled on it, flourished, and
became one of the strongest cultural influences in the French part
of the state.
Since most of the land near New Orleans was already taken,
the Acadian grants were mostly north and westward from the settled
Orleans district. In February, 1765, a boatload of 193 who arrived
in New Orleans from temporary refuge in Santo Domingo were sent to
the Opelousas district. In May of the same year 80 were sent to the
1Corinne L. Saucier, "A Historical Sketch of the Acadians,"
Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 34 (1951), 72-73.
- 20 -
Attakapas district, which had St. Martinville, on the upper Teche,
as its defense outpost. In the same month, 48 families were given
lands in both districts. More than a year later, 216 Acadians who
had been residing in Halifax were granted land on both sides of the
Mississippi as far north as Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupde.1 According
to a 1787 census, the population of Acadians had reached 1,587 in
a little less than 25 years.2 These first settlements set the pattern
for allocation of land to the Acadians; the Attakapas and Opelousas
districts were the centers where they settled first and the regions
from which they and their descendants migrated when the land became
crowded. Often, too, planters and speculators persuaded them to
sell their river- and bayou-front homesteads, which then became parts
of large-scale cane and cotton holdings. Thus shunted to less
desirable swamp and marshland, the "Cajuns" learned to extract what
they needed from the wilderness, and became trappers and fishermen.
They were the ones who exalted the lowly crawfish, or "mudbug," as
it is often called, from its early status as emergency protein
to a favored delicacy. They were the inventors of gumbo, a soup
that may be made from almost anything and usually includes almost
everything. They were
thrifty, hardy, fun-loving people who were devoutly religious,
worked, played and made love with equal enthusiasm. They
named their offspring with complete abandon, using pseudo-
Grecian names and sometimes giving children in one family
1Fortier, I, 153.
2Fortier, II, 115-116.
- 21 -
names all beginning with the same letter. Love of the race and
the family were deep-rooted in the Acadians, as evidenced by
their great respect for relatives and long periods of mourning
for the dead. With few exceptions, they belonged to the Roman
Catholic religion; yet had faith in crop signs, weather signs,
and folk remedies. Their use of English was amusing and pic-
turesque, a mixture of English and French, a disregard for the
correct use of gender of words, and a dialect which was repetitive
of certain words for emphasis.1
A third French linguistic group was important in the early
history of Louisiana. It came from three sources: the slaves of the
Creoles, which included Negroes imported directly from Africa, who
learned French from their masters in Louisiana; other Negroes imported
from Santo Domingo, who already spoke creolized Caribbean French when
they came to Louisiana; and descendants of these groups, themselves
born in Louisiana. In general, their language was a modified form of
French, simpler grammatically and phonologically than the standard
language. At present called Nigger French, it can still be heard in
St. Martin Parish and no doubt in other locations in French Louisiana
as well. A great many folk beliefs characteristic of French Louisiana
can be traced to this group of immigrants. The practice of voodoo
especially, which reached its highest development in the West Indies,
owes its existence in Louisiana today to the Santo Domingan slaves
who brought it there.2
African languages have contributed some loan words to the
Louisiana vocabulary, most of them, like gwnbo and voodoo, related to
1St. Martin Parish Resources and Facilities, by the St.
Martin Parish Development Board (Baton Rouge, 1950), pp. 8-9.
2Davis, p. 112.
- 22 -
African cultural contributions. African influence on Louisiana
English phonology is hard to assess, but is certainly less than in
the Gullah dialect of the Georgia and South Carolina coast and may
be no greater than that of Indian languages.
Eventually, quite a number of slaves bought their freedom; a
few amassed wealth and acquired plantations of their own. They called
themselves Creoles of Color or Colored Creoles and established their
own social circle in New Orleans. Some sent their children to France
and Spain to be educated. So linguistically and culturally, though
never socially, the Negro population of French Louisiana merged with
the white toward the upper ends of their respective social scales.
With the combined weight of Creole and Acadian settlements,
the French language was so firmly entrenched that the Spanish, when
they took over the government, never succeeded in introducing their
language except in courts of justice, and, even so, French was still
used in municipal courts. Finally, after more than a century and a
half of American statehood, English has taken root in all parts of
Louisiana, but for many years English-speaking and French-speaking
groups remained aloof from each other. The Creoles were prompted by
aristocratic bias and a firm Gallic conviction that nothing which is
not French is quite civilized, the Acadians simply by the fact that
they outnumbered everybody else in most areas where they settled and
had no need until recent years to learn any other language. In fact,
Irish and German settlers after a couple of generations in the
- 23 -
Attakapas and Opelousas districts often gallicized their names, forgot
their native tongues, and even claimed Acadian descent.
But perhaps it is unfair to accuse the Creoles of disdaining
the company of new arrivals purely from aristocratic bias. There
is some evidence that they were no more snobbish than their American
counterparts. John F. Watson, who arrived in New Orleans on May 26,
1804, writes in his diary: "Ladies in this country never visit
strangers first. All expect to be visited by the ladies newly arrived.
Our ladies will not yield to this seemingly awkward position, and
therefore they pass without native society."1 Further on, he notes:
"The French, Spanish, and Americans here keep very separate society.
The Americans congregate much together, and the French, except in
business, keep much aloof; but I enter into society freely among them,
and find them very friendly and agreeable."2
The twentieth-century Louisiana French are still very friendly
and agreeable, and much less aloof than those of the nineteenth century.
Even so, the fusion of English and French elements of the population
has been slow. The Creole French were socially a distinct group until
after 1900, and the assimilation of the Acadians has been even slower.
In 1933, when transportation by road and automobile was just beginning
to supersede transportation by bayou and boat in southern Louisiana,
the Acadian inhabitants of the state could be divided into three groups.
IFortier, III, 27.
2Fortier, III, 31.
- 24 -
Those who lived in small towns came into frequent contact with English-
speaking Americans. Consequently most of them could speak some English,
and an educated minority were fairly well Americanized. A second group
engaged in tenant farming on large plantations. Most of them neces-
sarily spoke some English, but were generally less well acculturated
to prevailing American language and customs then their fellows in
town. The third group lived along bayous and in swamps and made their
living from little garden plots and from trapping, hunting, and fishing.
They commonly spoke little or no English and were isolated from English-
speakers most of the time.1 Their language was both a cause and a
result of their social isolation. It is incomprehensible to English-
speakers and different enough from Creole French to make communication
difficult. There was little pressure to overcome the language barrier
because the backwoods Acadians, often called "levee-dwellers," were
self-sufficient for meat and vegetables and traded their fish and furs
to French-speaking local merchants.2
In the thirty-five years between 1933 and 1968, a number of
important changes have helped to break down the barriers which kept
Acadians isolated. The process had in fact begun earlier; H. W.
Gilmore noted that improved road systems and public schools were
breaking down language barriers, and that the military draft of World
1H. W. Gilmore, "Social Isolation of the French Speaking
People of Rural Louisiana," Social Forces, 12 (October, 1933), 81.
2Gilmore, p. 81.
- 25 -
War I had broken down barriers to social change by intruding upon the
Acadians' traditional provincialism.1 All these influences--highways,
schools, and the military-have continued to operate with even greater
force since 1933. In addition, the discovery and development of oil,
gas, salt, and sulfur reserves has brought increasing numbers of
English-speaking newcomers to southern Louisiana. A number of the
men who came to work the mineral deposits have been fortunate enough
to marry Acadian girls and make Louisiana their permanent home. The
combination of increased travel, schooling, and social mixture has
tended to make the Acadians more Anglo in culture, outlook, and
language. Except for the very most backwoodsy levee-dwellers, almost
all of them speak at least some English, although in some areas
English is a second language for nearly all adults. English is
gaining rapidly, though, and French is losing ground so fast that it
is not uncommon to find grandparents who do not speak English whose
grandchildren do not speak French. The English spoken by native
French-speakers is often as picturesque as it is commonly reputed to
be; their children usually have less of a French accent, but share
with their parents certain features of phonology, syntax, and into-
nation which mark the English of French Louisiana as distinctive.
The area of modern-day French Louisiana is based on cultural
rather than genealogical criteria, for as noted above, many people
who consider themselves French are really descendants of immigrants
1Gilmore, p. 84.
- 26 -
from other countries, and many people of French descent have been
absorbed into the Protestant culture of northern Louisiana.
Figure 2, which gives the ratios of Catholics to Protestants
in the population, by parishes, gives a graphic picture of the area
covered by the term French Louisiana. Since nearly all the French
were Catholics, and since nearly all Anglos (except the Irish, who
settled by and large in New Orleans) were Protestant, this map can be
considered a map of French Louisiana.
Although the linguistic contribution of the Spanish was
comparatively meager, they nonetheless figure importantly in the
early history of Louisiana. By the time they took over the government
of the colony in 1766, the French were firmly established. Yet
Spanish architects became quite popular in New Orleans. Most of the
old buildings in the French Quarter-the original city of New Orleans-
show the stamp of Spanish influence. The spiciness of Creole cookery
is usually attributed to the Spanish, who generally preferred their
food more highly seasoned than the French did. While keeping the
basic framework of French government, the Spanish made many modifi-
cations in the legal system, most tending to liberalize French
policies. Some of these modifications found their way into the
present legal system of the state, which incorporates a good many
holdovers from colonial days. As noted before, however, the Spanish
never were able to establish their language in general use. Loui-
sianians came to tolerate and even admire the Spanish government, but
- 27 -
Over z/3 Catholic
4 4' to '/3 Catholic
z 't to Z/j Protestant
Over ls/ Protestant
Figure 2. Ratio of Catholics to Protestants.
(Adapted from Smith and Hitt, p. 136.)
- 28 -
they would not speak the language. French became the home language
in households with one French and one Spanish parent, so that children
seldom learned Spanish.1 It maintained a tenuous existence only in
the courts and among pockets of Spanish settlers in various parts of
the colony.
The difficulty of establishing their language was not eased
by Spanish immigration quotas-or lack of quotas, really. Anxious
to bring the land under cultivation and make it produce, they cared
little where settlers were born as long as they worked the land,
obeyed the laws, and paid their taxes. It was during the period of
Spanish government that most of the Acadian French came to Louisiana,
and most of the old Spanish land grants in the northern part of the
state were given to people with English names, probably mostly west-
ward migrants from the United States. Yet where substantial Spanish
settlements were made, the immigrants were not absorbed into the
dominant culture as readily as some other European groups-the Germans,
for example. In 1778 and 1779, a number of immigrants were brought
to the colony at the king's expense, notably from the Canary Islands,
but including people from Malaga and elsewhere. The earliest group
settled at Terre-aux-Boeufs, at Galveztown on the River Amite, and at
Valenzuela, on Bayou LaFourche.2 Some of those who came in 1779 went
to the Bayou TEche below St. Martinville and formed a settlement at
1Davis, p. 120.
2Fortier, II, 60.
- 29 -
New Iberia. Others swelled the numbers of Galveztown, which has since
passed out of existence. These settlers were called Isleios or
Islengues, and most were poor and ignorant, a tradition carried on
among their descendants. By the beginning of the twentieth century,
when Fortier's history was written, they spoke both Spanish and the
Creole patois, and some of the children had begun to learn English.
Early in 1968 there were still a few descendants of Spanish settlers
who could speak Spanish, but it will not be many years before they
are gone, and with them will go Louisiana Spanish. Since it has
apparently never been a prestige dialect, even during the Spanish
domination, it has contributed few loan words to modern Louisiana
English, and has had no appreciable effect on phonology except among
members of the Spanish-language enclaves.
The most important linguistic group in Louisiana now, the
English-speakers, arrived comparatively late. During the time the
French ruled Louisiana, England and France were at odds, and part of
the time at war, so of course not many Englishmen settled where the
French were in power. Besides, at that time there was plenty of
land in the English colonies. That is not to say that Englishmen
never went under French rule, or that they had any objections to
squatting on territory owned but not patrolled by the French. There
were a few British merchants in New Orleans while the French still
ruled it, and other British subjects occupied land north of New
Orleans, where the French never really succeeded in establishing their
authority. An English settlement was made at Manchac, on the east
- 30 -
bank of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans; and
Baton Rouge itself, though the name is a French translation of an
Indian word, was essentially an English town before France ceded
Louisiana to Spain. After the cession, but before Spain took control,
Englishmen on their way upriver to one of these posts would often
stop just past New Orleans to carry on a surreptitious trade with
the citizens, which was tolerated because it was good for the economy.1
The Spanish, when they took control, were more favorable
toward British immigrants. English-speaking merchants began to
increase in numbers in New Orleans, so that by 1775 there were enough
merchants from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston who sympathized
with the eastern colonists' struggle for independence to figure fairly
importantly as suppliers of arms and ammunition to the revolutionaries.2
The Spanish Governor Don Estevan Miro was liberal in his
treatment of the English; when West Florida, including the present
Florida Parishes, was returned to Spain from British rule in 1783, he
allowed them extra time to move away, beyond the eighteen months
specified by treaty, and in 1786 he allowed them to remain if they
took an oath of fidelity.3 It was at this time too that large land
grants were given in what is now northern Louisiana, and, as mentioned
earlier, most of these grants went to people with English names.
iGayarr6, II, 127.
2Fortier, II, 18.
3Fortier, II, 112.
- 31 -
Even so, English-speakers made up a small minority of
Louisiana's residents before the United States came into possession
in 1803. In 1801, a representative of France reported to Bonaparte
that almost all of the Louisianians were either born in France or were
of French origin.1 Even after 1803 the increase was fairly slow, and
American immigrants did not really begin to arrive in earnest until
after statehood was granted and the War of 1812 had been won. Census
records taken at the time the United States took possession show most
of the population remaining in what is now the French portion of the
state. The Washita or Ouachita district contained only 361 persons,
Rapides had 753, Baton Rouge had 1,513, and Natchitoches had 1,631.
The latter two were about average for the country parishes; yet these
four were the only areas listed for the region within the present
boundaries of the state that were outside present French Louisiana.
They total 4,058 inhabitants compared to 37,955 for the southern
wedge of marsh and swamp parishes.2 And no doubt a large number of
those living even in these fringe areas, especially the districts of
Rapides and Natchitoches, were French. Those in the Baton Rouge
district, known also as New Feliciana, were mainly descendants of
British colonists to that area, or else were direct immigrants from
Great Britain or the States.
1Fortier, II, 208.
2Figures from Fortier, II, 301.
- 32 -
The relatively uninhabited districts in the northern part of
the state filled up rapidly after the War of 1812, the tide of
migration reaching its high point some twenty years before the onset
of the Civil War. According to Fortier, the population north of
Red River and west of the Ouachita increased from 2,000 in 1830 to
14,000 in 1845.1 Almost all of these people were from Louisiana's
sister states; it would be impossible to trace all the routes they
took or establish all the early family connections between Louisiana
and other parts of the country, but certain important trends can be
established. For the past 120 years, settlement patterns have been
chronicled in detail mainly in scattered regional and parish histories
of varying thoroughness and accuracy. It will be best to reserve
such of these as are available for background information on the
18 communities included in this study. An adequate overall view-
in some ways superior to detailed tracing of individual settlements-
has been presented in The People of Louisiana, a population study
by Thomas Lynn Smith and Homer L. Hitt, referred to on page 12.
Using the 1880 census, when state-of-birth data was provided
for residents of each parish, Smith and Hitt give a picture of the
flow of migrants from different parts of the country into different
parts of Louisiana. 1880 may be somewhat late for application to the
initial wave of migration following the War of 1812, but a good many
1Fortier, III, 177.
- 33 -
people who came between 1830 and the Civil War would have still been
alive in 1880 and would show up in the figures. At any rate the
figures should serve as fairly accurate indicators of general migration
trends. Except for Orleans Parish, which attracted more non-Louisi-
anians than any other, the northern parishes received more immigrants
in the years prior to 1880 than did the southern, primarily because
more land was available there, but perhaps also because overland
access from farther east was easier.
The general trend in the settlement of the American West was
for pioneers to move westward in parallel corridors, keeping more
or less on an even latitude. Another trend, less commonly recognized,
was for migrants to seek out the same type of soil, water, and
vegetation in their new homes that they had left behind in their
old. Reasons for this were partly sentimental, but partly practical
as well, for the farmer who found familiar surroundings could be
fairly certain that the crops and farming practices he was accustomed
to would produce when he had cleared his new farm and begun to
cultivate it.1 It is to be expected, then, on the basis of latitude,
that most of Louisiana's early settlers should have come from
Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, and on the basis of topography
that immigrants from those states should choose areas of Louisiana
similar to their home counties. No data is available to confirm
1Frank Lawrence Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South (Baton
Rouge, 1949), pp. 53-54.
- 34 -
the second element of the general trend, but the first part is amply
illustrated by the 1880 census data and by the general trend of
census studies from 1870 through 1890. Over the entire state, a
little less than one fifth of its American-born residents in 1880
were born outside Louisiana. The most important states, in order of
number of emigrants to Louisiana, were Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia,
Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and
Tennessee.1
The prominence of Virginia and Kentucky on the list is
attributed to their status as producers of slaves. Most natives of
those states probably went as slaves to the delta-land Black Belt,
where the plantation style of agriculture was practiced. Both states"
are well represented all along the Mississippi from the Arkansas line
to the gulf, and in the cane-growing region south and west of New
Orleans. Natives of those two states were also found in the plan-
tation sections of the Florida Parishes. Native Virginians, but not
Kentuckians, show up prominently along the Red River Valley. Texas
figures so high as a source of newcomers to Louisiana because of its
proximity to the western parishes, which contained the bulk of native
Texans residing in Louisiana. Most of these migrants moved only a
few miles, representing no more than a diffusion within the general
westward-moving trend.
ISmith and Hitt, pp. 207-208.
- 35 -
The other states which contributed a major share of
Louisiana's nonnative population in 1880 exhibit this westward trend.
Mississippi, directly east of Louisiana and bordering the Florida
Parishes on two sides, gave up settlers to its sister state in the
same way Texas did to parishes along its state line. However, Missis-
sippians moved west more often than Texans moved east, so that their
importance is greater both numerically and proportionately in the
eastern parishes than is that of Texas in the west. They make up,
on the average, more than half the American immigrants all down the
Mississippi Valley to Baton Rouge and in the Florida Parishes. Their
numerical contribution is greater than that of citizens from any
other state in the southwestern and central portions of Louisiana,
including the prairies, the southern half of the western piney woods,
the middle Red River Valley, and the southern part of the north-
central piney woods. In other portions of the state they are still
well represented, but somewhat less so by comparison.
Natives of Alabama settled mostly in the northern parts of
Louisiana. They concentrated especially in the northern portion of
both stretches of piney woods, but they settled in the river deltas
as well. Some drifted into southwestern Louisiana along the western
crescent of sandhills and pines. Georgians and South Carolinians
concentrated in the northwestern corner of the state. North Caro-
linians migrated mostly to the south central parishes in a broad
band stretching westward from New Orleans and curving northwards,
- 36 -
reaching as far as Rapides Parish, which lies along the middle stretch
of the Red River Valley. Tennesseans were not among the five most
important groups of immigrants to any one parish, although they were
among the top nine in the state as a whole.
All parts of Louisiana, then, received new settlers during
the American period of development from a variety of other states,
but the mixture varied from region to region. The Black Belt was
favored by planters from the coastal South, who brought in so many
slaves from Virginia, Kentucky, and elsewhere that in most parts of
the Mississippi and Red River Valleys Negroes still outnumber whites.
Piney woods areas were settled by former residents of the inland
South and of the coastal South in varying proportions. The marsh
and prairie lands of southern Louisiana were already inhabited by
French-speaking people when America purchased the colony; therefore
immigration was lighter after 1803 in those areas than in other parts
of the state. For some unknown reason, settlers from North Carolina
were relatively more numerous in French Louisiana than in northern
Louisiana.
English, the language spoken by these migrants from other
American states, has become the standard legal and commercial
language all over Louisiana. In much of northern Louisiana, no other
language ever competed with it, so that inhabitants of those areas,
except, of course, the departed Indians, have always been native
English-speakers. Along the borders of original French settlement,
- 37 -
in Natchitoches and Rapides Parishes, for example, the use of French
was abandoned so long ago by all except a handful of families that
English has been practically the only language used for more than
a century. The relative position of French and English in French
Louisiana has already been discussed.
In addition to Americans who moved to Louisiana after
statehood, foreign immigrants entering the port of New Orleans have
settled in many parts of Louisiana, most frequently in New Orleans
itself. Besides the Germans who settled the German Coast above
New Orleans while it still belonged to France, many of their country-
men have come since it became American to find homes and establish
well-kept farms or practice trades. Most of them have not retained
their national language past the first generation in America. The
same can be said for the Italians, who settled by and large in New
Orleans and other coastal cities. A number of Scandinavians pioneered
along the Ouachita River during the Spanish period, and later groups
moved in to parishes along the gulf coast. Irish immigrants flocked
to America in the mid-nineteenth century, and New Orleans received
its share; from 1850 to 1860 they outnumbered all other European
groups entering the port of New Orleans.1
The chief effect of these diverse groups of European
immigrants has been to give to present-day southern Louisiana an
1Gumbo Ya-Ya, by The Writers' Project, Louisiana (Cambridge,
Mass., 1945), pp. 51-52.
- 38 -
overall cosmopolitan character, with typically American and typically
foreign cultural features existing side by side with those unique to
the state itself. In most areas their direct effect on English
speech has not been great, compared to that of French, but it would
be a mistake to assume that they have had no effect at all. In
certain parts of New Orleans, especially, the melding of foreign
accents seems to have produced a dialect distinct from that of the
predominantly French or predominantly Anglo parts of the state.
A brief review of the sources of Louisiana's population
suggests certain predictions concerning the English spoken there.
None of the American states from which people moved into Louisiana
in greatest numbers lies any farther north than Virginia and Kentucky;
over all this region, the English spoken is classified as either
Southern or Midland. People in the eastern sections of Virginia and
the Carolinas speak the variety called Southern. People in Kentucky,
Tennessee, northern Georgia, northern Alabama, and the western parts
of Virginia and the Carolinas speak the kind of English called
Midland. Most of these areas use the subvariety usually thought of
as characteristic of the Southern hill country, called South Midland.1
Speech patterns in Mississippi and the rest of Georgia and Alabama
are somewhat more complex. Apparently, the prevailing regional
variety there was originally Southern. Later on, speakers of South
1Hans Kurath, A Word Geography of the Eastern United States
(Ann Arbor, 1949), pp. 11-49.
- 39 -
Midland moved southwards along watercourses and other avenues of
travel, introducing their speech forms wherever they made up a
substantial part of the population. As a result, Southern and South
Midland speech forms occur side by side in varying relative fre-
quencies in corridors across central Georgia and along the Tombigbee
River in Alabama and Mississippi.1 The date of these secondary
migrations is not precisely known; they probably occurred over a
period of time before and during the peak of American migration into
Louisiana in the 1830s and 40s. We can reasonably expect, then,
that the English speech of Louisiana should include a mixture of
forms and features characteristic of Southern and South Midland
regional varieties, with very little influence from Northern or
North Midland American English. We should expect, furthermore,
that South Midland characteristics should be better represented in
the piney woods than in the river-bottom plantation regions and,
conversely, that Southern features should be proportionately more
frequent in plantation areas. It is also reasonable to expect that
the English spoken in the predominantly French Parishes in the southern
part of the state should have been considerably modified by its
intimate contact with French. As has been shown by previous research
discussed in the remainder of this chapter, most, but not all, of
these predictions turn out to be true in regard to the word stock.
1Gordon R. Wood, "Dialect Contours in the Southern States,"
American Speech, 38 (1963), 243-256.
- 40 -
It is the aim of this study to find out whether or not they hold
true in regard to the phonology.
Gordon R. Wood found that dialect patterns west of the
Mississippi are fundamentally different from those in the Southeast.1
Isoglosses west of the river reveal, instead of corridors, irregular
patches with varying mixtures of Southern and South Midland terms.
No evidence was found that a once uniform speech region has been
penetrated by newcomers bringing a new word stock; rather, it appears
that alternate terms for the same things existed side by side from
the days of earliest settlement and that usage has not yet become
stabilized. Wood's study deals only peripherally with Louisiana,
but the tendencies he outlines are confirmed for the northern part
of the state by two related word studies.
First, the area investigated by E. Bagby Atwood's The Regional
Vocabulary of Texas2 included much of Louisiana. Summarizing iso-
glosses are provided for approximately the western two thirds of the
state.3 Aside from a fairly heavy bundle of isoglosses dividing
'In addition to the American Speech article cited above,
findings from his study have been published in "An Atlas Survey of
the Interior South," Orbis: Bulletin international de Documentation
linguistique, 9 (1960), 7-12, and in "Word Distribution in the
Interior South," Publication of the American Dialect Society,
No. 35 (April, 1961), pp. 1-16.
2Austin, 1962.
3See especially the map on p. 97 of Atwood's book; maps 119-
125, pp. 249-255, delimiting the extent of individual words, are
also relevant.
- 41 -
French from Anglo Louisiana, which will be discussed separately,
isoglosses for the area investigated demonstrate an irregular pattern
of distribution. Some lines tend to separate Texas from Louisiana,
except for Beauregard and Vernon Parishes. Others tend to separate
Texas and southern Arkansas from Louisiana; both tendencies are
fairly weak. Within the northern part of Louisiana itself, dividing
lines are weaker still. A few irregular patches occur where one or
another combination of regional words prevails, but except for a
bundle representing 6 or 7 lines between Lincoln and Natchitoches
Parishes, the prediction that dialect differences should appear
between piney woods and river bottom areas is not confirmed. No
correspondence between dialect and topography comparable to the
corridor of Midland admixture along the Tombigbee River was discovered.
In a more intensive study of 26 parishes in northern Louisiana,
Mary Lucile Pierce Folk,1 using substantially the same questionnaire
that Atwood used for Texas, could not find evidence for even such
hazy isoglosses as the Texas study was able to demonstrate. She
found that age, education, and community size were more important
than geography in determining the form which occurs in the speech of
a particular informant. The best way to describe the speech of the
region she investigated is simply to say that some Southern and
some Midland words are in general use, but that in many or most cases
1"A Word Atlas of North Louisiana," Dissertation, Louisiana
State University, Baton Rouge, 1961.
- 42 -
usage is divided, without any strong regional differences in frequency.
Southern words that predominate are mosquito hawk, clabber, light
bread, chittlins, see-saw, rail fence, and the calls to horses to
make them stop or go.1 South Midland words in general use are
armload, sook cow, so cow, whinny, cling peach, side meat, coal
bucket, scuttle, faucet, kindling, till (in expression of time),
dove preteritt of dive), and clumb.2 The entire list of words of
divided usage is too long to reproduce here; some examples, with
the South Midland word given first, are: tow sack-croker sack,
freestone-clear seed, skunk--pole cat, and Merry Christmas-
Christmas gift.3 Though matters of pronunciation were secondary to
the lexicon in her study, Folk did report that pronunciation in
northern Louisiana generally exhibits more South Midland features
than Southern.4 Phonological differences between hill and lowland
sections were only slightly more evident than lexical ones, but a
slight preponderance of the Southern loss of postvocalic /- / in the
plantation parishes along the Mississippi was demonstrated.5 One
important limitation of Folk's study should be pointed out; no
1Folk, p. 276.
2Folk, p. 276.
3
Folk, p. 277.
4
Folk, p. 278.
5
Folk, p. 54.
- 43 -
Negro informants were included. If Negroes had served as informants
in proportion to their percentage of the population, it is likely
that a somewhat greater number of Southern features would have been
found in the Black Belt. Even if such a distinction could be demon-
strated, the differences would be small compared to the differences
between the northern and southern parts of Louisiana.
Differences between north and south Louisiana were not
shown in Folk's study; her investigation reached no further south
than the 31st parallel, which forms the northern boundary of the
Florida Parishes. (See Figure 3.) As noted before, however,
Atwood's study of Texas dialects lapped over into western Louisiana.
Furthermore, an investigation conducted by Mima Babington, one of
his students, provides information for six parishes in the Bayou
Lafourche area, originally settled and still largely populated by
Acadians. Orleans Parish was included as well in order to provide
a control sample from an area originally peopled by Creole French.
In the article based on that study,1 it is shown that
southern Louisiana is essentially a separate dialect area from the
rest of the South. Compared to Texas, Arkansas, and northern
Louisiana, regional terms from other parts of the country are
infrequent. In southern Louisiana the bookish harmonica, corn on
'Mima Babington and E. Bagby Atwood, "Lexical Usage in
Southern Louisiana," Publication of the American Dialect Society,
No. 36 (November 1961), pp. 1-24.
- 44 -
Figure 3. Previous dialect studies in Louisiana. A. Area investigated
by Mary Lucile Pierce Folk. B. Area investigated by Mima Babington and
E. Bagby Atwood. C. Isogloss bundle after E. Bagby Atwood, The Regional
Vocabulary of Texas, p. 97.
- 45 -
the cob, parents, and toad are used three times as often as in Texas,
where the usual words are French harp, roasting ears, folks, and
toad-frog (p. 10). More to the point, a number of terms distinctive
to the area were found, along with some others that have spread into
surrounding regions from there. Some of the words that are fairly
well limited to French Louisiana are kiyoodle / kaij d 1 / (worthless
dog), get down (get out or off a bus or car), boudin / bh d B / (a
kind of sausage), and gris-gris /grigrqi / (hoodoo charm). Southern
Louisiana words found in bands of varying widths around the wedge of
French parishes are pirogue / p rI pi rO/ (small boat),
banquette /b' e kit / (sidewalk), armoire /arfnwar -~ qm /
(large article of furniture also called a wardrobe), and bayou,
/ b a Ij .-b/ bai a / (small, sluggish stream). At least one
Louisiana word, gwmbo (soup containing okra), has gained national
currency.1
The evidence demonstrates convincingly enough that southern
Louisiana constitutes a separate speech region, but the area covered
in the study is not large enough to indicate its boundaries. A
heavy S-shaped line drawn by Atwood from southwestern to central
Louisiana (see Figure 3) can reasonably be considered the western
part of the boundary. It represents a bundle of eight or more
isoglosses revealed by Atwood's Texas questionnaire. Babington's
1Examples selected from Babington and Atwood, pp. 11-12.
- 46 -
questionnaire, designed to elicit a number of additional items
distinctive to the region, would no doubt thicken the bundles, though
it might diffuse them as well. The location of the boundary as it
extends eastwards from Rapides Parish can only be conjectured. Since,
however, the part that is known corresponds closely to the boundary
between Protestant, or Anglo, and Catholic, or French Louisiana, the
best conjecture is that it continues to correspond, extending south-
eastwards through New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico (cf. Figure 21).
Consideration of settlement patterns leads to the supposition
that the speech of the Florida Parishes is probably more like that of
neighboring Mississippi, which is chiefly Southern,1 than that of
northern Louisiana. Actually, lexical field work done in connection
with the recordings for the present study indicates a strong admixture
of Midland forms there, too, especially around Hammond, in Tangipahoa
Parish.
The single most important fact about Louisiana's English speech
can be expressed by Gordon R. Wood's observation concerning the interior
South in general: dialectal patterns have not become stabilized. In
southern Louisiana, French is clearly receding; as it does, it modifies
the English that replaces it. Bilingual parents pass on some of their
English errors to their monolingual children. Then in communities
where those errors become general they cease to be errors, changing
instead into dialectal characteristics. In those parts of the state
1Wood, "Dialect Contours," pp. 251-252.
- 47 -
where English has been the only language in common use since pioneer
times, forms from two varieties of American English still exist side
by side not just in the speech of communities but of families and
individuals. It was not uncommon during field work for this study to
find second or third generation neighbors who differed markedly in
the treatment of postvocalic /r/, for example, or in the allophones of
/a_/ before bilabial fricatives and nasals plus consonants. Sometimes
such differences were found in families in which husband and wife
used different patterns, as in Catahoula and Rapides Parishes. In-
formants often gave multiple responses demonstrating at least a recog-
nition knowledge of words characteristic of both Southern and South
Midland vocabularies, and not infrequently they used the terms inter-
changeably with little or no differentiation of meaning. The fact
that such examples of divided usage are more common in Louisiana than
in the coastal states where American dialect study began must be kept
in mind throughout the remainder of this study.
CHAPTER II
COMMUNITIES AND INFORMANTS
The communities and informants for this study were selected
to provide representative samples of local and regional native English
usage for the Dictionary of American Regional English, abbreviated
DARE. Eighteen communities were chosen to represent Louisiana out of
one thousand allotted to cover the entire United States. Ideally,
it would have been desirable to use only one informant in each com-
munity, since only one questionnaire was done in each, but very often
two or three or more had to be located in order to obtain all the
data sought in a reasonable length of time. To assure the validity of
the data certain criteria for the choice of communities and informants
were set up. These criteria will be explained before communities and
informants are discussed individually.
The number of communities chosen in each state was
proportionate to an adjusted population figure for the state. An
example was given in the orientation and instructional material given
to fieldworkers:
For example, in Florida, using 1910 population figures, we would
allot only 8 informants; using 1964 figures we would have to allot
27, since the population has been almost septupled during this
period. Actually we will compromise on 19 informants. In
Mississippi, on the other hand, where population has decreased
- 48 -
- 49 -
relatively during this period, on 1910 figures we would have had
to allot 19 informants, by 1964 figures only 12; actually we will
compromise on 15. By this device we seek to take account of the
conservative part of the population as being relatively less
mixed, more stable, hence in speech expectably more traditional.1
The number of communities to represent Louisiana is based on the fact
that its population of 3,257,022 is near the average for the nation;
no adjustment was required, since the rate of population growth for
the state has been close to that for the nation as a whole. The
communities were chosen by Dr. F. G. Cassidy, Jr., director of the
project, and Mrs. C. A. Mohr, historian on the DARE staff, who also
furnished fieldworkers with a few paragraphs of background material
on each community. In general, the aim was to pick old, stable
communities that would be representative, socially, economically, and
linguistically, of the general area of the state in which they were
situated. Old communities are usually along early migration routes,
or are themselves centers which immigrants have come to and gradually
moved away from, spreading their influence, linguistic and otherwise,
to areas surrounding them. An old, stable community, without a
history of rapid turnover of population, is likely to contain at least
some descendants of its first settlers and provide the best hunting
ground for informants who fitted DARE requirements.
The ratio of urban and rural communities for the study is
based on the ratio of urban and rural inhabitants, according to the
1"On the Choice of Communities and Informants for D.A.R.E."
(mimeographed sheet, n.d.).
1964 United States Statistical Abstracts. There, the definition of
urban is very broad, including communities of 2,500 and more. Since
63.3% of the residents of Louisiana were urban by this definition,
ten urban and eight rural communities were chosen. In choosing
informants to represent those communities, it was not considered
necessary to confine the search to persons actually residing within
the political boundaries of the named village or town. As Professor
Cassidy explained:
Community, in our sense, does not, of course, correspond to
corporate limit of a town or other governmental unit. If a man
lives higher up the road but still trades at the village and goes
to the village church, he belongs to that community linguistically
(assuming he is a native). One cannot even be sticky about this
unless one knows that there are two communities living near-by
which consider themselves distinct from each other. For example;
Cajuns and non-Cajuns.1
Actually, for various reasons, it was sometimes necessary to
find informants in other communities than the ones designated and
described. For example, there was no one available in the community
of Vienna who was suitable as an informant. An informant was chosen
from one of Vienna's earliest families even though she considered
near-by Dubach her home town, and was residing at the time of her
interview in a rest home in Ruston. But both Ruston and Dubach were
settled largely from the focal center of Vienna, and traditional
mobility among the three communities tended to level any differences
which might otherwise have arisen. All three remained effectively in
one speech community. In another instance, a couple who had lived all
1From a letter to the author, November 14, 1967.
- 51 -
their lives in one community had recently retired and moved to another.
They had not moved far, and in any case had not lived away from their
original home long enough to affect their speech significantly. Since
they had ample time and were willing to serve as informants, they were
chosen as representative of their home community. In such cases, the
community originally chosen rather than the one in which the informant
resided is the one described in the background material.
In one case, however, a community was eliminated and another
substituted. Since there are several speech patterns within the city
of New Orleans, Professor Cassidy suggested that it might well be
advantageous to eliminate one other urban community and use the
questionnaire thus saved as a second New Orleans questionnaire. On
the advice of Professors Claude Shaver, of the Department of Speech
at Louisiana State University, and W. R. Van Riper, of the Department
of English, Buras, on the Mississippi downstream from New Orleans,
was dropped, and the Irish Channel, a section of New Orleans, was
added.
Just as an attempt was made to choose communities which would
be truly representative of different regions within the state, an
attempt was made to find informants truly representative of their
communities. That meant at the very least someone born in the
community who had not lived anywhere else except for brief periods.
Residents whose parents and grandparents were born in the same place
were preferred, but in some recently settled areas families had
- 52 -
simply not been there long enough for such people to be available. In
Louisiana this was particularly true in the north central hill
parishes and in the western piney woods. In addition to the primary
matter of family background, other factors were considered in choosing
informants:
Informants are chosen according to generation, educational and
social status, and occupation. The generations are: young adult,
to 39 years; middle-aged, 40-59; old, 60 up. We plan to have 50%
or more of the old, 40% or less of the middle, and no more than
10% of the young generation. Broadly following Linguistic Atlas
practice, our informants will be of three types: I-those of no
more than primary school education; II-those of no more than high
school education, though sometimes with more travel, reading, or
the like than those of group I; and III-those with some higher
education and usually an upper position in the community.1
Therefore, out of Louisiana's 18 questionnaires, 10 were to be
answered by old, 7 by middle-aged, and 1 by young informants. In
actual practice, the final and unalterable governing factor in the
choice of informants was the availability of suitable candidates. In
all too many instances it was not possible to pick and choose in any
one community among a group of authentic local residents at various
age levels and social strata who were willing to devote enough of their
time to complete a questionnaire. The DARE questionnaire, designed
to elicit as many vocabulary items as possible, was 325 pages long and
required about a week to complete, on the average, assuming that the
informant or informants had a fair amount of free time. It is not at
all surprising that quite a number of prospective informants declined
to commence such an undertaking. The surprising thing is that so many
1"On the Choice of Communities and Informants for D.A.R.E."
- 53 -
were willing not only to commence, but to continue to the end. If
there did happen to be more than one to choose from, it was often
thought more important to choose the one who appeared to be able to
furnish the greatest amount of information without regard to his age
or educational level. In general, however, when it was necessary to
use more than one informant on a single questionnaire, an attempt was
made to have them all at the same age and social level unless a par-
ticular advantage could be gained by seeking someone of a different
type. Also, since lexical items were the chief object of the search,
certain minor speech irregularities, such as indistinct formation of
dental and alveolar consonants caused by the lack of teeth, were
tolerated although they were undesirable.
Once a suitable willing informant had been found, the major
part of the interview was carried out with the questionnaire, with
the field worker reading the questions and recording on it the
informant's answers either by circling a word or expression already
on the page or writing it in. For many words, a phonetic transcription
was also written in. Toward the last questionnaire session with each
major informant, commonly on the last day of the interview, a tape
recording was made, consisting of about twenty or thirty minutes of
free conversation followed by a reading of "Arthur the Rat," a brief
story designed to bring out certain features of pronunciation
important to American dialectology. The main purpose of the tapes was
to obtain recordings of natural, connected speech from which phono-
logical and syntactic data could be obtained. The first requirement
- 54 -
was to get the informant to talk naturally and easily, with as little
self-consciousness as possible concerning his manner of speech. Before
recording began, therefore, the informant's attention was usually
directed to a topic he was familiar with and liked to talk about. The
historical and cultural value of the recording was emphasized. Phono-
logical and lexical usefulness was not hidden from the informant, but
was described as being secondary to that of the questionnaire. The
tapes were often mentioned as a means by which the home office could
check on the field worker's accuracy.
Mike fright is hard to avoid, however, when a person is
unaccustomed to speaking in front of a microphone. Commonly, the
speech recorded on tape is of a somewhat more formal variety than
casual conversation. At times the field worker's contribution is
excessive as he tries to support a faltering conversation. At other
times the recording is simply shorter than desirable. Yet the
practical goal of getting a large enough sample from each informant
to assure a reasonably complete inventory of phonemes, function words,
and basic structural patterns is reached more often than not. And the
tapes are important historical and cultural documents as well.
The descriptions of communities and of informants and their
general speech patterns given in this chapter are intended to provide
a context for the phonological tables in Chapter III. In the kind of
dialectal research known as a "saturation study," such particularized
descriptions would not be necessary because individual differences
could be put into perspective statistically. There is much to be said
- 55 -
for that approach: isoglosses can be precisely drawn with some faith
in their validity, population subgroups can be taken into account, and
the probability of error can be calculated with mathematical accuracy
so that the conclusions reached rest less on the interpretative judge-
ment of the researcher than on the voluminous mass of the evidence.
Yet, considering the number of separate dialect items sought in each
community and the amount of time and money allotted for field work,
it was not possible or even desirable in the DARE project to achieve
the kind of numerical tour de force that makes purely statistical
studies possible. With suitable care in choosing subjects for study
coupled with adequate background information, especially in respect
to individual peculiarities of a community or an informant, relatively
few samples can be counted on with some degree of assurance to present
an accurate picture of the speech habits of a large region.
The descriptions of communities which follow present in brief
form a history of settlement and growth of each community together
with the area surrounding it. A few words are included concerning
its general character at the time the field work was done. Population
figures, including the percentage of Negroes in the parish in which the
community is situated, are from the United States Statistical Abstracts,
based on the 1960 census.1 The figure for percentage of Negroes is
1U. S. Bureau of the Census, County and City Data Book, 1967
(A Statistical Abstract Supplement) (Washington, D. C., 1967).
- 56 -
given not because it is important in itself, but because it is a
convenient index to the community's cultural type. Pronunciations
listed for community, parish, and state are those used by informants.
If two informants use variant pronunciations, the pronunciations are
identified with the informants' code numbers. If one informant uses
variant pronunciations, the pronunciations are identified by relative
frequency.
Descriptions of informants include general remarks on family
history, age, education, occupation, and travel experience. All
such material was supplied by the informants themselves. Since one
purpose of the descriptions was to aid the DARE editorial staff in
interpreting the questionnaires, some brief notations concerning the
informants' speech characteristics were made at the time of the
interviews. The nature of this study renders the greater part of
those descriptions superfluous. Often, however, informants showed
idiosyncratic speech features, or features characteristic of only
part of their fellow citizens; in such cases the significant features
are mentioned. Most places in Louisiana exhibit some kind of divided
usage, so that opportunities to omit all mention of speech features
in these descriptions were rare.
To protect the privacy of informants, neither their names nor
their initials are given; the code numbers used to identify them are
the ones employed by the Dictionary for filing questionnaires, tapes,
and other documents relevant to the field work. In the descriptive
- 57 -
paragraphs that follow, the single word informant will be used to
avoid overuse of the code numbers as name-substitutes.
Figure 4 shows the location of each community and indicates
whether it is urban or rural.
Northern Louisiana
Community: Lake Providence [I@ k p r vad ans ]
Population: 5,781
Percent Negro: 61.0
Parish: East Carroll [ S k e a I
State: Louisiana [IhZ ~I-e ]
East Carroll Parish is in the extreme northeast corner of the
state, and all of it is rich, flat, delta land. Lake Providence is
on the Mississippi River about halfway between the north and south
parish boundaries. Traditionally, mention of Lake Providence as a
haven from river pirates goes back to the Spanish period, but settle-
ment of the area did not really begin until the United States took
possession. The early settlers were planters who established large
cotton holdings, bringing with them Negro slaves to work the land,
and importing more as their wealth grew.
Once permanent settlement began there was a rather quick transition
to a mellow and spacious way of living for an oligarchy of leading
families and a modestly comfortable one for others. Plantations
of several thousand acres soon appeared.1
After nearby Mississippi, the states have contributed the largest
numbers of migrants to the population of East Carroll Parish are
'East Carroll Parish Resources and Facilities, by the East
Carroll Parish Development Board (Baton Rouge, 1951), p. 15.
- 58 -
Lake Providence
a
Vienna
oMansfield
a
Columbia
a
Jonesville
a
Lecompte
New Orleans
Cameron
Figure 4. Communities studied. Circles indicate urban communities;
squares indicate rural communities.
- 59 -
Alabama, Kentucky,and Virginia. Cotton and soybeans are now the most
important crops. Most of the land is apportioned among a number of
large plantations, and almost all of it lying outside the levees which
is not too swampy has been cleared for growing crops. Some plantations
have extensive pecan orchards as well.
Informant: LA 8, Negro man, aged 54
Informant was born in East Carroll Parish, as were his mother
and her parents. His father was born in East Carroll Parish, but his
paternal grandparents came from Georgia. He has a tenth grade edu-
cation and has done little traveling; the traveling he has done has
been mostly on trips to pick up machinery or parts for his employer.
He has always worked for the same man in all phases of the cotton
industry from planting through ginning to baling. He is active in
church work and is generally looked up to by other members of the
black segment of the population of Lake Providence.
When he repeated the fieldworker's questions, as occasionally
happened when he was not sure that he understood, he would transpose
them into his own dialect grammatically as well as phonetically. He
does not seem to be using a more formal variety of speech on tape
than he uses in ordinary conversation.
- 60 -
Community: Vienna [ V A1 n ) ]
Population: 500
Percent Negro: 41.8
Parish: Lincoln [ I k R n ]
State: Louisiana [\ i ~z e tl];
occasionally [I( I Z.i ]
Lincoln Parish is in north central Louisiana, in the heart of
the original oak and pine forest country of the sandhills. The tiny
settlement of Vienna has been eclipsed by Ruston, less than five miles
to the south. Early settlers came from lowland parts of Louisiana,
which were thought to be unhealthful, and from states east of the
Mississippi. For the most part the newcomers were English-speaking
Protestants. Georgia and Alabama contributed more early migrants to
Lincoln Parish than any other states, but people came in fair numbers
from South Carolina and Mississippi as well. Vienna, founded by
Daniel Colvin, was a stopping point on the stage line established in
1825 from Monroe, Louisiana, to El Paso, Texas. There are many Colvins
in the area around Vienna now, but they seem to be descendants of a
later group. During the period 1853-1863, eleven Colvin brothers
emigrated to Vienna from the Chester district of South Carolina. This
group is probably related to the founder, but evidence for the rela-
tionship is hard to find. Many of the early settlers seem to have
brought slaves with them, but plantation agriculture never caught on
here, and most of the area, fairly heavily cultivated, remained
divided up into small farms.1
1Lincoln Parish Resources and Facilities, by the Lincoln
Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1943), pp. 9-10.
- 61 -
Unquestionably in the Bible belt, Lincoln Parish is one of the
few in the state where alcoholic beverages are not sold; Sunday hunting
is disapproved of; and the Baptist church is clearly the dominant
religious influence. The small farms of the area, which held their
own until after World War II, are now giving way to pasture and
managed forest.
Informant: LA 12, Caucasian woman, aged 88
Informant was born at Unionville, Lincoln Parish, the daughter
of one of the Colvin brothers of South Carolina. She has a high
school education, completed in Ruston. She has lived all her life in
the Ruston-Unionville area, which includes Vienna, and has traveled
to Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri, and Arkansas. Social contacts
are mostly within the Colvin family, which includes a broad cross
section of the population of Lincoln Parish.
She uses bilabial fricatives for /f / and /v/; this feature
is purely idiosyncratic, caused by the absence of teeth, and has been
ignored in the tabulations as not representative of the area. Formal
and informal varieties of speech include separate expressions
(brought up, raised) and different verb forms preteritt did or done).
There is little change in phonology between functional varieties, but
pronunciations of certain words vary; note her conscious and unconscious
pronunciations of Louisiana. During most of the recording, she was
not aware that her speech was being recorded, and it is in a completely
natural conversational style.
- 62 -
Community: Mansfield [mnvi ntZf i id]
Population: 5,839
Percent Negro: 57.5
Parish: DeSoto [dis 5d a ]
State: Louisiana [ I U 'ae e]
Mansfield is near the center of DeSoto Parish, which lies near
the northern end of the western crescent of sandhills and piney woods,
next to the Texas line. The first white men to settle there were
French and Spanish Creoles who remained mainly in the eastern part of
the parish where the hunting and fishing were good. Later they were
greatly outnumbered by English-speaking settlers from the eastern
United States, principally Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and
Alabama. Many of these were wealthy slaveholders, who kept mostly to
the northern part of the parish. Newcomers of less means established
small farms in hillier areas.
DeSoto Parish was formed in 1843 from portions of Caddo and
Natchitoches Parishes; Mansfield was founded and designated parish
seat in the same year as a compromise between Screamerville, preferred
by the English slaveholders, and Old Augusta, a steamboat landing on
Bayou Pierre favored by the Creoles.1
The old plantation families are still well represented in
Mansfield and the surrounding communities, and some descendants of
early Creole settlements remain as well, though no one speaks French
or Spanish as a native language. Most of the Negroes still live in
1DeSoto Parish Resources and Facilities, by the DeSoto Parish
Development Board (Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 7-8.
- 63 -
rural parts of the parish as they did in antebellum times. Early
white farmers and workmen seem to have been less settled in their
habits; a great many members of the lower middle class have come here
from elsewhere. Most members of the old Mansfield families have at
least some college education; nearly everyone else has no more than
high school. Farming has declined in recent years, with row crops
being replaced by planted pines, but dairying has increased in im-
portance. The area is dotted with oil and gas fields, which are
probably at least partly responsible for attracting newcomers from
other parts of the country.
Informant: LA 17, Caucasian woman, aged 30
Informant's mother was born in Epps, Louisiana; her stepfather
and his parents were born in Mansfield. Informant herself was born
in Mansfield, but lived in Shreveport, in neighboring Bossier Parish,
during her first nine school years. She has a B. A. from Sweet Briar
College, Virginia. She has visited most of the southern and middle
Atlantic states, New England, Eastern Canada, and Bermuda. A working
wife, she does advertising layouts for a newspaper and occasionally
does substitute teaching. Social contacts are mainly with the better
Mansfield families, descendants of plantation owners.
Because of her schoolgirl years in Shreveport and her mother's
birthplace in the northeastern part of the state, she might be ex-
pected to speak a more general variety of English than can be
- 64 -
localized strictly to Mansfield. But she does pronounce mayonnaise
as [mTRInyez], which does not seem to be general over northern
Louisiana, though it is the prevailing form in Mansfield. She usually
has postvocalic /r/, but the unstressed retroflex mid-vowel varies to
schwa in some words. Intrusive /T/ occurs sporadically. Her treat-
ment of / r/ reflects divided usage around Mansfield. In general,
absence of postvocalic /T/ in the southern pattern is upper class and
old-fashioned.
Community: Columbia [ka\m 6bia
Population: 1,021
Percent Negro: 27.8
Parish: Caldwell [ kIwv ac+]
State: Louisiana [ \ zi ri1Ra
Caldwell Parish is situated near the middle of Louisiana's
northern section of piney wooded hills. Columbia is on the west bank
of the Ouachita River, which has spread a long stretch of alluvial
soil through predominantly rolling sandy land. The earliest settlers
to the area were Frenchmen, who migrated in small numbers up the river
from French settlements along the Red and Mississippi Rivers. After
1806 they were joined by a few Danes, but there was no settlement of
substantial size until the United States took possession of the
Louisiana Territory. There is little specific information concerning
the origin of the first Americans to settle there, but some of them,
- 65 -
at least, must have come from Kentucky, since the first name of the
settlement occupying the present site of Columbia was New Kentucky.1
According to Smith and Hitt's figures based on the 1880 population,
Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, and South Carolina were the most
important sources of migrants to Caldwell Parish at that time. Co-
lumbia's most prosperous period was the time when steamboats were the
major transportation in Louisiana. Farmers in the wooded land to the
west, where slaves were rare and there were no big landholders, bought
their produce here for shipment to outside markets. The most important
exports were cotton and timber. Columbia's importance as a shipping
center declined when railroads superseded river traffic. There is
still some farming along the Ouachita River and even on the much
smaller farms in the hilly parts of the parish, but most of the land
is now given over to managed forest owned by large timber companies.
Informant: LA 2, Caucasian man, aged 72
Informant's mother and her parents were born here; her
grandfather was one of the original French settlers in the area.
Informant's father was born in Caldwell Parish; his paternal grand-
parents came from Mississippi. Informant himself has lived in the
hilly western part of Caldwell Parish all his life, where he has
engaged in patch farming and logging. He has a sixth grade education
1Frederick William Williamson and George T. Goodman, Eastern
Louisiana: A History of the Watershed of the Ouachita River and the
Florida Parishes, eds. Frederick William Williamson and George T.
Goodman (Louisville, Kentucky, Historical Record Association, n. d.),
pp. 108-112.
- 66 -
and has not traveled any farther away than Monroe, Louisiana. As his
wife jokingly expressed it, he's "been further up a 'simmon tree than
he's ever been away from home."
He was extremely self-conscious about the tape recorder, so
that he stammered more and paused longer when he was being recorded
than in normal conversation. As a result, there are some passages
that are difficult to decipher phonetically and impossible morphemically.
His use of postvocalic /r/ varies, but in most instances it is con-
siderably weakened. The final syllables of, e. g., winter and Louisiana
are usually phonetically distinct from each other, but the sound in
winter which has been transcribed [5-] in the tables corresponds more
closely in character to [ ] than to [S]. His pronunciation of /3/
is closer to schwa than is usual in Caldwell Parish.
Informant: LA 1, Caucasian man, aged about 40
Informant's father is LA 2 above. His mother was born in
Caldwell Parish; her parents were from Mississippi. He has lived in
the western part of Caldwell Parish all his life, except for military
service near the end of World War II, when he was sent to the South
Pacific. He has an eleventh grade education. He was a logcutter for
several years, and now works for the state highway department in a
district encompassing several parishes.
His recording is fairly brief, consisting mostly of a reading
of "Arthur the Rat," which he consented to do for his father, whose
- 67 -
eyes were too dim to read it. Final consonants are often dropped in
his speech when his voice trails off before the end of a word. This
occurs especially with nasal consonants, in which case nasalization
of the vowel carries the full phonemic load of the final nasal. That
characteristic was not heard from either his mother or his father,
but it is doubtful that is totally idiosyncratic.
Community: Jonesville [ fJO'YZV G ]
Population: 2,347
Percent Negro: 35.2
Parish: Catahoula [ k ~a.j h a]
State: Louisiana [I Zi ae ]
Catahoula Parish lies in the eastern part of the Louisiana
boot-top about forty miles west of Natchez, Mississippi. The north-
west third of the parish includes part of the hilly north central
piney woods; the remainder of the parish is flat delta land in the
area where the Ouachita River bottomland joins the flood plain of the
Mississippi. A number of Spanish grants were made to people with
English names in the upper part of the parish. Most early settlers
to the area were from Mississippi, but Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia
also figure prominently. Ulster Scots, also called Scotch-Irish, must
have made up a large percentage, because the Mo-section in the Jones-
ville-Harrison telephone book is one of the largest. A few of the
early settlers were slaveholding cotton planters, but most people seem
to have made their living in a somewhat more primitive fashion: fishing,
hunting, and allowing their cattle and hogs to roam freely in the
- 68 -
swamps except when almost yearly floods forced them to carry them on
barges to high ground. This kind of stock-raising was characteristic
of a long, roughly oval area in the Tensas and Black River bottoms
of Catahoula, Tensas, Concordia, and Franklin Parishes. The town of
Jonesville was laid off comparatively late-in 1871--by Mrs. Laura
Stewart Jones, who owned the tract of land on the south bank of Little
River where it and the Tensas join the Ouachita to form Black River.
Jonesville eclipsed an older settlement by the name of Trinity which
had been established about 1833 on the north bank of Little River.1
The old free-range swamp-grazing practices have been abandoned
now. The delta land has been cleared, levees hold back the floods,
and soybeans compete with cattle for the farmers' attention. Oil
wells supplement agricultural income on many a farm. Jonesville is
one of Louisiana's most important fresh-water commercial fishing
centers.
Informant: LA 10, Caucasian man, aged 70
Informant was born in Monterey, Louisiana, a few miles from
Jonesville on the other side of Black River, where his mother was
also born. Her parents had come from South Carolina after the Civil
War. Informant is uncertain about his father's birthplace or that of
his paternal grandparents, but he knows that his father grew up in
Monterey. Informant has had three years of college in the College of
IMost of the information in this paragraph is found in Catahoula
Parish Resources and Facilities, by the Catahoula Parish Planning Board
(Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 10-12. See also Williamson and Goodman, p. 81.
- 69 -
Arts and Sciences at Louisiana State University. During World War II
he served as a platoon sergeant training recruits at Camp Taylor,
Kentucky. During the period 1919-1933, he traveled to work in various
oilfields, mostly in Louisiana but also in Arkansas and Texas. Since
1933 he has been living at Jonesville and operating his farm there,
raising cattle, soybeans, and cotton.
He showed little traceof his college training in his speech,
apparently preferring to conform to the most common speech patterns
around Jonesville. His main deviation from the usual speech of the
area is rather heavy nasalization, which seemed more noticeable in
conversation face to face than on tape. Vowel length and tempo are
moderate. Postvocalic /T / is weakened or lost, which is not typical
of the northeastern hilly parts of the parish, but seems to be a
feature typical of the bottom lands. Folk found that the Southern
pattern without postvocalic /r/ predominates in Catahoula Parish.1
Informant: LA 11, Caucasian woman, aged 67
Informant is the wife of LA 10 above. She was born in Monterey,
Louisiana, where her mother and maternal grandparents were born. Her
father and his parents were born in Woodville, Mississippi. She lived
in Harmon, Louisiana, from 1918 till 1922 and in Grand Bayou, Louisiana,
from 1922 till 1933 before coming to Jonesville, where she has lived
ever since. She has a B. A. in education from Northwestern State
IMary Lucile Pierce Folk, "A Word Atlas of North Louisiana,"
Dissertation Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1961, p. 54.
- 70 -
College, but her travels have been limited to visits in the neighboring
states of Texas and Mississippi. Most of her life she has taught
second grade, but for a time taught eight grades in a one-room school.
Though her speech normally includes a few nonstandard verb
forms, it is closer to standard than the average for the area. Artic-
ulation is clear, and her speech is not strongly nasalized, as is her
husband's.
Community: Natchitoches [ laek ta]
Population: 13,924
Percent Negro: 43.6
Parish: Natchitoches [ h katS]
State: Louisiana [ I V'i ae n ]
As noted in the preceding chapter, Natchitoches was the first
permanent settlement in what is now Louisiana. It was situated at the
highest point of navigation on the Red River, and served during French
ownership of Louisiana as an outpost against Spanish encroachments
eastward. Spanish ownership of Louisiana after 1765 promoted the
growth of Natchitoches, however. In the first French census, taken in
1722, the population was 34. In 1776, roughly ten years after the
Spanish took possession, it was 457; in nine years more it had risen
to 756.1 The King's Highway ran east and west through Natchitoches,
carrying traffic between Natchez, Mobile, and Texas, and the river
gave access to New Orleans and from there to the east coast and Europe.
Steamboat navigation, which began in 1824, promised to make Natchitoches
1Natchitoches Parish Resources and Facilities, by the
Natchitoches Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, n. d.), p. 8.
- 71 -
the second most important city in the state, but the Red River changed
its channel, leaving the city five miles away from its new course.
Furthermore, government engineers succeeded in removing the log jam
which had formerly blocked navigation upstream from Natchitoches,
allowing traffic to proceed as far as Shreveport, which soon took over
second place in the state's commerce. But Natchitoches has not given
up its position as cultural center; the Americans who came after 1803
were mostly rich and cultivated planters who blended their own heritage
with that of the Creoles as they assimilated it. Though French is not
spoken in Natchitoches as a native language, there are, just as in
New Orleans, constant reminders of a Latin past. The residents of
Natchitoches tend to look upon other sections of the state, with the
exception of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, as somewhat boorish and
backward.
Cotton has always been the chief product of the rich river-
bottom soil of the area, though now soybeans compete for first place
in importance. Cattle, corn, and potatoes are also widely grown.
Tobacco and indigo, important crops in French and Spanish days, are
no longer grown in commercial quantities.
Informant: LA 14, Caucasian man, aged 57
Informant's mother was born on a plantation near Natchitoches;
she represented the seventh generation of her family there. Informant's
father and paternal grandparents were born in Natchitoches; before that,
the family had come from Homer, Louisiana. Informant himself was born
- 72 -
in Natchitoches, and except for the years when he was away at college,
has always lived there. He received a B. A. from Northwestern State
College in Natchitoches, an M. A. from Louisiana State University in
Baton Rouge, and has done further graduate work at the University of
Texas. He is a newspaper editor and publisher. He has traveled to
Europe, the Bahamas, and all parts of the United States except New
England and the Pacific Northwest.
His conversational speech is the language of well-bred ease,
clearly articulated but not overprecise, moderate in tempo, with
grammar that is unfailingly standard Southern. On tape he uses not
quite the manner of casual conversation, but a somewhat more formal
variety, approaching the style of a classroom lecture presentation.
Community: LeCompte [Ilka Tk ]
Population: 1,485
Percent Negro: 30.3
Parish: Rapides [r~p dZ ]
State: Louisiana [ VIZ i ae ]LA 15, [ LZPQ T- ] LA 16
LeCompte is located south of Alexandria in Rapides Parish,
which is near the center of the state not far from the apex of the
triangle formed by French Louisiana. LeCompte itself is near the edge
of the Red River delta where it borders on the western crescent of
piney woods. Settlement in the area traditionally goes back to a
Spanish Franciscan mission established in 1690, said to have been dis-
banded by the French. The first completely documented settlement was
the Post du Rapide on Red River, established in 1723 or 1724, which
- 73 -
was still only a frontier outpost when the Spanish took over the
colony in 1766.
Under the liberal Spanish rule of the latter part of the
eighteenth century many people moved into central Louisiana
from the American colonies. The original French and Spanish
settlers were soon in the minority and as a whole their
identity was lost. The immigrants gradually settled in small
groups-Virginians on the upper end of Bayou Rapides or Bayou
Jean de Jean near Boyce; Marylanders at the rapids and along
the lower section of Bayou Rapides; South Carolinians in the
vicinity of Cheneyville. New England, Pennsylvania, Tennessee
and Kentucky were represented in small settlements along the
river and bayous.1
LeCompte, which was one of the earliest settlements in the parish, was
not incorporated until 1900. Its first settlers were cotton and sugar
cane planters who came shortly after the Louisiana Purchase.2 It
remains chiefly an agricultural center to this day; soybeans now
compete with sugar cane and cotton, and on the hilly lands to the
west there are a number of nurseries. Though on the edge of French
Louisiana, LeCompte is decidedly Anglo in character. Only in the past
twenty years have French families moved in appreciable numbers from
their settlements some twenty or thirty miles to the south.
Informant: LA 15, Caucasian man, aged 75
Informant's mother was born in Rapides Parish of parents from
South Carolina. His paternal grandparents also came from South Carolina,
1Rapides Parish Resources and Facilities, by the Rapides Parish
Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1947), p. 10.
2Rapides Parish Resources and Facilities, pp. 9-11, 17-18,
25-26.
- 74 -
but settled in two or three spots in Louisiana before making their
permanent home in the Cheneyville-LeCompte area. Informant's father
was born en route. Informant himself was born in LeCompte and received
a sixth grade education there. He farmed there until the age of 73,
when he went into retirement in Alexandria, the parish seat, some twelve
miles from LeCompte. As a young man, he traveled as far away as Colorado
following the wheat harvest, and since then has vacationed in Florida
and Texas.
His grammar is nonstandard most of the time. Postvocalic /i/
is usually absent or greatly weakened.
Informant: LA 16, Caucasian woman, aged 72
Informant is the wife of LA 15 above. Her mother was born in
Rapides Parish. Her maternal grandfather came from Mississippi, and
her maternal grandmother was born in Rapides Parish. Informant's
father was born somewhere in Louisiana, but his parents came from
Mississippi. Informant herself was born in LeCompte and lived there
until age 70, when she moved to near-by Alexandria. She had a sixth
grade education and has traveled to Florida and Texas on vacation. She
grew up on a farm and has been a farm housewife since her marriage.
She and her husband belong to the Methodist Church, one of the two most
prominent in the Parish-the other is the Baptist.
Her taped speech is somewhat more careful than unguarded
conversation. Even in most casual conversation, though, her articu-
lation is quite clear. Grammar is nonstandard much of the time, even
- 75 -
in fairly formal circumstances. Although there are sporadic
exceptions, she usually has postvocalic /T/ after all vowels. This
difference between her own and her husband's speech points up the
difficulty of drawing hard and fast isoglosses in Louisiana, since
noticeably different speech features may exist side by side.
Community: DeQuincy [diklkwintsl
Population: 3,928
Percent Negro: 20.8
Parish: Calcasieu [ k v ka S ]
State: Louisiana [ I i -e TI e ]
DeQuincy is culturally but not geographically a part of
northern Louisiana; it lies near the southern end of the western
crescent of piney woods. Though it is in Calcasieu Parish, it is eco-
nomically and culturally more closely connected to Beauregard Parish,
which surrounds it on three sides. First settlers in the area were
Frenchmen who came during the Spanish domination, but they were soon
joined by people with such names as Moss, Ryan, and Rigmaiden. Until
1819, when the Sabine River was officially established as the western
boundary of Louisiana, they paid taxes to the Spanish Governor at
Nacogdoches, Texas, but the area was actually part of a neutral strip
of ground, unpatrolled by either Spanish or American soldiers, and it
became a haven for Indians, felons, and runaway slaves. Pioneers
continued to arrive, before and after the boundary question was settled,
and enough came from other states to the east that the first church in
the area was a Primitive Baptist Church founded in the Big Woods
- 76 -
settlement in 1828. Lumbering was the only early industry, and most
of the old settlers practiced subsistence farming, raising everything
they needed except coffee, and usually bartering for that with eggs
or moss. After the Civil War there was a great influx of northern
and middle western migrants into Lake Charles, but in the whole
Calcasieu-Beauregard area, including DeQuincy, settlers from Mississippi,
Alabama, and Georgia were more numerous, along with those who crossed
over the Sabine from Texas.1
DeQuincy seems to be a continuation of the original Big Woods
settlement; many people from the older community moved there for the
economic advantages of being next to the railroad. In DeQuincy's early
days it was a rip-roaring frontier town with a strip of saloons where
gunfights occurred nearly every week. Now it is a quiet, friendly
place where once again many of the residents make their living in the
timber from replanted forests which cover much of the area of the
original virgin stands.
Informant: LA 29, Caucasian man, aged 76
Informant's father was born some twenty miles from the present
site of DeQuincy along the Calcasieu River. His mother probably came
from Mississippi or Alabama. Further family history is not available.
1Calcasieu Parish Resources and Facilities, by the Calcasieu
Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1945), pp. 10-13. Substantially
the same information is recorded in Beauregard Parish Resources and
Facilities, by the Beauregard Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1949),
pp. 7 ff. Beauregard Parish was originally only a part of Calcasieu
Parish.
- 77 -
Informant himself was born in Big Woods, Louisiana, moved to DeQuincy
before the age of twenty, and has lived there ever since. He attended
school to the third grade, and has visited only the neighboring states
of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. He is a meatcutter by trade.
There is little social stratification in DeQuincy, and he mixes socially
with most of the older residents of the area.
His speech is heavily nasalized. Tempo and vowel length are
slower than average. Grammar is usually nonstandard, and while making
the recording he did not seem to be striving for a more formal variety
of speech than he uses in ordinary conversation.
Informant: LA 28, Caucasian woman, aged 68
Informant is unrelated to LA 29 above. Her father was raised
in Big Woods, Louisiana, but she is uncertain about his birthplace or
that of his parents. Her mother was an orphan from Lake Charles, the
Parish Seat of Calcasieu Parish. Her foster parents were probably
born in that area. Informant was born in Big Woods, Louisiana, and
moved to DeQuincy before she was married. For a few years she lived
in Port Allen, just across the river from Baton Rouge. She has a
seventh grade education, and has not traveled outside the state except
just across the Parish line into Texas. She enjoys gardening and
crocheting as well as attending gospel singing in the community.
Her speech is somewhat nasalized, but not so heavily as that
of LA 29. Tempo is fairly fast and becomes faster when she reads.
- 78 -
She was a little self-conscious in front of the recorder and seemed
to try to be a little more formal grammatically than she would have
been in natural conversation. Her phonology was probably very little
affected, if at all.
Florida Parishes
Community: St. Francisville [5 e t frcT S Vas IY +]
[s sA fr e n s a s vi aF]
Population: 1,661
Percent Negro: 66.1
Parish: West Feliciana [WL5 feali a ],LA 3;
State: Louisiana [ i Z i 4tT3 ],LA 5
West Feliciana Parish lies along the east bank of the
Mississippi River in the northwest corner of that part of Louisiana
known as the Florida Parishes. There is some delta land, but most is
low, rolling, sandy land originally covered with pines. St. Fran-
cisville is beside the Mississippi about halfway between the southern
boundary of the parish and the Mississippi state line, which forms
the northern boundary of the parish. This section was never heavily
settled by the French, although the first plantation in what is now
West Feliciana Parish was owned by a Frenchman named LeJune. During
the American Revolution, however, a large number of pioneers, many
of them from North Carolina, settled along the river above Baton
Rouge, forming what came to be called the district of Feliciana. At
that time it was a British possession, and most of these families
came both to escape persecution by their revolutionary neighbors and
- 79 -
to avoid fighting against their native land. By and large, they were
rich slaveowners whose mode of life was ease and elegance. According
to an antebellum account by Captain Richard Butler, from Pittsburgh,
they rivalled the finest that the East had to offer:
I visited with eleven different families in my stay. I was much
astonished to see the style (truly elegant) they lived in. They
are, in fact, all rich. Some of them own as many as two or three
hundred slaves and elegant farm stock innumerable, and so near to
New Orleans, which is a fine market for their produce. It is a
great advantage as they can secure all the luxuries that a seaport
affords.1
The two principal towns in the area were Bayou Sara and St.
Francisville. St. Francisville was the center for the wealthy land-
owners; they went to church there and traded there. Bayou Sara, on
a batture2 below St. Francisville, was inhabited by tough riverboatmen,
roustabouts, and frontiersmen.3 It has now disappeared as a separate
town, though residents still call the part of St. Francisville nearest
the river by the old name of Bayou Sara. Except for a few fishermen
along the Mississippi and many of the merchants in St. Francisville
itself, nearly everyone in the parish has a heritage dating back within
the community to plantation days. Negro descendants of the original
slaves outnumber white descendants of the original planters.
Pecans, cotton, soybeans, and vegetables, especially sweet
potatoes, are the principal crops of West Feliciana, but the most
1Williamson and Goodman, Eastern Louisiana, p. 481.
2French /baty r/, English /b ea.-/, a Louisiana word meaning
a riverbank formed of relatively recent alluvial deposits.
3Williamson and Goodman, pp. 479-486, 501. Also see Alcee
Fortier, A History of Louisiana (New York, 1904), III, 40.
- 80 -
important reminders of the plantation heritage are the many old
plantation houses that remain there, some of them restored and open
to touring guests, some of them still being used as residences.
Informant: LA 3, Caucasian man, aged 53
His mother's forebears come to West Feliciana Parish from
South Carolina and Georgia about 1800. His great-grandmother was a
pupil of John James Audubon when he was a tutor at the Oakley Plan-
tation near St. Francisville. His father's ancestors came from the
Carolinas about 1800; one of them figured prominently in the West
Florida Rebellion of 1810. He has lived in or near St. Francisville
all of his life except for one year in Florida in 1926 and a term in
the Navy during World War II. He has a high school education and
has traveled extensively within the United States and into Canada.
Informant's grammar is standard. In most respects, pronunciation
corresponds rather closely to standard usage in other parts of Loui-
siana and the South in general. But the phoneme / k/ sometimes
approaches /X/, and /S / sometimes is backed toward / /. Comparison
with other members of the community indicates that these features are
idiosyncratic, and not part of the usual pattern in St. Francisville.
Informant's speech manner on the recording is somewhat more formal
than casual conversation.
Informant: LA 5, Caucasian man, aged 41
Informant's mother was born in the part of St. Francisville
formerly known as Bayou Sara. His father was born at Cat Island,
- 81 -
eighteen miles up the river. Further family history is not available.
Informant has lived in St. Francisville most of his life, but for
twelve years lived in Baton Rouge, where he works in an oil refinery.
Before moving there and subsequently returning to St. Francisville
he was a commercial fisherman. He has an elementary school education,
and has not traveled away from the Mississippi-Louisiana area. Since
the primary purpose of the interview with him was to uncover termi-
nology applicable to fish and fishing in this part of the state, the
recording does not include "Arthur the Rat."
His use of a smooth (not inglided) raised variant of /I /
before nasals in stressed monosyllables is somewhat of a puzzle, since
it was not heard in any of the other communities in Louisiana, nor
from other speakers in this one. The feature may be idiosyncratic,
or it may be characteristic of a certain social level along this part
of the river. Acadian influence is evident from his practice of
redoubling of adjectives as an intensive device-bumpy-bumpy means
very bumpy-as well as by his treatment of interdentals in unstressed
words like the, that, with, and so forth.
Community: Clinton [kliint ]
Population: 1,568
Percent Negro: 54
Parish: East Feliciana [I fa U 2 i ae Tn ]
State: Louisiana [) Z i e 7 a ]
East Feliciana Parish, one of the Florida Parishes, lies
immediately south of the Mississippi state line about sixty miles
northeast of Baton Rouge.
- 82 -
The early history of East Feliciana Parish is much the same
as that of West Feliciana; the two were not divided until 1824, when
the site of Clinton was chosen for the parish seat. Much the same
kind of plantation elegance was the rule in what is now East Feliciana
Parish as in the older areas along the Mississippi. There was, however,
a larger percentage of Northerners in the very early settlements in
the eastern part of the original district of Feliciana. Later
migrations were much the same in the two areas. During the middle of
the nineteenth century, East Feliciana became an important educational
center for women. The Clinton Female Academy was established in 1832,
Silliman Female College in 1852, and Millwood Female Institute in
1866.1 None of these institutions is still in operation, but the
influence they had on their students and on the community as a whole
is still felt. As in West Feliciana, the black population is much
larger than the white, and in general the blacks did not begin to
enjoy the educational benefits the area had to offer until recent
years.
Informant: LA 7, Negro man, aged 76
Informant's mother was born in East Feliciana Parish; her
parents probably came from Mississippi. His father was born in East
Feliciana Parish; paternal grandparents came from Amite County,
Mississippi. Informant himself has always lived in the southeast
1Williamson and Goodman, pp. 516-518.
- 83 -
portion of East Feliciana Parish. After attending school as far as
the fourth grade, he left off schooling to work on a plantation. He
now owns a small farm and a cane mill where he grinds cane and makes
syrup for himself and his neighbors. He is one of the most respected
members of the Baptist Church which he attends, and is respected by
Negroes and whites alike in Clinton.
Final consonants are often lost as his voice drops to an
inaudible level at the end of a word. Final /d / in weak preterits
is especially subject to loss, because of the marked weakening of
final unstressed syllables. His tempo is very slow. Final or pre-
consonantal /1 / and /n/ are often represented solely by nasal
coloring of the vowel, and this tendency seems to be growing stronger
in later generations, since it is much more noticeable among his
grandchildren than in his own speech. None of these characteristics
was observed in the speech of more privileged members of Clinton
society.
Informant: LA 6, Negro woman, aged 72
Informant is the wife of LA 7, above. Her mother was born in
East Feliciana Parish; her maternal grandmother was half white and one
quarter Indian. Informant's father was born in East Feliciana, but
the family history is not known farther back than that. She has
always lived in the southeast part of the Parish, where she went to
the fourth grade in school. She has never worked as a domestic, but
has been a farm housewife since her marriage.
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REGIONAL PHONOLOGICAL VARIANTS IN LOUISIANA SPEECH By August Weston Rubrecht A Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 1971
PAGE 2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank Dr. F. G. Cassidy, Jr., director of the Dictionary of American Regional English, for permission to use the tape recordings on which this study is based, and I want to thank him and the Dictionary staff for doing what they could from such a distance to make the field work as pleasant as possible. I especially recall Mrs. Laura Ducker's cheering notes and letters, and Dr. James Hartman's consideration in assigning additional communities once those in Louisiana had been finished. The names of all those in Louisiana who helped make the field work easier and the field worker more comfortable would comprise a list too long to give here. It would include all my informants, not just those who made tapes, and all those who helped direct me to prospective informants, together with many others whose hospitality I enjoyed. I am especially grateful to the William R. Van Ripers at LSU in Baton Rouge and to Miller Williams, Thomas Preston, and John Mosier and their families at Loyola in New Orleans for their hospitality and assistance. In the writing of the dissertation, I gratefully acknowledge the advice and suggestions of my chairman. Dr. John Algeo, who has helped me avoid or correct a great many errors, omissions, and infelicitous turns of phrase. Committee members Dr. Richard Dwyer and Dr. J. Wayne Conner also offered helpful suggestions which have ii
PAGE 3
been incorporated into the dissertation. The many flaws which remain are my own. Mrs. Carolyn A. Lyons of the Professional Typing Service deserves praise for her careful supervision of the typing and collating necessary to bring the dissertation to its final form. The drafting of tables and figures was done by Gary Sanders. No one has been of more help than my wife, Lois, whose clerical assistance and moral support have been indispensable in putting the dissertation together and keeping me from falling apart. I am sure that all those people just mentioned, however learned or however skilled or however dear they may be, realize that my fundamental debt of gratitude is owed to my informants. Only the necessity of preserving their privacy prevents me from thanking them each by name.
PAGE 4
TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF TABLES v LIST OF FIGURES vii KEY TO SYMBOLS x ABSTRACT xv Chapter I . THE BACKGROUNDS 1 II . COMMUNITIES AND INFORMANTS 48 Northern Louisiana 5 7 Florida Parishes 78 French Louisiana 86 New Orleans 98 Summary 104 III . INDIVIDUAL SPEECH PATTERNS 109 IV. PHONOLOGICAL VARIANTS 14 7 Prosody 14 7 Consonants 149 Free Vowels 165 Checked Vowels 193 Vowels Before the Retracted Consonant 217 Unstressed Vowels 229 Summary and Conclusion 235 BIBLIOGRAPHY 244 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 251 iv
PAGE 5
LIST OF TABLES Table Page 1. Informants by Type and Age 105 2 . The Vowel Quadrangle Ill 3 . LA 8 , Lake Providence 119 4. LA 12, Vienna 120 5. LA 17, Mansfield 121 6. LA 2, Columbia 122 7. LAI, Columbia 123 8. LA 10, Jonesville 124 9. LA 11, Jonesville 125 10. LA 14, Natchitoches 126 11. LA 15, LeCompte 127 12. LA 16, LeCompte 128 13 . LA 29 , DeQuincy 129 14 . LA 28 , DeQuincy 130 15. LA 3, St. Francisville 131 16. LA 5, St. Francisville 132 17 . LA 7 , Clinton 133 18. LA 6, Clinton 134 19. LA 40, Hammond 135 20. LA 33, St. Martinville 136 21. LA 34, St. Martinville 137
PAGE 6
LIST OF TABLES — Continued Table Page 22. LA 25, Franklin 138 23. LA 20, Donaldsonville 139 24. LA 31, Cameron 140 25 . LA 37 , Grand Isle 141 26. LA 36, Grand Isle 142 27. LA 23 , New Orleans 143 28. LA 22 , New Orleans 144 29 . LA 42 , The Irish Channel 145 30. LA 46 , The Irish Channel 146 vi
PAGE 7
LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. Louisiana, showing topographical divisions and some major towns, cities, and rivers 5 2. Ratio of Catholics to Protestants 27 3. Previous dialect studies in Louisiana ^^ 4. Communities studied 58 5. The initial consonant of such words as the , those , and there ^-^^ 6. The initial consonant of such words as thing, through, and three and the final consonant of fourth -'-^^ 7. The initial consonant or consonant cluster of such words as where , when , and whip l^^ 8. The retracted consonant of such words as here , marsh , and forty '-"' 9. The vowel of such words as me, street, read, and people '°° 10. The vowel of such words as way, make, grade , and maybe ^°^ 11. The vowel of such words as stir, ohnroh, word, squirrel, and thirty 12. The syllabic nucleus of such words as bar, start, and market 13. The vowel of such words as right, wife , and nice 14. The vowel of such words as J, fry, time , and ride
PAGE 8
LIST OF FIGURES — Continued Figure Page 15. The vowel of such words as boy, choice , poison , and oysters 180 16. Mid central to low central beginning point for the vowel of such words as point, join, boil, and oil 181 17. The vowel of such words as plow, loud, down , south , and powder 185 18. The vowel of such words as law, dog, all, salt, and daughter 187 19. The vowel of such words as hoe, road, both, and over 189 20. The vowel of such words as through, boot , food, and school 192 21. The vowel of such words as bit, siak, mill, in, and pickle 194 22. The vowel of such words as leg, head, yes, tell, and better 196 23. The vowel of such words as bad, back, pan , lag , and ladder 199 24. The vowel of such words as half, grass , and chance 200 25. The vowel of such words as think, thing , and finger 203 26. The vowel of such words as men, ten , and center 204 27. The vowel of such words as lock, pot , pond, and bother 208 28. The vowel of such words as up, run , hush , jug , and himg 212 viii
PAGE 9
Figure LIST OF FIGURES — Continued Page 29. The vowel of such words as put, bull, book, and sugar 216 30. The vowel nucleus of such words as deer , here , and near 219 31. The vowel nucleus of such words as chair , bear , and aare 221 32. The vowel nucleus of such words as horse and order 223 33. The vowel nucleus of such words as door and coarse 22A 34. The vowel in the final syllable of such words as never and finger 233
PAGE 10
KEY TO SYMBOLS Phonetic Symbols Vowel Symbols Key Word (or Explanation) [ I ] fee [\] (centralized [j]) [I] fix [i] (centralized [I]) [e] French ble [£] wreck [S] bird [3] bird (in "r-less" speech) [0] (rounded [3]) [36] sack [d] (between [de.] and [CL]) [d] sock [«r] (between [tt] and [0]) [K] stuck [£] (between [A] and [d]) [)i] (between [A] and [V]) [0] hawk [O] French chaud [V] book [V] (centralized [\f])
PAGE 11
[u]
PAGE 12
[f] [V] [B] [3] [S] [z] [S] [i] [X] [h] [m] [n] [T]] [I] [+-] [r] [w] Consonant diaavitioa [ .' ] after symbol [ ' ] after symbol [~] after symbol far yery thxck hother sing 200 shucks vision German ach hope choose jury more now sing l±t cult ring wind yes Modification indicated lengthened aspirated unreleased xii
PAGE 13
[„] below symbol dental articulation [J below symbol slight voicing added [J below symbol syllabic consonant Phonemic Symbols Vowel Symbols ^^y ^^^^ l\l 111 1^1 III IZI /ae/ 1^1 lal Ml/ /3i/ /au/ /o/ IM 101 Nl l\XI three thtck hay wreck bird back pork (in "r-less" speech) sock pike hoy cow law truck over look true Consonant Symbols The same symbols are used for consonant phonemes as for consonant phones except that they are enclosed in virgules // rather than brackets [] and the symbols [4, ?, f, |3, X ] are omitted.
PAGE 14
other Symbols zero /R/ etymological /r/ ~ between items varies to
PAGE 15
Abstract of Dissertation Presented to the Graduate Council of the University of Florida in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy REGIONAL PHONOLOGICAL VARIANTS IN LOUISIANA SPEECH By August Weston Rubrecht August, 1971 Chairman: Dr. John Algeo Major Department: English The study is based on tape-recorded conversations of twentyeight informants in eighteen Louisiana communities made for the Dictionary of American Regional English. On the basis of settlement history and previous dialect studies, dealing with vocabulary, Louisiana is divided into four regions: northern Louisiana, the Florida Parishes, French Louisiana, and New Orleans. The settlement history of each community is briefly traced, and the family background, occupation, and approximate social standing of each informant is given, together with some mention of outstanding speech characteristics. All informants were native English speakers; they ranged in age from eleven to eighty-eight years and in educational level from grammar school to graduate school. Numerically, the distribution of informants was weighted toward those sixty or older and those with relatively little formal schooling. Tables are
PAGE 16
provided illustrating the range of vowel articulations found on the recording of each informant. Discussion is largely limited to those segmental phonemes which show significant variation; the aim is to describe phonetic features characteristic of each region. Maps are included for all stressed vowel phonemes and for a few consonants. In the absence of phonological distinctions, northern Louisiana and the Florida Parishes are classed together as Anglo Louisiana. The consonants showing the greatest degree of variation are /B/ and /%/, the initial consonant or consonant cluster in words like where and whip, and postvocalic /T / , the treatment of which varies in most communities and many idiolects. Among the free vowels, the phonetic realizations of / I, e, 0, Of u> / are generally upglided diphthongs in Anglo Louisiana and monophthongs in French Louisiana; New Orleans speech shows characteristics of both regions. The vowel nuclei /a.1, 01 J au/ show varying degrees of regional variation. Variation in /
PAGE 17
which etymologically have a vowel followed by /r/ are considered to be in a separate subsystem. Vowel contrasts are reduced in that environment, and usual articulatory placement is not the same as before other consonants. The low back vowels present especially difficult problems here. Most unstressed vowels fall naturally into one of three groups: /l / or /e/ or / 3"/ , the last of which is limited in its occurrence in the same way as postvocalic /T/. Additionally, a few distinct back vowels were found in unstressed syllables. Patterns characteristic of French Louisiana have not spread far outside it; on the other hand, the speech of informants in French Louisiana communities with a history of early settlement by native English speakers includes many features characteristic of Anglo Louisiana. In several respects, the English of New Orleans follows the usage of French Louisiana; in others it is more like that of Anglo Louisiana. Variation by age and social level is difficult to abstract from the data; a few trends are tentatively described, but it would require a larger number of informants to separate them from regional trends. Overall, phonological patterns in Louisiana are highly complex and subject to numerous exceptions.
PAGE 18
CHAPTER I THE BACKGROUNDS Climate and the lay of the land have no direct effect on the way people talk except insofar as they use different words for different topographical features or make comments appropriate to their own kind of weather which may not fit someone else's weather at all. But the speech of people who live on high ground is no more nor less nasal, on the average, than that of people who live in swamps, nor do people in warm climates invariably drawl. We talk the way we do because we do our best to sound like the people around us — at the very least enough like them to be understood, and preferably enough like them not to be laughed at. In our very early years, the years when basic speech patterns are formed, the people around us are our parents, brothers, sisters, neighbors, grandparents, and so forth, but chiefly our parents. Later on we include teachers and classmates among those around us, though we do not accord them all equal importance; in general, we would rather sound like our classmates than like our teachers. Later still we include the people with whom we work, trade, and attend social and civic functions. All of those people learned to talk from the people around them, chiefly their parents, who learned to talk chiefly from their parents before them, and so forth. If two groups, therefore, whose speech is noticeably different establish two communities between which there is little or no 1 -
PAGE 19
2 communication, the ancestral differences will be preserved, and the speech of those communities will remain different as long as they remain isolated from each other and from any normalizing outside influence. On the other hand, although our imitation of our parents is nearly always good enough to pass muster, it is never perfect, and over a period of generations enough drift can take place that the speech of great-grandchildren is noticeably different from the speech of great-grandparents in some respects even though the great majority of speech characteristics are preserved. So if two groups whose speech is the same establish two communities between which there is little or no communication, enough ancestral similarities will remain that it will be possible to recognize a relationship between them generations later. However, the drift away from perfect imitation of the original group will not be the same in both communities as long as they remain isolated, and it is likely that there will be noticeable differences in their speech after a few generations. The language of any speech community at any one time, then, is a development of the speech brought to that community by its linguistic ancestors as it has been modified by successive generations and as it has been influenced by late arrivals and by contact with other speech communities. Strictly speaking, it is possible and often desirable to study the speech of a particular area, large or small, without regard for any factors other than the language itself. But in a study devoted
PAGE 20
3 primarily to regional language differences, it is helpful to relate those differences to the factors which caused them or allowed them to develop. Those factors depend on settlement history, and settlement history depends on politics, climate, and the lay of the land. Therefore, this study of the English language spoken in Louisiana begins with a general description of the land within the state boundaries. The land may have no direct effect on the language, but it does help to determine where successive groups of newcomers settle and what routes they take to get there. Rivers serve as avenues along their length, speeding commerce and promoting communication between settlements along their banks. On the other hand, very often they form barriers to travel across them, isolating communities away from their banks on opposite sides. Rich land easily reached commonly attracts the first immigrants available. Poor land difficult of access may be settled only when a later wave of immigration, perhaps from a different source, creates a new demand for homesites. To these geographical factors, government adds political ones, encouraging settlers from one source, banning those from another, and assigning a particular area to those from a third. Out of the balance of these trends and influences comes what might be termed the character of the population of a given region; language both influences and is influenced by that character. The State of Louisiana lies in the south central United States at the southern end of the great Mississippi Valley. Shaped roughly
PAGE 21
4 like a boot with the toe pointed eastward (see Figure 1) , it is bounded on the south by the Gulf of Mexico, on the west by Texas, on the north by Arkansas, and on the east by Mississippi. The richest and generally the most thickly populated areas of the state are the river valleys. The flood plain of the Mississippi extends from the northeastern corner of the state southwards through New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico, and that of the Red River runs from the northwest corner of the state southeastwards to join the Mississippi near the midpoint of its course through the state, forming a broad, slanting Y of rich, silty land that is renewed every time the rivers flood. Native timber in the river bottoms is cypress, gum, and oak, but most of the timber has been cleared now to make room for crops, and levees have been erected to hold back the floods. In the southern part of the state, where the climate is warm enough, sugar cane is the principal crop on this kind of land. Further north, where cotton was once almost the only crop, soybeans now cover as much acreage as cotton and seem to be gaining in importance. This kind of land was cultivated most profitably in colonial times by slave labor, and the plantation style of agriculture became dominant there. Although machines have now taken over much of the work formerly done by slaves and mules, large plantations still take up a substantial percentage of farming land and Negroes still outnumber whites in most parts, so that the delta land is often called Louisiana's Blaak Belt.
PAGE 22
5 Swamp end ^iver Botfow K3 Pincy Wood J Marihland Q Prairie Figure 1. Louisiana, showing topographical divisions and some major towns, cities, and rivers.
PAGE 23
6 South and west of New Orleans, the Black Belt is widened considerably by a number of streams leading away from the Mississippi on their own branching courses toward the gulf and by independent bayous whose banks rise far enough above the surrounding swamps to support agriculture. An odd feature of the landscape, more noticeable the farther south you go, is that the land slopes aWay from the riverbank, so that very often cultivation is possible only within a half mile or so of the river or bayou on either side. After that the land becomes too swampy for crops and since the water level in the swamp is almost as variable as that in the streams, the fields are protected from flooding by levees on both sides. Outside these cultivated areas, the swamps of southern Louisiana are as truly wilderness as any area in the country. In the northern part of the state, between the limbs of the Y formed by the flood plains of the Mississippi and Red Rivers, is a roughly triangular area of fairly high ground. The land is sandy and rolling, with red clay subsoil. It was originally forested with pine or a mixture of oak and pine. All the virgin timber has been cut, but much of the area has been reseeded to longleaf, loblolly, and slash pines, so that forestry is still important there. Land not covered by extensive governmentor corporation-owned forests is given over to small farms. Plantations were never profitable there although a great deal of cotton was grown on homesteads otherwise devoted to subsistence farming.
PAGE 24
7 A similar stretch of piney woods forms an irregular crescent along the Texas border from near Shreveport, in the northwest corner, to just northwest of Lake Charles, near the southwest corner. Pine forests in this section were logged so thoroughly that the parishes (corresponding to counties in other states) along the Sabine River are often called the "cut-over parishes." They have been reseeded, though, and by 1968 they were mostly piney woods again. Some areas are still bare enough to be used as pasture for sheep and cattle, and large farms in this section are called "ranches," not "plantations." Subsistence farming was the way of life of most of the first settlers. South and southeast of this stretch of piney woods lies an extensive prairie which reaches from the Texas line just north of Cameron Parish eastward to the Mississippi flood plain some forty miles west of Baton Rouge. This area is laced with cypress swamps and river bottoms, but stretches of plain grassland are surprisingly wide. The whole area is suitable for grazing, and has long been one of the chief rice-producing areas of the country. South of this, in a wide swath along the coast, are coastal marshes so nearly level that their gradient must be measured in inches rather than feet, even for distances of several miles. Around the edges of the fan-shaped Mississippi Delta south of New Orleans, extending roughly from the Atchafalaya Bayou eastward and northward around to Lake Pontchartrain, these marshes are built up from recent alluvial deposits and stretch farther into the sea every year. Like
PAGE 25
land in the swamps further north, the ground slopes away from stream banks, and may be built up enough along the Mississippi and the larger bayous to support the cultivation of sugar cane. Otherwise the inhabitants of the marshlands support themselves by catching and selling muskrats, nutria, and crawfish in the marsh and by guiding duckhunters through it. West of the Atchafalaya, the alluvial deposits are older and have been augmented by the action of waves on the gulf, which has left long, low ridges in the marsh, called ohenVeves because they were originally covered with oaks, called chenes in French. Cultivation of crops is not practical here, but cattle graze widely on the marsh grass. All along the gulf coast, shrimp, oyster, and menhaden fishing are important occupations, and oil, salt, and gas deposits are contributing to increased industrialization. North of New Orleans lies Lake Pontchartrain, and north of Lake Pontchartrain and east of the Mississippi River lies another stretch of rolling ground originally forested with a mixture of oak and pine. In this area plantations and small farms may be found side by side — neither system seems to dominate, although some of Louisiana's finest antebellum plantation homes may be found there. Around the northern shore of Lake Pontchartrain truck farming is common. The whole area was once a part of the province of West Florida and is consequently usually called the Florida Parishes.
PAGE 26
9 Such a rich and varied land, lying at the mouth of one of the largest rivers in the world, was sure to attract explorers and adventurers eager to claim its wealth for themselves and their countrymen. The remnants of Hernando de Soto's Spanish expedition were probably the first white men to enter the region now know as Louisiana, but it was Pierre de La Salle, a Frenchman, who claimed it for his country. Since then, men of many other lands have come, either to establish permanent homes or to get rich and leave, and the governments which have ruled the land have been almost as varied as the people who settled it. It was in 1682 that La Salle, on behalf of France, laid claim to the land drained by the Ohio, Mississippi, and Missouri Rivers, together with territory encompassing the present states of Alabama and Mississippi, the western half of Georgia, and the northwest third of Florida. The area of this original claim was almost half that of the present contiguous United States. Actual French settlement of this vast territory was confined almost entirely to the southeastern third of the present state of Louisiana, however. On November 3, 1762, Louisiana was ceded to Spain. At the same time Great Britain acquired the rights to all of the original claim lying east of the Mississippi River. Details of the transaction were kept secret until 176A and no Spanish governor was provided until 1766. Wlien the United States gained independence in 1783, the new nation acquired that part of the original claim then
PAGE 27
10 held by Great Britain except for a strip along the gulf coast south of latitude 31°, which was ceded back to Spain; this area was called West Florida, and extended from the River of Palms, south of the present site of Tampa, westward to the Mississippi River. In 1800 Spain retroceded to France all of the colony of Louisiana, except for West Florida, by the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. Terms of this treaty were not made known until just before the famous Louisiana Purchase of 1803, by which the United States acquired the colony of Louisiana. After the West Florida Rebellion of 1810 that part of West Florida between the Mississippi and Perdido Rivers was added, later to be divided among the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Subsequent boundary settlements established the northern boundary of the state of Louisiana at 33° north latitude and extended its western border to the Sabine River. Statehood was granted in 1812,^ %ost of the information in this paragraph and the one preceding it can be found in concise form in Frank Bond, Historical Sketch of "Louisiana" and the Louisiana Purchase (Washington, 1912). See also Binger Hermann, The Louisiana Purchase and Our Title West of the Rocky Mountains (Washington, 1900). Detailed accounts may be found by checking under relevant dates in Alcee Fortier, A History of Louisiana (New York, 1904), and other standard histories. A good general view is presented in Edwin A. Davis, Louisiana the Pelican State (Baton Rouge, 1959). For details relating to West Florida, see especially Frederick William Williamson and George T. Goodman, Eastern Louisiana: A History of the Watershed of the Ouachita River and the Florida Parishes, eds . Frederick William Williamson and George T. Goodman (Louisville, Ky., Historical Record Association, n. d.)
PAGE 28
11 The present borders of the state, then, enclose only a fraction of La Salle's original claim, and only a slightly larger fraction of the American Louisiana Purchase. But the original areas of heavy French settlement are all within the state, together with some very old English-speaking settlements and large expanses of land that were settled in the general westward migration of Americans from the thirteen original colonies. Furthermore, the metropolis of New Orleans has always attracted more immigrants from foreign countries than any other city in the South, and the southern, predominantly French part of the state generally has been hospitable to European immigrants. Before tracing the settlement history and cultural contributions of each immigrant group, it would be well to define some of the terms that are applied to them, Louisiana's French-speaking population is from two chief sources: Colonists direct from France, and Acadian refugees from British persecution in Nova Scotia. There is some confusion over these two elements even in Louisiana and to some extent there has been a fusion of the two. But in general, the colonists from France came to the colony with the hope of advancing themselves either as planters or as merchants. Many of the planters were cadets — younger sons of prominent French families — who established large riverfront plantations worked by great numbers of slaves. They attempted to maintain the same elegant mode of life in America as in France, and to a large extent they succeeded after the lean initial years of the
PAGE 29
12 colony's establishment were passed. Louisiana's merchants were largely drawn from the merchant class of France; most of them lived in New Orleans, which became the trade and cultural center of the colony not long after it was founded in 1718 and has renained so from that time forward. The merchants sent their sons to school not only to learn the mercantile skills of writing and ciphering, but to give them a little polish; most of the merchants hoped to acquire land and become planters, but, failing that, they hoped at least that their sons would do so. Descendants of any of these French immigrants are called Creoles y a term that is properly applied to the later Spanish colonists as well. In popular usage Create also means a person of mixed blood descended from Latin colonists and Negro slaves, and outside French Louisiana the word is applied loosely to anything frenchified in the southern part of the state. In this study, however, the word will be reserved for white descendants of French and Spanish colonists, since that is the definition preferred by historians, museum guides, newspaper editors, and others who pretend to some learning. Where distinctions are appropriate, the terms Frenah Creole and Spanish Creole and Creole Negro may be used. The term Acadian, the colloquial or derisive form of which is Caj'un, will be reserved for those colonists who settled first in what was then called Acadia but is now called Nova Scotia. They fled to Louisiana after being driven out of Canada by the British. The
PAGE 30
13 adjective French will apply loosely to both Acadians and French Creoles when distinctions between the two are unimportant, as in French Louisiana, which includes all the areas where the French language and French customs were predominant, whether most of the settlers came from France, the French West Indies, or Nova Scotia. The term Anglo as used in this study will apply to English-speaking groups and the cultural features associated with them, whether they originated in Ireland, England, the English colonies, or the United States. Each of these groups has added something to the character of Louisiana's population; the settlement history of each group, together with some account of the way of life they followed in the colony, will be discussed in turn, beginning with the earliest. Frenchmen began to arrive in Louisiana at the time of the first settlements at Biloxi and Mobile in 1699. They found the land already occupied, though somewhat sparsely, by tribes of Indians. There were about twenty separate tribes, but only six distinct linguistic groups. The boundaries of their respective territories cannot be traced with precision, but in general the Chitimachas inhabited the gulf coastal region from fifty miles west of the mouth of the Mississippi to Vermilion Bay. The Atakapas lived west of there along the coast into what is now Texas. The Caddos occupied northwestern Louisiana, eastern Texas, and southeastern Arkansas. The Tunicas lived on both sides of the Mississippi above the mouth of the Yazoo River. Most of the Siouian tribes lived to the north,
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14 outside the limits of French settlement, but there were isolated groups of them at Biloxi and near the Tunicas. The territory of the Muskhogeans included land on both sides of the Mississippi from its mouth up to the junction of the Yazoo River and extended eastward to the Carolinas. ^ The Indian tribes have left no linguistic descendants and very few genetic ones. During the settlement of Louisiana by people of European descent, the tribes were either exterminated or transported to the Indian Territory. Those individuals who remained intermarried with people of other races, so that two groups of mixed lineage, Redbones and Sabines, constitute the lineal descendants of Louisiana's original inhabitants. Sabines seem to be mostly Negro and Indian with some trace of Caucasian blood; Redbones are thought to represent a more nearly even mixture of the three races. ^ None of the Indian languages are spoken any longer in Louisiana, and though they have contributed hundreds of place names and a few loan words to the state's vocabulary, they have had no discernible effect on its phonology. The French and Acadians , on the other hand, established their language as the official one for the territory, maintained its use even after the colony was taken over first by Spain and then by the ^Paul A. Kunkel, "The Indians of Louisiana, About 1700 — Their Customs and Manner of Living," The Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 34 (1951), 176. ^Thomas Lynn Smith and Homer L. Hitt, The People of Louisiana (Baton Rouge, 1952), p. 45.
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15 United States, and have influenced the English of Southern Louisiana to such an extent that it is considered a separate dialect. Their history is long and complex. For the first dozen years or so, colonization of the new territory was carried out under the direct supervision of the French Government. Then, in 1712, Antoine Crozat was granted a commercial franchise over the entire colony, with the responsibility for its development and the right to its wealth. At that time, the population, including 100 French and 75 Canadian soldiers, 28 families of colonists, 20 Negroes, and sundry officials and clerics, was about 400.^ The difficulty of recruiting more colonists of suitable temperament and training was one ^of the factors which caused Crozat to fail to turn a profit. The very early immigrations included a high percentage of soldiers and adventurers, an insufficient number of farmers, and a very low percentage of women. In order to bring about a more favorable balance between the sexes, the French Government sent a number of recruits from the brothels of Paris, together with ladies guilty of petty thefts and other misdemeanors. In fact, one historian declares that "of the 1,215 women who had come to Louisiana from October, 1717, to May, 1721, most of them were nothing, alasl but 'fallen women' or little better. . . ."^ ^Charles Gayarrd, Histoire de la Louisiane (New Orleans, 1846), I, 96. ^Translated from Emile Lauvri^re, Histoire de la Louisiane Frangaise, 1673-1939 (Baton Rouge, 1940), p. 210.
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16 The practice of recruiting miscreants was seen to be unhealthful for the colony, however, and disappointing to the male colonists, who in many cases preferred to go on consorting with the Indians. A happier, if partial, solution to the problem was the importation of a group of orphan girls, each provided with a small casket containing clothes and personal items, who were entrusted to the care of the Ursuline Nuns in New Orleans until such time as they were married. These ninety-eight filles de la cassette were commonly accounted to be of unimpeachable virtue, and must have been fabulously prolific, for descendants of these girls have spread all over southern Louisiana, whereas it is practically impossible to find anyone who traces his ancestry back to one of the much more numerous filles perdues. The heart of early French settlement is New Orleans, but the French spread, mostly along rivers and bayous, over a considerable portion of that part of the original colony which has become the state of Louisiana. They established plantations along both sides of the Mississippi from the first solid land upstream from Manchac, on the east bank west of Lake Pontchar train. From there the river was largely unsettled until the vicinity of Pointe Coupee, on the west side of the river above Baton Rouge. Many traveled up the Red River past Natchitoches as far as what is now the southern part of DeSoto Parish. They spread, somewhat thinly, up the Black and Ouachita Rivers toward the present Arkansas line. In much greater concentrations.
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17 they spread south from New Orleans along the bayous running away from the Mississippi on their independent routes to the gulf; the two main routes were the Atchafalaya and the LaFourche. And spreading westward from there, some crossed the Atchafalaya basin to the upper reaches of the Teche, around St. Martinville. Immigrants from France outnumbered all others during the French domination — that is, until 1766 — and they continued to come in during the Spanish period. The Spanish were liberal in their immigration quotas, and admitted large numbers of Acadians and English-speaking immigrants as well as Spanish settlers, along with colonists from France and the French Caribbean colonies. After the United States took possession in 1803, immigrants from France came in fewer numbers than from other colonies. In the northern parts of their area of settlement, the Creole culture which the French established has been overwhelmed by the Anglo; in the western parts it has blended with the Acadian; and even south and east of New Orleans, where it was once dominant, the tradition of French literacy and culture once so proudly maintained has died out. Some idea of what the Creole culture was like in its prime may be gained from a description made by the Spanish official Don Francisco Bouligny to his government in 1776: After the first ten leagues from the mouth of the river, the lands on both sides are cultivated, and the concessions are generally from 500 to 600 yards front, by 2400 yards in depth. The planters generally cultivate their land only 600 or 800 yards from the river, leaving the rest for pasture, and contenting themselves with cutting the wood that abounds in the rear.^ ^Fortier, II, 27.
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18 And later in the report, after speaking of the robustness, skill in agriculture, and extreme courtliness of Creoles in general, Don Francisco goes on to say: The greater number of the planters who live in the vicinity of New Orleans are the most refined people in this country. Many of them were officers during the French domination, and some are decorated with the cross of St. Louis; the others are merchants also, who, having earned a certain wealth, have invested it in Negroes and a patch of ground. ^ . . Generally, the people prefer to live in the country. . . . New Orleans schools taught in almost nothing but French in 1788, and in the country parishes— that is, everywhere except New Orleans and its suburbs — absolutely nothing but French was spoken except in isolated communities inhabited by cohesive groups of immigrants from other European countries, notably Germany and Spain. Even so, most of them learned French in order to trade with their Creole and Acadian neighbors. The second group of French-speaking immigrants, the Acadians, began to arrive in appreciable numbers about 1764. Originally, most of them seem to have come from Normandy and Brittany. They left there in the early days of the French colonization of Canada, beginning with the colony of New France in 1603, and settled in what is now Nova Scotia, which the French colonists called Aoadie . After the British took possession of Canada they found the presence there of French-speaking Catholics objectionable. British officials called ^Fortier, II, 34.
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19 meetings of Acadian heads of families at Grand Pre and at Ft. Edward on September 2, 1755, confiscated their arms, and arrested them. Then they began a policy of expulsion. It seemed to make little difference to the British where the exiles went, and they seem to have made positive efforts to disrupt communal and personal ties among them. Not only were lovers separated, as in Longfellow's "Evangeline," but families too were split apart, some never to be rejoined. Some of them went to the New England colonies and further south, where they fared a little better than in Canada and eventually were absorbed into the population of what was to become the eastern United States. Some returned to France, others went to the Caribbean. But a sizable number made their way to Louisiana, where their own language was spoken and their own religion practiced. Although by the time they began to arrive in peak numbers, Louisiana was a Spanish colony, they were welcomed and given land; they settled on it, flourished, and became one of the strongest cultural influences in the French part of the state. Since most of the land near New Orleans was already taken, the Acadian grants were mostly north and westward from the settled Orleans district. In February, 1765, a boatload of 193 who arrived in New Orleans from temporary refuge in Santo Domingo were sent to the Opelousas district. In May of the same year 80 were sent to the Corinne L. Saucier, "A Historical Sketch of the Acadians," Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 34 (1951), 72-73.
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20 Attakapas district, which had St. Martinville, on the upper T&che, as its defense outpost. In the same month, 48 families were given lands in both districts. More than a year later, 216 Acadians who had been residing in Halifax were granted land on both sides of the Mississippi as far north as Baton Rouge and Pointe Coupee.^ According to a 1787 census, the population of Acadians had reached 1,587 in a little less than 25 years. ^ These first settlements set the pattern for allocation of land to the Acadians; the Attakapas and Opelousas districts were the centers where they settled first and the regions from which they and their descendants migrated when the land became crowded. Often, too, planters and speculators persuaded them to sell their riverand bayou-front homesteads, which then became parts of large-scale cane and cotton holdings. Thus shunted to less desirable swamp and marshland, the "Cajuns" learned to extract what they needed from the wilderness, and became trappers and fishermen. They were the ones who exalted the lowly crawfish, or "mudbug," as it is often called, from its early status as emergency protein to a favored delicacy. They were the inventors of gumbo, a soup that may be made from almost anything and usually includes almost everything. They were thrifty, hardy, fun-loving people who were devoutly religious, worked, played and made love with equal enthusiasm. They named their offspring with complete abandon, using pseudoGrecian names and sometimes giving children in one family ^Fortier, I, 153. ^Fortier, II, 115-116.
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21 names all beginning with the same letter. Love of the race and the family were deep-rooted in the Acadians, as evidenced by their great respect for relatives and long periods of mourning for the dead. With few exceptions, they belonged to the Roman Catholic religion; yet had faith in crop signs, weather signs, and folk remedies. Their use of English was amusing and picturesque, a mixture of English and French, a disregard for the correct use of gender of words, and a dialect which was repetitive of certain words for emphasis.^ A third French linguistic group was important in the early history of Louisiana. It came from three sources: the slaves of the Creoles, which included Negroes imported directly from Africa, who learned French from their masters in Louisiana; other Negroes imported from Santo Domingo, who already spoke creolized Caribbean French when they came to Louisiana; and descendants of these groups, themselves born in Louisiana. In general, their language was a modified form of French, simpler grammatically and phonologically than the standard language. At present called Nigger French, it can still be heard in St. Martin Parish and no doubt in other locations in French Louisiana as well. A great many folk beliefs characteristic of French Louisiana can be traced to this group of immigrants. The practice of voodoo especially, which reached its highest development in the West Indies, owes its existence in Louisiana today to the Santo Domingan slaves who brought it there. ^ African languages have contributed some loan words to the Louisiana vocabulary, most of them, like gumbo and voodoo , related to ^St. Martin Parish Resources and Facilities , by the St, Martin Parish Development Board (Baton Rouge, 1950), pp. 8-9. ^Davis, p. 112.
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22 African cultural contributions. African influence on Louisiana English phonology is hard to assess, but is certainly less than in the Gullah dialect of the Georgia and South Carolina coast and may be no greater than that of Indian languages. Eventually, quite a niimber of slaves bought their freedom; a few amassed wealth and acquired plantations of their own. They called themselves Creates of Cotor or Coloved Creoles and established their own social circle in New Orleans. Some sent their children to France and Spain to be educated. So linguistically and culturally, though never socially, the Negro population of French Louisiana merged with the white toward the upper ends of their respective social scales. With the combined weight of Creole and Acadian settlements, the French language was so firmly entrenched that the Spanish, when they took over the government, never succeeded in introducing their language except in courts of justice, and, even so, French was still used in municipal courts. Finally, after more than a century and a half of American statehood, English has taken root in all parts of Louisiana, but for many years English-speaking and French-speaking groups remained aloof from each other. The Creoles were prompted by aristocratic bias and a firm Gallic conviction that nothing which is not French is quite civilized, the Acadians simply by the fact that they outnumbered everybody else in most areas where they settled and had no need until recent years to learn any other language. In fact, Irish and German settlers after a couple of generations in the
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23 Attakapas and Opelousas districts often gallicized their names, forgot their native tongues, and even claimed Acadian descent. But perhaps it is unfair to accuse the Creoles of disdaining the company of new arrivals purely from aristocratic bias. There is some evidence that they were no more snobbish than their American counterparts. John F. Watson, who arrived in New Orleans on May 26, 1804, writes in his diary: "Ladies in this country never visit strangers first. All expect to be visited by the ladies newly arrived. Our ladies will not yield to this seemingly awkward position, and therefore they pass without native society."^ Further on, he notes: "The French, Spanish, and Americans here keep very separate society. The Americans congregate much together, and the French, except in business, keep much aloof; but I enter into society freely among them, and find them very friendly and agreeable." The twentieth-century Louisiana French are still very friendly and agreeable, and much less aloof than those of the nineteenth century. Even so, the fusion of English and French elements of the population has been slow. The Creole French were socially a distinct group until after 1900, and the assimilation of the Acadians has been even slower. In 1933, when transportation by road and automobile was just beginning to supersede transportation by bayou and boat in southern Louisiana, the Acadian inhabitants of the state could be divided into three groups. ^Fortier, III, 27. ^Fortier, III, 31.
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24 Those who lived in small to\.ms came into frequent contact with Englishspeaking Americans. Consequently most of them could speak some English, and an educated minority were fairly well Americanized. A second group engaged in tenant farming on large plantations. Most of them necessarily spoke some English, but were generally less well acculturated to prevailing American language and customs then their fellows in town. The third group lived along bayous and in swamps and made their living from little garden plots and from trapping, hunting, and fishing. They commonly spoke little or no English and were isolated from Englishspeakers most of the time.-^ Their language was both a cause and a result of their social isolation. It is incomprehensible to Englishspeakers and different enough from Creole French to make communication difficult. There was little pressure to overcome the language barrier because the backwoods Acadians, often called "levee-dwellers," were self-sufficient for meat and vegetables and traded their fish and furs to French-speaking local merchants.^ In the thirty-five years between 1933 and 1968, a number of important changes have helped to break down the barriers which kept Acadians isolated. The process had in fact begun earlier; H. W. Gilmore noted that improved road systems and public schools were breaking down language barriers, and that the military draft of World ^H. W. Gilmore, "Social Isolation of the French Speaking People of Rural Louisiana," Social Forces, 12 (October, 1933), 81. ^Gilmore, p. 81.
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25 War I had broken down barriers to social change by intruding upon the Acadians ' traditional provincialism.^ All these influences — highways, schools, and the military — have continued to operate with even greater force since 1933. In addition, the discovery and development of oil, gas, salt, and sulfur reserves has brought increasing numbers of English-speaking newcomers to southern Louisiana. A number of the men who came to work the mineral deposits have been fortunate enough to marry Acadian girls and make Louisiana their permanent home. The combination of increased travel, schooling, and social mixture has tended to make the Acadians more Anglo in culture, outlook, and language. Except for the very most backwoodsy levee-dwellers, almost all of them speak at least some English, although in some areas English is a second language for nearly all adults. English is gaining rapidly, though, and French is losing ground so fast that it is not uncommon to find grandparents who do not speak English whose grandchildren do not speak French, The English spoken by native French-speakers is often as picturesque as it is commonly reputed to be; their children usually have less of a French accent, but share with their parents certain features of phonology, syntax, and intonation which mark the English of French Louisiana as distinctive. The area of modern-day French Louisiana is based on cultural rather than genealogical criteria, for as noted above, many people who consider themselves French are really descendants of immigrants ^Gilmore, p. 84.
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26 from other countries, and many people of French descent have been absorbed into the Protestant culture of northern Louisiana. Figure 2, which gives the ratios of Catholics to Protestants in the population, by parishes, gives a graphic picture of the area covered by the term French Louisiana. Since nearly all the French were Catholics, and since nearly all Anglos (except the Irish, who settled by and large in New Orleans) were Protestant, this map can be considered a map of French Louisiana. Although the linguistic contribution of the Spanish was comparatively meager, they nonetheless figure importantly in the early history of Louisiana. By the time they took over the government of the colony in 1766, the French were firmly established. Yet Spanish architects became quite popular in New Orleans. Most of the old buildings in the French Quarter — the original city of New Orleans — show the stamp of Spanish influence. The spiciness of Creole cookery is usually attributed to the Spanish, who generally preferred their food more highly seasoned than the French did. While keeping the basic framework of French government, the Spanish made many modifications in the legal system, most tending to liberalize French policies. Some of these modifications found their way into the present legal system of the state, which incorporates a good many holdovers from colonial days. As noted before, however, the Spanish never were able to establish their language in general use. Louisianians came to tolerate and even admire the Spanish government, but
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27 over «'3 Catholic EI ''2 to »/3 Cdtholic *'i to */j Proteitanr over '''J Protestont Figure 2. Ratio of Catholics to Protestants, (Adapted from Smith and Hitt, p. 136.)
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28 they would not speak the language. French became the home language in households with one French and one Spanish parent, so that children seldom learned Spanish. It maintained a tenuous existence only in the courts and among pockets of Spanish settlers in various parts of the colony. The difficulty of establishing their language was not eased by Spanish immigration quotas — or lack of quotas, really. Anxious to bring the land under cultivation and make it produce, they cared little where settlers were born as long as they worked the land, obeyed the laws, and paid their taxes. It was during the period of Spanish government that most of the Acadian French came to Louisiana, and most of the old Spanish land grants in the northern part of the state were given to people with English names, probably mostly westward migrants from the United States. Yet where substantial Spanish settlements were made, the immigrants were not absorbed into the dominant culture as readily as some other European groups — the Germans, for example. In 1778 and 1779, a number of immigrants were brought to the colony at the king's expense, notably from the Canary Islands, but including people from Malaga and elsewhere. The earliest group settled at Terre-aux-Boeufs , at Galveztown on the River Amite, and at Valenzuela, on Bayou LaFourche.^ Some of those who came in 1779 went to the Bayou Teche below St. Martinville and formed a settlement at ^Davis, p. 120. ^Fortier, II, 60.
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29 New Iberia. Others swelled the niimbers of Galveztown, which has since passed out of existence. These settlers were called Isteflos or IslengueSj and most were poor and ignorant, a tradition carried on among their descendants. By the beginning of the twentieth century, when Fortier's history was written, they spoke both Spanish and the Creole patois, and some of the children had begun to learn English. Early in 1968 there were still a few descendants of Spanish settlers who could speak Spanish, but it will not be many years before they are gone, and with them will go Louisiana Spanish. Since it has apparently never been a prestige dialect, even during the Spanish domination, it has contributed few loan words to modern Louisiana English, and has had no appreciable effect on phonology except among members of the Spanish-language enclaves. The most important linguistic group in Louisiana now, the English-speakers, arrived comparatively late. During the time the French ruled Louisiana, England and France were at odds, and part of the time at war, so of course not many Englishmen settled where the French were in power. Besides, at that time there was plenty of land in the English colonies. That is not to say that Englishmen never went under French rule, or that they had any objections to squatting on territory owned but not patrolled by the French. There were a few British merchants in New Orleans while the French still ruled it, and other British subjects occupied land north of New Orleans, where the French never really succeeded in establishing their authority. An English settlement was made at Manchac, on the east
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30 bank of the Mississippi between Baton Rouge and New Orleans; and Baton Rouge itself, though the name is a French translation of an Indian word, was essentially an English town before France ceded Louisiana to Spain. After the cession, but before Spain took control, Englishmen on their way upriver to one of these posts would often stop just past New Orleans to carry on a surreptitious trade with the citizens, which was tolerated because it was good for the economy. The Spanish, when they took control, were more favorable toward British immigrants. English-speaking merchants began to increase in numbers in New Orleans, so that by 1775 there were enough merchants from New York, Philadelphia, and Boston who sympathized with the eastern colonists' struggle for independence to figure fairly importantly as suppliers of arms and ammunition to the revolutionaries.^ The Spanish Governor Don Estevan Miro was liberal in his treatment of the English; when West Florida, including the present Florida Parishes, was returned to Spain from British rule in 1783, he allowed them extra time to move away, beyond the eighteen months specified by treaty, and in 1786 he allowed them to remain if they took an oath of fidelity.^ It was at this time too that large land grants were given in what is now northern Louisiana, and, as mentioned earlier, most of these grants went to people with English names. Gayarre, II, 127, Fortier, II, 18. Fortier, II, 112.
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31 Even so, English-speakers made up a small minority of Louisiana's residents before the United States came into possession in 1803. In 1801, a representative of France reported to Bonaparte that almost all of the Louisianians were either born in France or were of French origin.^ Even after 1803 the increase was fairly slow, and American immigrants did not really begin to arrive in earnest until after statehood was granted and the War of 1812 had been won. Census records taken at the time the United States took possession show most of the population remaining in what is now the French portion of the state. The Washita or Ouachita district contained only 361 persons, Rapides had 753, Baton Rouge had 1,513, and Natchitoches had 1,631. The latter two were about average for the country parishes; yet these four were the only areas listed for the region within the present boundaries of the state that were outside present French Louisiana. They total 4,058 inhabitants compared to 37,955 for the southern wedge of marsh and swamp parishes. And no doubt a large number of those living even in these fringe areas, especially the districts of Rapides and Natchitoches, were French. Those in the Baton Rouge district, known also as New Feliciana, were mainly descendants of British colonists to that area, or else were direct immigrants from Great Britain or the States. ^Fortier, II, 208. ^Figures from Fortier, II, 301.
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32 The relatively uninhabited districts in the northern part of the state filled up rapidly after the War of 1812, the tide of migration reaching its high point some twenty years before the onset of the Civil War. According to Fortier, the population north of Red River and west of the Ouachita increased from 2,000 in 1830 to 14,000 in 1845. -^ Almost all of these people were from Louisiana's sister states; it would be impossible to trace all the routes they took, or establish all the early family connections between Louisiana and other parts of the country, but certain important trends can be established. For the past 120 years, settlement patterns have been chronicled in detail mainly in scattered regional and parish histories of varying thoroughness and accuracy. It will be best to reserve such of these as are available for background information on the 18 communities included in this study. An adequate overall view — in some ways superior to detailed tracing of individual settlements — has been presented in The Peopte of Louisiana, a population study by Thomas Lynn Smith and Homer L. Hitt, referred to on page 12. Using the 1880 census, when state-of-birth data was provided for residents of each parish, Smith and Hitt give a picture of the flow of migrants from different parts of the country into different parts of Louisiana. 1880 may be somewhat late for application to the initial wave of migration following the War of 1812, but a good many Fortier, III, 177.
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33 people who came between 1830 and the Civil War would have still been alive in 1880 and would show up in the figures. At any rate the figures should serve as fairly accurate indicators of general migration trends. Except for Orleans Parish, which attracted more non-Louisianians than any other, the northern parishes received more immigrants in the years prior to 1880 than did the southern, primarily because more land was available there, but perhaps also because overland access from farther east was easier. The general trend in the settlement of the American West was for pioneers to move westward in parallel corridors, keeping more or less on an even latitude. Another trend, less commonly recognized, was for migrants to seek out the same type of soil, water, and vegetation in their new homes that they had left behind in their old. Reasons for this were partly sentimental, but partly practical as well, for the farmer who found familiar surroundings could be fairly certain that the crops and farming practices he was accustomed to would produce when he had cleared his new farm and begun to cultivate it.^ It is to be expected, then, on the basis of latitude, that most of Louisiana's early settlers should have come from Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, and on the basis of topography that immigrants from those states should choose areas of Louisiana similar to their home counties. No data is available to confirm ^ Frank Lawrence Owsley, Plain Folk of the Old South (Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 53-54.
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3A the second element of the general trend, but the first part is amply illustrated by the 1880 census data and by the general trend of census studies from 1870 through 1890. Over the entire state, a little less than one fifth of its American-born residents in 1880 were born outside Louisiana. The most important states, in order of number of emigrants to Louisiana, were Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, Georgia, South Carolina, Texas, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Tennessee. The prominence of Virginia and Kentucky on the list is attributed to their status as producers of slaves. Most natives of those states probably went as slaves to the delta-land Black Belt, where the plantation style of agriculture was practiced. Both states" are well represented all along the Mississippi from the Arkansas line to the gulf, and in the cane-growing region south and west of New Orleans. Natives of those two states were also found in the plantation sections of the Florida Parishes. Native Virginians, but not Kentuckians, show up prominently along the Red River Valley. Texas figures so high as a source of newcomers to Louisiana because of its proximity to the western parishes, which contained the bulk of native Texans residing in Louisiana. Most of these migrants moved only a few miles, representing no more than a diffusion within the general westward-moving trend. ^Smith and Hitt, pp. 207-208.
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35 The other states which contributed a major share of Louisiana's nonnative population in 1880 exhibit this westward trend. Mississippi, directly east of Louisiana and bordering the Florida Parishes on two sides, gave up settlers to its sister state in the same way Texas did to parishes along its state line. However, Mississippians moved west more often than Texans moved east, so that their importance is greater both numerically and proportionately in the eastern parishes than is that of Texas in the west. They make up, on the average, more than half the American immigrants all down the Mississippi Valley to Baton Rouge and in the Florida Parishes. Their numerical contribution is greater than that of citizens from any other state in the southwestern and central portions of Louisiana, including the prairies, the southern half of the western piney woods, the middle Red River Valley, and the southern part of the northcentral piney woods. In other portions of the state they are still well represented, but somewhat less so by comparison. Natives of Alabama settled mostly in the northern parts of Louisiana. They concentrated especially in the northern portion of both stretches of piney woods, but they settled in the river deltas as well. Some drifted into southwestern Louisiana along the western crescent of sandhills and pines. Georgians and South Carolinians concentrated in the northwestern corner of the state. North Carolinians migrated mostly to the south central parishes in a broad band stretching westward from New Orleans and curving northwards.
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36 reaching as far as Rapides Parish, which lies along the middle stretch of the Red River Valley. Tennesseans were not among the five most important groups of immigrants to any one parish, although they were among the top nine in the state as a whole. All parts of Louisiana, then, received new settlers during the American period of development from a variety of other states, but the mixture varied from region to region. The Black Belt was favored by planters from the coastal South, who brought in so many slaves from Virginia, Kentucky, and elsewhere that in most parts of the Mississippi and Red River Valleys Negroes still outnumber whites. Piney woods areas were settled by former residents of the inland South and of the coastal South in varying proportions. The marsh and prairie lands of southern Louisiana were already inhabited by French-speaking people when America purchased the colony; therefore immigration was lighter after 1803 in those areas than in other parts of the state. For some unknown reason, settlers from North Carolina were relatively more numerous in French Louisiana than in northern Louisiana. English, the language spoken by these migrants from other American states, has become the standard legal and commercial language all over Louisiana. In much of northern Louisiana, no other language ever competed with it, so that inhabitants of those areas, except, of course, the departed Indians, have always been native English-speakers. Along the borders of original French settlement.
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37 in Natchitoches and Rapides Parishes, for example, the use of French was abandoned so long ago by all except a handful of families that English has been practically the only language used for more than a century. The relative position of French and English in French Louisiana has already been discussed. In addition to Americans who moved to Louisiana after statehood, foreign immigrants entering the port of New Orleans have settled in many parts of Louisiana, most frequently in New Orleans itself. Besides the Germans who settled the German Coast above New Orleans while it still belonged to France, many of their countrymen have come since it became American to find homes and establish well-kept farms or practice trades. Most of them have not retained their national language past the first generation in America. The same can be said for the Italians, who settled by and large in New Orleans and other coastal cities. A number of Scandinavians pioneered along the Ouachita River during the Spanish period, and later groups moved in to parishes along the gulf coast. Irish immigrants flocked to America in the mid-nineteenth century, and New Orleans received its share; from 1850 to 1860 they outnumbered all other European groups entering the port of New Orleans.^ The chief effect of these diverse groups of European immigrants has been to give to present-day southern Louisiana an ^Gtimbo Ya-Ya, by The Writers' Project, Louisiana (Cambridge, Mass., 19A5), pp. 51-52.
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38 overall cosmopolitan character, with typically American and typically foreign cultural features existing side by side with those unique to the state itself. In most areas their direct effect on English speech has not been great, compared to that of French, but it would be a mistake to assume that they have had no effect at all. In certain parts of New Orleans, especially, the melding of foreign accents seems to have produced a dialect distinct from that of the predominantly French or predominantly Anglo parts of the state. A brief review of the sources of Louisiana's population suggests certain predictions concerning the English spoken there. None of the American states from which people moved into Louisiana in greatest numbers lies any farther north than Virginia and Kentucky; over all this region, the English spoken is classified as either Southern or Midland. People in the eastern sections of Virginia and the Carolinas speak the variety called Southern. People in Kentucky, Tennessee, northern Georgia, northern Alabama, and the western parts of Virginia and the Carolinas speak the kind of English called Midland. Most of these areas use the subvariety usually thought of as characteristic of the Southern hill country, called South Midland. Speech patterns in Mississippi and the rest of Georgia and Alabama are somewhat more complex. Apparently, the prevailing regional variety there was originally Southern. Later on, speakers of South ^Hans Kurath, A Word Geography of the Eastern United States (Ann Arbor, 1949), pp. 11-49.
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39 Midland moved southwards along watercourses and other avenues of travel, introducing their speech forms wherever they made up a substantial part of the population. As a result, Southern and South Midland speech forms occur side by side in varying relative frequencies in corridors across central Georgia and along the Tombigbee River in Alabama and Mississippi.^ The date of these secondary migrations is not precisely known; they probably occurred over a period of time before and during the peak of American migration into Louisiana in the 1830s and 40s. We can reasonably expect, then, that the English speech of Louisiana should include a mixture of forms and features characteristic of Southern and South Midland regional varieties, with very little influence from Northern or North Midland American English. We should expect, furthermore, that South Midland characteristics should be better represented in the piney woods than in the river-bottom plantation regions and, conversely, that Southern features should be proportionately more frequent in plantation areas. It is also reasonable to expect that the English spoken in the predominantly French Parishes in the southern part of the state should have been considerably modified by its intimate contact with French. As has been shown by previous research discussed in the remainder of this chapter, most, but not all, of these predictions turn out to be true in regard to the word stock. ^Gordon R. Wood, "Dialect Contours in the Southern States," Ameriaan Speech, 38 (1963), 243-256.
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40 It is the aim of this study to find out whether or not they hold true in regard to the phonology. Gordon R. Wood found that dialect patterns west of the Mississippi are fundamentally different from those in the Southeast. Isoglosses west of the river reveal, instead of corridors, irregular patches with varying mixtures of Southern and South Midland terms. No evidence was found that a once uniform speech region has been penetrated by newcomers bringing a new word stock; rather, it appears that alternate terms for the same things existed side by side from the days of earliest settlement and that usage has not yet become stabilized. Wood's study deals only peripherally with Louisiana, but the tendencies he outlines are confirmed for the northern part of the state by two related word studies. First, the area investigated by E. Bagby Atwood's The Regional YooabulcxPij of Texas'^ included much of Louisiana. Summarizing isoglosses are provided for approximately the western two thirds of the state. Aside from a fairly heavy bundle of isoglosses dividing ^In addition to the Amevtcan Speech article cited above, findings from his study have been published in "An Atlas Survey of the Interior South," Orbis : Bulletin international de Documentation linguistique , 9 (1960), 7-12, and in "Word Distribution in the Interior South," Publication of the American Dialect Society, No. 35 (April, 1961), pp. 1-16. ^Austin, 1962. ^See especially the map on p. 97 of Atwood's book; maps 119125, pp. 249-255, delimiting the extent of individual words, are also relevant.
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41 French from Anglo Louisiana, which will be discussed separately, isoglosses for the area investigated demonstrate an irregular pattern of distribution. Some lines tend to separate Texas from Louisiana, except for Beauregard and Vernon Parishes. Others tend to separate Texas and southern Arkansas from Louisiana; both tendencies are fairly weak. Within the northern part of Louisiana itself, dividing lines are weaker still. A few irregular patches occur where one or another combination of regional words prevails, but except for a bundle representing 6 or 7 lines between Lincoln and Natchitoches Parishes, the prediction that dialect differences should appear between piney woods and river bottom areas is not confirmed. No correspondence between dialect and topography comparable to the corridor of Midland admixture along the Tombigbee River was discovered. In a more intensive study of 26 parishes in northern Louisiana, Mary Lucile Pierce Folk,^ using substantially the same questionnaire that Atwood used for Texas, could not find evidence for even such hazy isoglosses as the Texas study was able to demonstrate. She found that age, education, and community size were more important than geography in determining the form which occurs in the speech of a particular informant. The best way to describe the speech of the region she investigated is simply to say that some Southern and some Midland words are in general use, but that in many or most cases ^"A Word Atlas of North Louisiana," Dissertation, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1961.
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42 usage is divided, without any strong regional differences in frequency. Southern words that predominate are mosquito hawk, clabber, light bread, chittlins , see-saw, rail fence, and the calls to horses to make them stop or go.^ South Midland words in general use are armload, sock cow, so cow, whinny, cling peach, side meat, coal bucket, scuttle, faucet, kindling, till (in expression of time), dove (preterit of dive), and dumb .^ The entire list of words of divided usage is too long to reproduce here; some examples, with the South Midland word given first, are: tow sack — croker sack, freestone — clear seed, skunk— -pole cat, and Merry Christmas — Christmas gift.^ Though matters of pronunciation were secondary to the lexicon in her study, Folk did report that pronunciation in northern Louisiana generally exhibits more South Midland features than Southern.'* Phonological differences between hill and lowland sections were only slightly more evident than lexical ones, but a slight preponderance of the Southern loss of postvocalic /T / in the plantation parishes along the Mississippi was demonstrated. One important limitation of Folk's study should be pointed out; no ^Folk, p. 276. ^Folk, p. 276. 3 Folk, p. 277. Folk, p. 278. 5 Folk, p. 54.
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43 Negro informants were included. If Negroes had served as informants in proportion to their percentage of the population, it is likely that a somewhat greater number of Southern features would have been found in the Black Belt. Even if such a distinction could be demonstrated, the differences would be small compared to the differences between the northern and southern parts of Louisiana. Differences between north and south Louisiana were not shown in Folk's study; her investigation reached no further south than the 31st parrallel, which forms the northern boundary of the Florida Parishes. (See Figure 3.) As noted before, however, Atwood's study of Texas dialects lapped over into western Louisiana. Furthermore, an investigation conducted by Mima Babington, one of his students, provides information for six parishes in the Bayou Lafourche area, originally settled and still largely populated by Acadians. Orleans Parish was included as well in order to provide a control sample from an area originally peopled by Creole French. In the article based on that study, ^ it is shown that southern Louisiana is essentially a separate dialect area from the rest of the South. Compared to Texas, Arkansas, and northern Louisiana, regional terms from other parts of the country are infrequent. In southern Louisiana the bookish harmonica^ corn on ^Mima Babington and E. Bagby Atwood, "Lexical Usage in Southern Louisiana," Publioation of the Ameriaan Dialect Society y No. 36 (November 1961), pp. 1-2A.
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44 Figure 3. Previous dialect studies in Louisiana. A. Area investigated by Mary Lucile Pierce Folk. B. Area investigated by Mima Babington and E. Bagby Atwood. C. Isogloss bundle after E. Bagby Atwood, The Regional Voaabulary of Texas , p. 97.
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45 the Goh , parents, and toad are used three times as often as in Texas, where the usual words are French harp , roasting ears , folks , and toad-frog (p. 10). More to the point, a number of terms distinctive to the area were found, along with some others that have spread into surrounding regions from there. Some of the words that are fairly well limited to French Louisiana are kiyoodle I kai I U d I / (worthless dog), get down (get out or off a bus or car), boudin / bud 96 / (a kind of sausage), and gris-gris /qriCJTI / (hoodoo charm). Southern Louisiana words found in bands of varying widths around the wedge of French parishes are pvrogue / n 1 pO ~ pCTOQ/ (small boat), banquette /baenkit / (sidewalk), armoire /arrr\Wa'P~'QTn^/ (large article of furniture also called a wardrobe), and bayou, /bai jLL~'bci.lO~ bai^/ (small , sluggish stream) . At least one Louisiana word, gumbo (soup containing okra) , has gained national currency. The evidence demonstrates convincingly enough that southern Louisiana constitutes a separate speech region, but the area covered in the study is not large enough to indicate its boundaries. A heavy S-shaped line drawn by Atwood from southwestern to central Louisiana (see Figure 3) can reasonably be considered the western part of the boundary. It represents a bundle of eight or more isoglosses revealed by Atwood 's Texas questionnaire. Babington's ^Examples selected from Babington and Atwood, pp. 11-12,
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46 questionnaire, designed to elicit a number of additional items distinctive to the region, would no doubt thicken the bundles, though it might diffuse them as well. The location of the boundary as it extends eastwards from Rapides Parish can only be conjectured. Since, however, the part that is known corresponds closely to the boundary between Protestant, or Anglo, and Catholic, or French Louisiana, the best conjecture is that it continues to correspond, extending southeastwards through New Orleans to the Gulf of Mexico (cf. Figure 21). Consideration of settlement patterns leads to the supposition that the speech of the Florida Parishes is probably more like that of neighboring Mississippi, which is chiefly Southern,^ than that of northern Louisiana. Actually, lexical field work done in connection with the recordings for the present study indicates a strong admixture of Midland forms there, too, especially around Hammond, in Tangipahoa Parish. The single most important fact about Louisiana's English speech can be expressed by Gordon R. Wood's observation concerning the interior South in general: dialectal patterns have not become stabilized. In southern Louisiana, French is clearly receding; as it does, it modifies the English that replaces it. Bilingual parents pass on some of their English errors to their monolingual children. Then in communities where those errors become general they cease to be errors, changing instead into dialectal characteristics. In those parts of the state ^Wood, "Dialect Contours," pp. 251-252.
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47 where English has been the only language in common use since pioneer times, forms from two varieties of American English still exist side by side not just in the speech of communities but of families and individuals. It was not uncommon during field work for this study to find second or third generation neighbors who differed markedly in the treatment of postvocalic /t/, for example, or in the allophones of /a6,/ before bilabial fricatives and nasals plus consonants. Sometimes such differences were found in families in which husband and wife used different patterns, as in Catahoula and Rapides Parishes. Informants often gave multiple responses demonstrating at least a recognition knowledge of words characteristic of both Southern and South Midland vocabularies, and not infrequently they used the terms interchangeably with little or no differentiation of meaning. The fact that such examples of divided usage are more common in Louisiana than in the coastal states where American dialect study began must be kept in mind throughout the remainder of this study.
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CHAPTER II COMMUNITIES AND INFORMANTS The communities and informants for this study were selected to provide representative samples of local and regional native English usage for the Diotioncanj of American Regional English, abbreviated DARE. Eighteen communities were chosen to represent Louisiana out of one thousand allotted to cover the entire United States. Ideally, it would have been desirable to use only one informant in each community, since only one questionnaire was done in each, but very often two or three or more had to be located in order to obtain all the data sought in a reasonable length of time. To assure the validity of the data certain criteria for the choice of communities and informants were set up. These criteria will be explained before communities and informants are discussed individually. The number of communities chosen in each state was proportionate to an adjusted population figure for the state. An example was given in the orientation and instructional material given to fieldworkers: For example, in Florida, using 1910 population figures, we would allot only 8 informants; using 1964 figures we would have to allot 27, since the population has been almost septupled during this period. Actually we will compromise on 19 informants. In Mississippi, on the other hand, where population has decreased 48 -
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49 relatively during this period, on 1910 figures we would have had to allot 19 informants, by 1964 figures only 12; actually we will compromise on 15. By this device we seek to take account of the conservative part of the population as being relatively less mixed, more stable, hence in speech expectably more traditional. The number of communities to represent Louisiana is based on the fact that its population of 3,257,022 is near the average for the nation; no adjustment was required, since the rate of population growth for the state has been close to that for the nation as a whole. The communities were chosen by Dr. F. G. Cassidy, Jr., director of the project, and Mrs. C. A. Mohr, historian on the DARE staff, who also furnished fieldworkers with a few paragraphs of background material on each community. In general, the aim was to pick old, stable communities that would be representative, socially, economically, and linguistically, of the general area of the state in which they were situated. Old communities are usually along early migration routes, or are themselves centers which immigrants have come to and gradually moved away from, spreading their influence, linguistic and otherwise, to areas surrounding them. An old, stable community, without a history of rapid turnover of population, is likely to contain at least some descendants of its first settlers and provide the best hunting ground for informants who fitted DARE requirements. The ratio of urban and rural communities for the study is based on the ratio of urban and rural inhabitants, according to the ^"On the Choice of Communities and Informants for D.A.R.E." (mimeographed sheet, n.d.).
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50 1964 United States Statistical Abstracts. There, the definition of urban is very broad, including communities of 2,500 and more. Since 63.3% of the residents of Louisiana were urban by this definition, ten urban and eight rural communities were chosen. In choosing informants to represent those communities, it was not considered necessary to confine the search to persons actually residing within the political boundaries of the named village or town. As Professor Cassidy explained: Community, in our sense, does not, of course, correspond to corporate limit of a town or other governmental unit. If a man lives higher up the road but still trades at the village and goes to the village church, he belongs to that community linguistically (assuming he is a native). One cannot even be sticky about this unless one knows that there are two communities living near-by which consider themselves distinct from each other. For example; Cajuns and non-Cajuns.^ Actually, for various reasons, it was sometimes necessary to find informants in other communities than the ones designated and described. For example, there was no one available in the community of Vienna who was suitable as an informant. An informant was chosen from one of Vienna's earliest families even though she considered near-by Dubach her home town, and was residing at the time of her interview in a rest home in Ruston. But both Ruston and Dubach were settled largely from the focal center of Vienna, and traditional mobility among the three communities tended to level any differences which might otherwise have arisen. All three remained effectively in one speech community. In another instance, a couple who had lived all ^From a letter to the author, November 14, 1967.
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51 their lives in one community had recently retired and moved to another. They had not moved far, and in any case had not lived away from their original home long enough to affect their speech significantly. Since they had ample time and were willing to serve as informants, they were chosen as representative of their home community. In such cases, the community originally chosen rather than the one in which the informant resided is the one described in the background material. In one case, however, a community was eliminated and another substituted. Since there are several speech patterns within the city of New Orleans, Professor Cassidy suggested that it might well be advantageous to eliminate one other urban community and use the questionnaire thus saved as a second New Orleans questionnaire. On the advice of Professors Claude Shaver, of the Department of Speech at Louisiana State University, and W. R. Van Riper, of the Department of English, Buras , on the Mississippi downstream from New Orleans, was dropped, and the Irish Channel, a section of New Orleans, was added. Just as an attempt was made to choose communities which would be truly representative of different regions within the state, an attempt was made to find informants truly representative of their communities. That meant at the very least someone born in the community who had not lived anywhere else except for brief periods. Residents whose parents and grandparents were born in the same place were preferred, but in some recently settled areas families had
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52 simply not been there long enough for such people to be available. In Louisiana this was particularly true in the north central hill parishes and in the western piney woods. In addition to the primary matter of family background, other factors were considered in choosing informants : Informants are chosen according to generation, educational and social status, and occupation. The generations are: young adult, to 39 years; middle-aged, 40 — 59; old, 60 up. We plan to have 50% or more of the old, 40% or less of the middle, and no more than 10% of the young generation. Broadly following Linguistic Atlas practice, our informants will be of three types: I — those of no more than primary school education; II — those of no more than high school education, though sometimes with more travel, reading, or the like than those of group I; and III — those with some higher education and usually an upper position in the community. Therefore, out of Louisiana's 18 questionnaires, 10 were to be answered by old, 7 by middle-aged, and 1 by young informants. In actual practice, the final and unalterable governing factor in the choice of informants was the availability of suitable candidates. In all too many instances it was not possible to pick and choose in any one community among a group of authentic local residents at various age levels and social strata who were willing to devote enough of their time to complete a questionnaire. The DARE questionnaire, designed to elicit as many vocabulary items as possible, was 325 pages long and required about a week to complete, on the average, assuming that the informant or informants had a fair amount of free time. It is not at all surprising that quite a number of prospective informants declined to commence such an undertaking. The surprising thing is that so many ^"On the Choice of Communities and Informants for D.A.R.E."
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53 were willing not only to commence, but to continue to the end. If there did happen to be more than one to choose from, it was often thought more important to choose the one who appeared to be able to furnish the greatest amount of information without regard to his age or educational level. In general, however, when it was necessary to use more than one informant on a single questionnaire, an attempt was made to have them all at the same age and social level unless a particular advantage could be gained by seeking someone of a different type. Also, since lexical items were the chief object of the search, certain minor speech irregularities, such as indistinct formation of dental and alveolar consonants caused by the lack of teeth, were tolerated although they were undesirable. Once a suitable willing informant had been found, the major part of the interview was carried out with the questionnaire, with the field worker reading the questions and recording on it the informant's answers either by circling a word or expression already on the page or writing it in. For many words, a phonetic transcription was also written in. Toward the last questionnaire session with each major informant, commonly on the last day of the interview, a tape recording was made, consisting of about twenty or thirty minutes of free conversation followed by a reading of "Arthur the Rat," a brief story designed to bring out certain features of pronunciation important to American dialectology. The main purpose of the tapes was to obtain recordings of natural, connected speech from which phonological and syntactic data could be obtained. The first requirement
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54 was to get the informant to talk naturally and easily, with as little self-consciousness as possible concerning his manner of speech. Before recording began, therefore, the informant's attention was usually directed to a topic he was familiar with and liked to talk about. The historical and cultural value of the recording was emphasized. Phonological and lexical usefulness was not hidden from the informant, but was described as being secondary to that of the questionnaire. The tapes were often mentioned as a means by which the home office could check on the field worker's accuracy. Mike fright is hard to avoid, however, when a person is unaccustomed to speaking in front of a microphone. Commonly, the speech recorded on tape is of a somewhat more formal variety than casual conversation. At times the field worker's contribution is excessive as he tries to support a faltering conversation. At other times the recording is simply shorter than desirable. Yet the practical goal of getting a large enough sample from each informant to assure a reasonably complete inventory of phonemes, function words, and basic structural patterns is reached more often than not. And the tapes are important historical and cultural documents as well. The descriptions of communities and of informants and their general speech patterns given in this chapter are intended to provide a context for the phonological tables in Chapter III. In the kind of dialectal research known as a "saturation study," such particularized descriptions would not be necessary because individual differences could be put into perspective statistically. There is much to be said
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55 for that approach: isoglosses can be precisely drawn with some faith in their validity, population subgroups can be taken into account, and the probability of error can be calculated with mathematical accuracy so that the conclusions reached rest less on the interpretative judgement of the researcher than on the voluminous mass of the evidence. Yet, considering the number of separate dialect items sought in each community and the amount of time and money allotted for field work, it was not possible or even desirable in the DARE project to achieve the kind of numerical tour de force that makes purely statistical studies possible. With suitable care in choosing subjects for study coupled with adequate background information, especially in respect to individual peculiarities of a community or an informant, relatively few samples can be counted on with some degree of assurance to present an accurate picture of the speech habits of a large region. The descriptions of communities which follow present in brief form a history of settlement and growth of each community together with the area surrounding it. A few words are included concerning its general character at the time the field work was done. Population figures, including the percentage of Negroes in the parish in which the community is situated, are from the United States Statistical Abstracts, based on the 1960 census.^ The figure for percentage of Negroes is ^U. S. Bureau of the Census, County and City Data Book, 1967 (A Statistical Abstract Supplement) (Washington, D. C. , 1967).
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56 given not because it is important in itself, but because it is a convenient index to the community's cultural type. Pronunciations listed for community, parish, and state are those used by informants. If two informants use variant pronunciations, the pronunciations are identified with the informants' code numbers. If one informant uses variant pronunciations, the pronunciations are identified by relative frequency. Descriptions of informants include general remarks on family history, age, education, occupation, and travel experience. All such material was supplied by the informants themselves. Since one purpose of the descriptions was to aid the DARE editorial staff in interpreting the questionnaires, some brief notations concerning the informants' speech characteristics were made at the time of the interviews. The nature of this study renders the greater part of those descriptions superfluous. Often, however, informants showed idiosyncratic speech features, or features characteristic of only part of their fellow citizens; in such cases the significant features are mentioned. Most places in Louisiana exhibit some kind of divided usage, so that opportunities to omit all mention of speech features in these descriptions were rare. To protect the privacy of informants, neither their names nor their initials are given; the code numbers used to identify them are the ones employed by the Dictionary for filing questionnaires, tapes, and other documents relevant to the field work. In the descriptive
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57 paragraphs that follow, the single word informant will be used to avoid overuse of the code numbers as name-substitutes. Figure 4 shows the location of each community and indicates whether it is urban or rural. Northern Louisiana Community: Lake Providence [|qiJ< p-rQ.VSclsY\S] Population: 5,781 Percent Negro: 61.0 Parish: East Carroll [Is k ae 3 I ] State: Louisiana [ I U Z 36 71 9 ] East Carroll Parish is in the extreme northeast corner of the state, and all of it is rich, flat, delta land. Lake Providence is on the Mississippi River about halfway between the north and south parish boundaries. Traditionally, mention of Lake Providence as a haven from river pirates goes back to the Spanish period, but settlement of the area did not really begin until the United States took possession. The early settlers were planters who established large cotton holdings, bringing with them Negro slaves to work the land, and importing more as their wealth grew. Once permanent settlement began there was a rather quick transition to a mellow and spacious way of living for an oligarchy of leading families and a modestly comfortable one for others. Plantations of several thousand acres soon appeared.^ After nearby Mississippi, the states have contributed the largest numbers of migrants to the population of East Carroll Parish are ^East Carroll Parish Resources and Facilities^ by the East Carroll Parish Development Board (Baton Rouge, 1951), p. 15.
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58 oManjfield Lake Providence a Vfenna D Columbia ,Natchitoch« Joneiville a Leco mptc Clinton Netv Orlfoni St. francisvilie d o Hdmmond De Qumcy St. Martinville q ^ ^^^ ^^ ^ Donaldsonville' ^^^^ Cameron Figure 4. Communities studied. Circles indicate urban communities; squares indicate rural communities.
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59 Alabama, Kentucky, and Virginia. Cotton and soybeans are now the most important crops. Most of the land is apportioned among a number of large plantations, and almost all of it lying outside the levees which is not too swampy has been cleared for growing crops. Some plantations have extensive pecan orchards as well. Informant: LA 8, Negro man, aged 54 Informant was born in East Carroll Parish, as were his mother and her parents. His father was born in East Carroll Parish, but his paternal grandparents came from Georgia. He has a tenth grade education and has done little traveling; the traveling he has done has been mostly on trips to pick up machinery or parts for his employer. He has always worked for the same man in all phases of the cotton industry from planting through ginning to baling. He is active in church work and is generally looked up to by other members of the black segment of the population of Lake Providence. When he repeated the f ieldworker 's questions, as occasionally happened when he was not sure that he understood, he would transpose them into his own dialect grammatically as well as phonetically. He does not seem to be using a more formal variety of speech on tape than he uses in ordinary conversation.
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60 Community: Vienna [ V ^i ^ Tt. 9] Population: 500 Percent Negro: 41.8 Parish : Lincoln [ I I T) k S ri ] State: Louisiana [ I u z. i seVLe]; occasionally [ I Cr I Z i i^. Tl 3 ] Lincoln Parish is in north central Louisiana, in the heart of the original oak and pine forest country of the sandhills. The tiny settlement of Vienna has been eclipsed by Ruston, less than five miles to the south. Early settlers came from lowland parts of Louisiana, which were thought to be unhealthful, and from states east of the Mississippi. For the most part the newcomers were English-speaking Protestants. Georgia and Alabama contributed more early migrants to Lincoln Parish than any other states, but people came in fair numbers from South Carolina and Mississippi as well. Vienna, founded by Daniel Colvin, was a stopping point on the stage line established in 1825 from Monroe, Louisiana, to El Paso, Texas. There are many Colvins in the area around Vienna now, but they seem to be descendants of a later group. During the period 1853-1863, eleven Colvin brothers emigrated to Vienna from the Chester district of South Carolina. This group is probably related to the founder, but evidence for the relationship is hard to find. Many of the early settlers seem to have brought slaves with them, but plantation agriculture never caught on here, and most of the area, fairly heavily cultivated, remained divided up into small farms. ^Lincoln Parish Resources and Facilities ^ by the Lincoln Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1943), pp. 9-10.
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61 Unquestionably in the Bible belt, Lincoln Parish is one of the few in the state where alcoholic beverages are not sold; Sunday hunting is disapproved of; and the Baptist church is clearly the dominant religious influence. The small farms of the area, which held their own until after World War II, are now giving way to pasture and managed forest. Informant: LA 12, Caucasian woman, aged 88 Informant was born at Unionville, Lincoln Parish, the daughter of one of the Colvin brothers of South Carolina. She has a high school education, completed in Ruston. She has lived all her life in the Ruston-Unionville area, which includes Vienna, and has traveled to Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Missouri, and Arkansas. Social contacts are mostly within the Colvin family, which includes a broad cross section of the population of Lincoln Parish. She uses bilabial fricatives for /f / and / V / ; this feature is purely idiosyncratic, caused by the absence of teeth, and has been ignored in the tabulations as not representative of the area. Formal and informal varieties of speech include separate expressions {brought up, raised) and different verb forms (preterit did or done) . There is little change in phonology between functional varieties, but pronunciations of certain words vary; note her conscious and unconscious pronunciations of Louisiana. During most of the recording, she was not aware that her speech was being recorded, and it is in a completely natural conversational style.
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62 Community: Mansfield [VTa-a€Y\Z.f"i» + d] Population: 5,839 Percent Negro: 57.5 Parish: DeSoto [diso'^Jie] State: Louisiana [1 U Z. i ^e n S] Mansfield is near the center of DeSoto Parish, which lies near the northern end of the western crescent of sandhills and piney woods, next to the Texas line. The first white men to settle there were French and Spanish Creoles who remained mainly in the eastern part of the parish where the hunting and fishing were good. Later they were greatly outnumbered by English-speaking settlers from the eastern United States, principally Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Alabama. Many of these were wealthy slaveholders, who kept mostly to the northern part of the parish. Newcomers of less means established small farms in hillier areas. DeSoto Parish was formed in 18^3 from portions of Caddo and Natchitoches Parishes; Mansfield was founded and designated parish seat in the same year as a compromise between Screamerville , preferred by the English slaveholders, and Old Augusta, a steamboat landing on Bayou Pierre favored by the Creoles.^ The old plantation families are still well represented in Mansfield and the surrounding communities, and some descendants of early Creole settlements remain as well, though no one speaks French or Spanish as a native language. Most of the Negroes still live in ^DeSoto Parish Resources and Facilities ^ by the DeSoto Parish Development Board (Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 7-8.
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63 rural parts of the parish as they did in antebellum times. Early white farmers and workmen seem to have been less settled in their habits; a great many members of the lower middle class have come here from elsewhere. Most members of the old Mansfield families have at least some college education; nearly everyone else has no more than high school. Farming has declined in recent years, with row crops being replaced by planted pines, but dairying has increased in importance. The area is dotted with oil and gas fields, which are probably at least partly responsible for attracting newcomers from other parts of the country. Informant : LA 17 ^ Caucasian womariy aged 30 Informant's mother was born in Epps , Louisiana; her stepfather and his parents were born in Mansfield. Informant herself was born in Mansfield, but lived in Shreveport, in neighboring Bossier Parish, during her first nine school years. She has a B. A. from Sweet Briar College, Virginia. She has visited most of the southern and middle Atlantic states. New England, Eastern Canada, and Bermuda. A working wife, she does advertising layouts for a newspaper and occasionally does substitute teaching. Social contacts are mainly with the better Mansfield families, descendants of plantation owners. Because of her schoolgirl years in Shreveport and her mother's birthplace in the northeastern part of the state, she might be expected to speak a more general variety of English than can be
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64 localized strictly to Mansfield. But she does pronounce mayonnaise as [iTia'l A ejz] J which does not seem to be general over northern Louisiana, though it is the prevailing form in Mansfield. She usually has postvocalic I f I , but the unstressed retroflex mid-vowel varies to schwa in some words. Intrusive /tI occurs sporadically. Her treatment of /t/ reflects divided usage around Mansfield. In general, absence of postvocalic /T/ in the southern pattern is upper class and old-fashioned. Community'. Columbia [ k al ATT\ bi 3 ] Population'. 1,021 Vevoent Negro: 27.8 Parish: Caldwell [\\^\'^ Cl\] Stai^e: Louisiana [ j vi z.i afi-TlB ^ Caldwell Parish is situated near the middle of Louisiana's northern section of piney wooded hills. Columbia is on the west bank, of the Ouachita River, which has spread a long stretch of alluvial soil through predominantly rolling sandy land. The earliest settlers to the area were Frenchmen, who migrated in small numbers up the river from French settlements along the Red and Mississippi Rivers. After 1806 they were joined by a few Danes, but there was no settlement of substantial size until the United States took possession of the Louisiana Territory. There is little specific information concerning the origin of the first Americans to settle there, but some of them,
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65 at least, must have come from Kentucky, since the first name of the settlement occupying the present site of Columbia was New Kentucky.^ According to Smith and Hitt's figures based on the 1880 population, Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, and South Carolina were the most important sources of migrants to Caldwell Parish at that time. Columbia's most prosperous period was the time when steamboats were the major transportation in Louisiana. Farmers in the wooded land to the west, where slaves were rare and there were no big landholders, bought their produce here for shipment to outside markets. The most important exports were cotton and timber. Columbia's importance as a shipping center declined when railroads superseded river traffic. There is still some farming along the Ouachita River and even on the much smaller farms in the hilly parts of the parish, but most of the land is now given over to managed forest owned by large timber companies. Informant: LA 2y Caucasian man, aged 72 Informant's mother and her parents were born here; her grandfather was one of the original French settlers in the area. Informant's father was born in Caldwell Parish; his paternal grandparents came from Mississippi. Informant himself has lived in the hilly western part of Caldwell Parish all his life, where he has engaged in patch farming and logging. He has a sixth grade education ^Frederick William Williamson and George T. Goodman, Easterti Louisiana: A History of the Watershed of the Ouachita River and the Florida Parishes, eds. Frederick William Williamson and George T. Goodman (Louisville, Kentucky, Historical Record Association, n. d.), pp. 108-112.
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66 and has not traveled any farther away than Monroe, Louisiana. As his wife jokingly expressed it, he's "been futher up a 'simmon tree than he's ever been away from home." He was extremely self-conscious about the tape recorder, so that he stammered more and paused longer when he was being recorded than in normal conversation. As a result, there are some passages that are difficult to decipher phonetically and impossible morphemically. His use of postvocalic /T / varies, but in most instances it is considerably weakened. The final syllables of, e. g., winter and Louisiana are usually phonetically distinct from each other, but the sound in winter which has been transcribed [a^J in the tables corresponds more closely in character to [ 3 ] than to [^]His pronunciation of 1^1 is closer to schwa than is usual in Caldwell Parish. Informant: LA 1, Caucasian man, aged about 40 Informant's father is LA 2 above. His mother was born in Caldwell Parish; her parents were from Mississippi. He has lived in the western part of Caldwell Parish all his life, except for military service near the end of World War II, when he was sent to the South Pacific. He has an eleventh grade education. He was a logcutter for several years, and now works for the state highway department in a district encompassing several parishes. His recording is fairly brief, consisting mostly of a reading of "Arthur the Rat," which he consented to do for his father, whose
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67 eyes were too dim to read it. Final consonants are often dropped in his speech when his voice trails off before the end of a word. This occurs especially with nasal consonants, in which case nasalization of the vowel carries the full phonemic load of the final nasal. That characteristic was not heard from either his mother or his father, but it is doubtful that is totally idiosyncratic. Community: Jonesville [ ] O^i X\ 2.\/ ^ k ] Population : 2 , 34 7 Percent Negro : 35 . 2 Parish: Catahoula [ kaSsJ B h U 1 3] State: Louisiana [ I U Z. i 36 n a ] Catahoula Parish lies in the eastern part of the Louisiana boot-top about forty miles west of Natchez, Mississippi. The northwest third of the parish includes part of the hilly north central piney woods; the remainder of the parish is flat delta land in the area where the Ouachita River bottomland joins the flood plain of the Mississippi. A number of Spanish grants were made to people with English names in the upper part of the parish. Most early settlers to the area were from Mississippi, but Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia also figure prominently. Ulster Scots, also called Scotch-Irish, must have made up a large percentage, because the A/c-section in the Jonesville-Harrison telephone book is one of the largest. A few of the early settlers were slaveholding cotton planters, but most people seem to have made their living in a somewhat more primitive fashion; fishing, hunting, and allowing their cattle and hogs to roam freely in the
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68 swamps except when almost yearly floods forced them to carry them on barges to high ground. This kind of stock-raising was characteristic of a long, roughly oval area in the Tensas and Black River bottoms of Catahoula, Tensas, Concordia, and Franklin Parishes. The town of Jonesville was laid off comparatively late — in 1871 — by Mrs. Laura Stewart Jones, who owned the tract of land on the south bank of Little River where it and the Tensas join the Ouachita to form Black River. Jonesville eclipsed an older settlement by the name of Trinity which had been established about 1833 on the north bank of Little River. ^ The old free-range swamp-grazing practices have been abandoned now. The delta land has been cleared, levees hold back the floods, and soybeans compete with cattle for the farmers' attention. Oil wells supplement agricultural income on many a farm. Jonesville is one of Louisiana's most important fresh-water commercial fishing centers. Informant: LA 10^ Caucasian man, aged 70 Informant was born in Monterey, Louisiana, a few miles from Jonesville on the other side of Black River, where his mother was also born. Her parents had come from South Carolina after the Civil War. Informant is uncertain about his father's birthplace or that of his paternal grandparents, but he knows that his father grew up in Monterey. Informant has had three years of college in the College of ^Most of the information in this paragraph is found in Catahoula Parish Eesouroes and FaoilitieSj by the Catahoula Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 10-12. See also Williamson and Goodman, p. 81.
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69 Arts and Sciences at Louisiana State University. During World War II he served as a platoon sergeant training recruits at Camp Taylor, Kentucky. During the period 1919-1933, he traveled to work in various oilfields, mostly in Louisiana but also in Arkansas and Texas. Since 1933 he has been living at Jonesville and operating his farm there, raising cattle, soybeans, and cotton. He showed little trace of his college training in his speech, apparently preferring to conform to the most common speech patterns around Jonesville. His main deviation from the usual speech of the area is rather heavy nasalization, which seemed more noticeable in conversation face to face than on tape. Vowel length and tempo are moderate. Postvocalic IT I is weakened or lost, which is not typical of the northeastern hilly parts of the parish, but seems to be a feature typical of the bottom lands. Folk found that the Southern pattern without postvocalic It I predominates in Catahoula Parish.^ Informant'. LA 11, Caucasian woman, aged 67 Informant is the wife of LA 10 above. She was born in Monterey, Louisiana, where her mother and maternal grandparents were born. Her father and his parents were born in Woodville, Mississippi. She lived in Harmon, Louisiana, from 1918 till 1922 and in Grand Bayou, Louisiana, from 1922 till 1933 before coming to Jonesville, where she has lived ever since. She has a B. A. in education from Northwestern State ^Mary Lucile Pierce Folk, "A Word Atlas of North Louisiana," Dissertation, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1961, p. 54.
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70 College, but her travels have been limited to visits in the neighboring states of Texas and Mississippi. Most of her life she has taught second grade, but for a time taught eight grades in a one-room school. Though her speech normally includes a few nonstandard verb forms, it is closer to standard than the average for the area. Articulation is clear, and her speech is not strongly nasalized, as is her husband's. Community: Natchitoches [ T\ ack 3 t a § ] Population: 13,924 Percent Negro: 43.6 Parish: Natchitoches ["n^eksta^] State: Louisiana [l"\/I2.i X. r\. B ] As noted in the preceding chapter, Natchitoches was the first permanent settlement in what is now Louisiana. It was situated at the highest point of navigation on the Red River, and served during French ownership of Louisiana as an outpost against Spanish encroachments eastward. Spanish ownership of Louisiana after 1765 promoted the growth of Natchitoches, however. In the first French census, taken in 1722, the population was 34. In 1776, roughly ten years after the Spanish took possession, it was 457; in nine years more it had risen to 756.^ The King's Highway ran east and west through Natchitoches, carrying traffic between Natchez, Mobile, and Texas, and the river gave access to New Orleans and from there to the east coast and Europe. Steamboat navigation, which began in 1824, promised to make Natchitoches ^Natchitoches Parish Resources and Facilities ^ by the Natchitoches Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, n. d.), p. 8.
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71 the second most important city in the state, but the Red River changed its channel, leaving the city five miles away from its new course. Furthermore, government engineers succeeded in removing the log jam which had formerly blocked navigation upstream from Natchitoches, allowing traffic to proceed as far as Shreveport, which soon took over second place in the state's commerce. But Natchitoches has not given up its position as cultural center; the Americans who came after 1803 were mostly rich and cultivated planters who blended their own heritage with that of the Creoles as they assimilated it. Though French is not spoken in Natchitoches as a native language, there are, just as in New Orleans, constant reminders of a Latin past. The residents of Natchitoches tend to look upon other sections of the state, with the exception of New Orleans and Baton Rouge, as somewhat boorish and backward. Cotton has always been the chief product of the rich riverbottom soil of the area, though now soybeans compete for first place in importance. Cattle, corn, and potatoes are also widely grown. Tobacco and indigo, important crops in French and Spanish days, are no longer grown in commercial quantities. Informant: LA 14, Cauaasian man, aged 57 Informant's mother was born on a plantation near Natchitoches; she represented the seventh generation of her family there. Informant's father and paternal grandparents were born in Natchitoches; before that, the family had come from Homer, Louisiana. Informant himself was born
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72 in Natchitoches, and except for the years when he was away at college, has always lived there. He received a B. A. from Northwestern State College in Natchitoches, an M. A. from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and has done further graduate work at the University of Texas. He is a newspaper editor and publisher. He has traveled to Europe, the Bahamas, and all parts of the United States except New England and the Pacific Northwest. His conversational speech is the language of well-bred ease, clearly articulated but not overprecise, moderate in tempo, with grammar that is unfailingly standard Southern. On tape he uses not quite the manner of casual conversation, but a somewhat more formal variety, approaching the style of a classroom lecture presentation. Community: LeCompte [ I a k aM Tit ] Population: 1,485 Percent Negro: 30.3 ^ , Parish: Rapides [TSapldz,] ^ State: Louisiana [ I VI Z i ae Yl 3 ]LA 15 , [ I U Z ?€> n B ] LA 16 LeCompte is located south of Alexandria in Rapides Parish, which is near the center of the state not far from the apex of the triangle formed by French Louisiana. LeCompte itself is near the edge of the Red River delta where it borders on the western crescent of piney woods. Settlement in the area traditionally goes back to a Spanish Franciscan mission established in 1690, said to have been disbanded by the French. The first completely documented settlement was the Post du Rapide on Red River, established in 1723 or 1724, which
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73 was still only a frontier outpost when the Spanish took over the colony in 1766. Under the liberal Spanish rule of the latter part of the eighteenth century many people moved into central Louisiana from the American colonies. The original French and Spanish settlers were soon in the minority and as a whole their identity was lost. The immigrants gradually settled in small groups — ^Virginians on the upper end of Bayou Rapides or Bayou Jean de Jean near Boyce; Marylanders at the rapids and along the lower section of Bayou Rapides; South Carolinians in the vicinity of Cheneyville. New England, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and Kentucky were represented in small settlements along the river and bayous. LeCompte, which was one of the earliest settlements in the parish, was not incorporated until 1900. Its first settlers were cotton and sugar cane planters who came shortly after the Louisiana Purchase.^ It remains chiefly an agricultural center to this day; soybeans now compete with sugar cane and cotton, and on the hilly lands to the west there are a number of nurseries. Though on the edge of French Louisiana, LeCompte is decidedly Anglo in character. Only in the past twenty years have French families moved in appreciable numbers from their settlements some twenty or thirty miles to the south. Informant: LA 15 j Caucasian man, aged 75 Informant's mother was born in Rapides Parish of parents from South Carolina. His paternal grandparents also came from South Carolina, ^Rapides Parish Resources and Facititiesy by the Rapides Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1947), p. 10. "^Rapides Parish Resources and Facilities, pp. 9-11, 17-18, 25-26.
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74 but settled in two or three spots in Louisiana before making their permanent home in the Cheneyville-LeCompte area. Informant's father was bom en route. Informant himself was born in LeCompte and received a sixth grade education there. He farmed there until the age of 73, when he went into retirement in Alexandria, the parish seat, some twelve miles from LeCompte. As a young man, he traveled as far away as Colorado following the wheat harvest, and since then has vacationed in Florida and Texas . His grammar is nonstandard most of the time. Postvocalic ITJ is usually absent or greatly weakened. Informant: LA 16, Caucasian woman, aged 72 Informant is the wife of LA 15 above. Her mother was born in Rapides Parish. Her maternal grandfather came from Mississippi, and her maternal grandmother was born in Rapides Parish. Informant's father was born somewhere in Louisiana, but his parents came from Mississippi. Informant herself was born in LeCompte and lived there until age 70, when she moved to near-by Alexandria. She had a sixth grade education and has traveled to Florida and Texas on vacation. She grew up on a farm and has been a farm housewife since her marriage. She and her husband belong to the Methodist Church, one of the two most prominent in the Parish — the other is the Baptist. Her taped speech is somewhat more careful than unguarded conversation. Even in most casual conversation, though, her articulation is quite clear. Grammar is nonstandard much of the time, even
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75 in fairly formal circumstances. Although there are sporadic exceptions, she usually has postvocalic IT I after all vowels. This difference between her own and her husband's speech points up the difficulty of drawing hard and fast isoglosses in Louisiana, since noticeably different speech features may exist side by side. Community : DeQuincy [dlKwiTltsi ] Population: 3,928 Percent Negro: 20.8 Parish: Calcasieu [ k aTv k a ^ U ] State: Louisiana [ I U Z i 3e Tl 9 ] DeQuincy is culturally but not geographically a part of northern Louisiana; it lies near the southern end of the western crescent of piney woods. Though it is in Calcasieu Parish, it is economically and culturally more closely connected to Beauregard Parish, which surrounds it on three sides. First settlers in the area were Frenchmen who came during the Spanish domination, but they were soon joined by people with such names as Moss, Ryan, and Rigmaiden. Until 1819, when the Sabine River was officially established as the western boundary of Louisiana, they paid taxes to the Spanish Governor at Nacogdoches, Texas, but the area was actually part of a neutral strip of ground, unpatrolled by either Spanish or American soldiers, and it became a haven for Indians, felons, and runaway slaves. Pioneers continued to arrive, before and after the boundary question was settled, and enough came from other states to the east that the first church in the area was a Primitive Baptist Church founded in the Big Woods
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76 settlement in 1828. Lumbering was the only early industry, and most of the old settlers practiced subsistence farming, raising everything they needed except coffee, and usually bartering for that with eggs or moss. After the Civil War there was a great influx of northern and middle western migrants into Lake Charles, but in the whole Calcasieu-Beauregard area, including DeQuincy, settlers from Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia were more nxomerous , along with those who crossed over the Sabine from Texas. ^ DeQuincy seems to be a continuation of the original Big Woods settlement; many people from the older community moved there for the economic advantages of being next to the railroad. In DeQuincy 's early days it was a rip-roaring frontier town with a strip of saloons where gunfights occurred nearly every week. Now it is a quiet, friendly place where once again many of the residents make their living in the timber from replanted forests which cover much of the area of the original virgin stands. Informant: LA 29 ^ Caucasian man^ aged 76 Informant's father was born some twenty miles from the present site of DeQuincy along the Calcasieu River. His mother probably came from Mississippi or Alabama. Further family history is not available. ^Calcasieu Parish Resources and Facilities, by the Calcasieu Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1945), pp. 10-13. Substantially the same information is recorded in Beauregard Parish Resources and FacititieSj by the Beauregard Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 7 ff. Beauregard Parish was originally only a part of Calcasieu Parish.
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11 Informant himself was born in Big Woods, Louisiana, moved to DeQuincy before the age of twenty, and has lived there ever since. He attended school to the third grade, and has visited only the neighboring states of Arkansas, Mississippi, and Texas. He is a meatcutter by trade. There is little social stratification in DeQuincy, and he mixes socially with most of the older residents of the area. His speech is heavily nasalized. Tempo and vowel length are slower than average. Grammar is usually nonstandard, and while making the recording he did not seem to be striving for a more formal variety of speech than he uses in ordinary conversation. Informant: LA 28, Caucasian woman, aged 68 Informant is unrelated to LA 29 above. Her father was raised in Big Woods, Louisiana, but she is uncertain about his birthplace or that of his parents. Her mother was an orphan from Lake Charles, the Parish Seat of Calcasieu Parish. Her foster parents were probably born in that area. Informant was born in Big Woods, Louisiana, and moved to DeQuincy before she was married. For a few years she lived in Port Allen, just across the river from Baton Rouge. She has a seventh grade education, and has not traveled outside the state except just across the Parish line into Texas. She enjoys gardening and crocheting as well as attending gospel singings in the community. Her speech is somewhat nasalized, but not so heavily as that of LA 29. Tempo is fairly fast and becomes faster when she reads.
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7i She was a little self-conscious in front of the recorder and seemed to try to be a little more formal grammatically than she would have been in natural conversation. Her phonology was probably very little affected, if at all. Florida Parishes Cormunity: St. Francisville [Sent friesesvlg'l'] [S9e frae.T\sasvtsf] Population: 1,661 Percent Negro: 66.1 ^ ^ , Parish: West Feliciana [WdS ^sliSseTie], LA3; State: Louisiana [ 1 U Z i ^T» B ]^ LA 5 West Feliciana Parish lies along the east bank of the Mississippi River in the northwest corner of that part of Louisiana known as the Florida Parishes. There is some delta land, but most is low, rolling, sandy land originally covered with pines. St. Francisville is beside the Mississippi about halfway between the southern boundary of the parish and the Mississippi state line, which forms the northern boundary of the parish. This section was never heavily settled by the French, although the first plantation in what is now West Feliciana Parish was owned by a Frenchman named LeJune. During the American Revolution, however, a large number of pioneers, many of them from North Carolina, settled along the river above Baton Rouge, forming what came to be called the district of Feliciana. At that time it was a British possession, and most of these families came both to escape persecution by their revolutionary neighbors and
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79 to avoid fighting against their native land. By and large, they were rich slaveowners whose mode of life was ease and elegance. According to an antebellum account by Captain Richard Butler, from Pittsburgh, they rivalled the finest that the East had to offer: I visited with eleven different families in my stay. I was much astonished to see the style (truly elegant) they lived in. They are, in fact, all rich. Some of them own as many as two or three hundred slaves and elegant farm stock innumerable, and so near to New Orleans, which is a fine market for their produce. It is a great advantage as they can secure all the luxuries that a seaport affords. The two principal towns in the area were Bayou Sara and St. Francisville. St. Francisville was the center for the wealthy landowners; they went to church there and traded there. Bayou Sara, on a batture below St. Francisville, was inhabited by tough riverboatmen, roustabouts, and frontiersmen.^ It has now disappeared as a separate town, though residents still call the part of St. Francisville nearest the river by the old name of Bayou Sara. Except for a few fishermen along the Mississippi and many of the merchants in St. Francisville itself, nearly everyone in the parish has a heritage dating back within the community to plantation days. Negro descendants of the original slaves outnumber white descendants of the original planters. Pecans, cotton, soybeans, and vegetables, especially sweet potatoes, are the principal crops of West Feliciana, but the most ^Williamson and Goodman, Eastern Louisiana^ p. A81. ^French /ba.tyr/, English /blfita^/, a Louisiana word meaning a riverbank formed of relatively recent alluvial deposits. ^Williamson and Goodman, pp. 479-A86, 501. Also see Alc6e Fortier, A Hietory of Louisiana (New York, 1904), III, 40.
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80 important reminders of the plantation heritage are the many old plantation houses that remain there, some of them restored and open to touring guests, some of them still being used as residences. Informant: LA 3^ Caucasian man, aged 53 His mother's forebears come to West Feliciana Parish from South Carolina and Georgia about 1800. His great-grandmother was a pupil of John James Audubon when he was a tutor at the Oakley Plantation near St. Francisville. His father's ancestors came from the Carolinas about 1800; one of them figured prominently in the West Florida Rebellion of 1810. He has lived in or near St. Francisville all of his life except for one year in Florida in 1926 and a term in the Navy during World War II. He has a high school education and has traveled extensively within the United States and into Canada. Informant's grammar is standard. In most respects, pronunciation corresponds rather closely to standard usage in other parts of Louisiana and the South in general. But the phoneme /K/ sometimes approaches /X/, and /S / sometimes is backed toward /5 /. Comparison with other members of the community indicates that these features are idiosyncratic, and not part of the usual pattern in St. Francisville. Informant's speech manner on the recording is somewhat more formal than casual conversation. Informant: LA 5, Caucasian man, aged 41 Informant's mother was born in the part of St. Francisville formerly known as Bayou Sara. His father was born at Cat Island,
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81 eighteen miles up the river. Further family history is not available. Informant has lived in St. Francisville most of his life, but for twelve years lived in Baton Rouge, where he works in an oil refinery. Before moving there and subsequently returning to St. Francisville he was a commercial fisherman. He has an elementary school education, and has not traveled away from the Mississippi-Louisiana area. Since the primary purpose of the interview with him was to uncover terminology applicable to fish and fishing in this part of the state, the recording does not include "Arthur the Rat." His use of a smooth (not inglided) raised variant of / 1 / before nasals in stressed monosyllables is somewhat of a puzzle, since it was not heard in any of the other communities in Louisiana, nor from other speakers in this one. The feature may be idiosyncratic, or it may be characteristic of a certain social level along this part of the river. Acadian influence is evident from his practice of redoubling of adjectives as an intensive device — bumpy-bumpy means very bumpy — as well as by his treatment of interdentals in unstressed words like the^ that^ with, and so forth. Cormunity: Clinton [kliT\t"n] Population: 1,568 Percent Negro: 54 v . , Parish: East Feliciana [IS faluziaeTie] State: Louisiana [ ) U Z i SC "n a ] East Feliciana Parish, one of the Florida Parishes, lies immediately south of the Mississippi state line about sixty miles northeast of Baton Rouge.
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82 The early history of East Feliciana Parish is much the same as that of West Feliciana; the two were not divided until 1824, when the site of Clinton was chosen for the parish seat. Much the same kind of plantation elegance was the rule in what is now East Feliciana Parish as in the older areas along the Mississippi. There was, however, a larger percentage of Northerners in the very early settlements in the eastern part of the original district of Feliciana. Later migrations were much the same in the two areas. During the middle of the nineteenth century, East Feliciana became an important educational center for women. The Clinton Female Academy was established in 1832, Silliman Female College in 1852, and Millwood Female Institute in 1866. None of these institutions is still in operation, but the influence they had on their students and on the community as a whole is still felt. As in West Feliciana, the black population is much larger than the white, and in general the blacks did not begin to enjoy the educational benefits the area had to offer until recent years. Informant: LA 7^ Negro man, aged 76 Informant's mother was born in East Feliciana Parish; her parents probably came from Mississippi. His father was born in East Feliciana Parish; paternal grandparents came from Amite County, Mississippi. Informant himself has always lived in the southeast Williamson and Goodman, pp. 516-518.
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83 portion of East Feliciana Parish. After attending school as far as the fourth grade, he left off schooling to work on a plantation. He now owns a small farm and a cane mill where he grinds cane and makes syrup for himself and his neighbors. He is one of the most respected members of the Baptist Church which he attends, and is respected by Negroes and whites alike in Clinton. Final consonants are often lost as his voice drops to an inaudible level at the end of a word. Final / d / in weak preterits is especially subject to loss, because of the marked weakening of final unstressed syllables. His tempo is very slow. Final or preconsonantal /m / and / Ti / are often represented solely by nasal coloring of the vowel, and this tendency seems to be growing stronger in later generations, since it is much more noticeable among his grandchildren than in his own speech. None of these characteristics was observed in the speech of more privileged members of Clinton society. Informant: LA 6y Negro woman^ aged 72 Informant is the wife of LA 7, above. Her mother was born in East Feliciana Parish; her maternal grandmother was half white and one quarter Indian. Informant's father was born in East Feliciana, but the family history is not known farther back than that. She has always lived in the southeast part of the Parish, where she went to the fourth grade in school. She has never worked as a domestic, but has been a farm housewife since her marriage.
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84 The stressed vowel in a two-syllable word like daddy is often lengthened, and the second syllable correspondingly shortened and weakened. This lengthening and shortening is more noticeable in her speech than in her husband's, and is more noticeable yet in the speech of their granddaughter. Community: Hammond [hsdrn a t» d ] Population: 10,568 Percent Negro: 33.8 Parish: Tangipahoa [taeY>JipaKoY] State: Louisiana [ | U Z i ae ^ 9 ] ; occasionally [ \v iz'\ i^ r\ ^ ] Tangipahoa Parish lies near the middle of Louisiana's Florida Parishes, extending from Lakes Maurepas and Pontchartrain northwards to the Mississippi state line. There was once a French settlement at the mouth of the Tangipahoa River, but it appears to have died out early in the nineteenth century. Spanish land grants were made along the Tangipahoa River for almost its entire length. The area away from the river was largely unsettled, however, until after the United States took possession of West Florida. Hammond lies away from the river, near the middle of the parish. Its first settler was Peter Hammond, a native of Sweden, who established a farm at the present site of Hammond in 1825. When the Jackson Railroad was built in 1854, it crossed the Covington-Baton Rouge Highway on his property. Hammond's Crossing, as it was first known, became a rest stop for passengers and a shipping point for the fruits and vegetables grown in the area. It was incorporated in 1889 as the town of Hammond.
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85 At that time it was a popular retirement site for Northern railroad men and fruit-buyers, and seems to have attracted a fair share of younger Northern families as well.-^ Agriculture in the area is mostly devoted to strawberries, beans, and peppers, with smaller amounts of other vegetables. Most of the produce goes to New Orleans markets. Timber was a valuable asset in the early days, and is becoming so again as planted pines reforest the cutover lands not suitable for row crops. Informant: LA 40, Caucasian man, aged 80 Informant's mother and maternal grandparents were born in Tangipahoa Parish. His father was born in Hammond, his paternal grandfather was born in Georgia, and his paternal grandmother was a daughter of Peter Hammond. Informant himself was born in Hammond and has never lived anywhere else, but has traveled rather widely within the United States. He has a tenth grade education. Dairy farming and construction work, have been his main occupations, but he spent several years as a blacksmith, and as a youth he helped to run his father's sawmill. His grammar is usually standard. The tempo of his speech is quite slow, no doubt because of his age. His postvocalic /v/ is more strongly retroflexed than that of most residents of Hammond, and his implosive final /d / was not heard from anyone else there. Both features are probably old-fashioned. The sample recorded for this study is typical of his conversational speech. lu,Williamson and Goodman, pp. 358-374.
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86 French Louisiana Cormunity: St. Martinville [ S e. Yl m cr a^t ri v I » -I' ] Population: 6,468 Percent Negro: 21 .1 Parish: St. Martin [s4t»^ m(ja"tn] State: Louisiana [ 1 9 w "i z i 3e T1 a ] , LA 34; [ I u. z: i 3€ n 3 ] , LA 33 St. Martin Parish is in south central Louisiana, in the heart of the original Attakapas District. The first settlers to the area were Creole French; most subsequent ones have been Acadian French. In 1760 Gabriel Fuselier de Claire made the first homesite in the district, and in 1764 the Marquis de Vaugine, a former captain in the French array, established an indigo plantation. In 1765 the Acadians began to arrive, and within little more than ten years their number had reached about 4,000. Most of them farmed, raising indigo as a staple crop. St. Martinville came to be their chief trade center, and it is there that Emmaline Labiche, whose real-life story inspired Longfellow's Evangeline, is buried. Furthermore, St. Martinville came to be a refuge for exiled French nobility, some of them fleeing the slave rebellions of Santo Domingo, others the French Revolution. For a time they succeeded so well in maintaining their former elegant mode of life that the town came to be named "le petit Paris. " The aristocrats seem to have merged eventually with the more numerous Acadians, but English-speakers, of whom there were a few following Louisiana's statehood, were assimilated more slowly. In general.
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87 the French associated with them only rarely, and that principally for business matters.^ Though the number of English-speaking migrants to St. Martin Parish has always been small, in the twentieth century the schools have taught English to most of the inhabitants of the area, so that now it is more common to hear English than French spoken on the streets of St. Martinville. In fact, some of the younger descendants of Evangeline's protectors do not know French, although their native English pronunciation has been noticeably influenced by the Frenchspeaking heritage of their parents. Very few people who are now middle-aged learned English before French, and perhaps only half of those in the 20-30 age group did. But French is steadily losing ground as more and more parents teach their children English so that they will not be handicapped by a language problem when they enter school. Informant'. LA 33, Caucasian woman, aged 59 Informant's father's family has been in the St. Martinville area since 1765. Her mother, born in St. Martinville, was Acadian on one side, Pennsylvania Dutch on the other. Informant has lived most of her life at Catahoula Lake, some fourteen miles outside St. Martinville. She has a B. A. from South Louisiana State College, in near-by Lafayette. She is now a museum curator and has written ^St. Martin Parish Resources and Facilities , by the St. Martin Parish Development Board (Baton Rouge, 1950), pp. 7-9.
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88 articles on Acadian history and culture. She has traveled to every part of the United States. She learned French and English together in the home, and has made sure that her own children know both languages. Some French intonation patterns carry over into English, though the fact is that many French intonations are fully naturalized English in this community. Informant: LA 34 j Caucasian man^ aged 24 Informant was born in St. Martinville, as were his parents and both sets of grandparents. His earliest ancestors in St. Martinville were the family who sheltered Emmaline Labiche, the model for Evangeline. He went through high school in St. Martinville and attended one year of college in Lafayette. At age 22, he lived for ten months in New Orleans, the only time his residence has been away from St. Martinville. He has traveled to Mississippi and through Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Colorado. Formerly a country club manager, he is presently a policeman. He is a member of the first generation in St. Martinville that includes an appreciable number of people who do not speak French. He himself does not. French influence is evident, however, in his intonation patterns and phonology. He uses some anglicized pronunciations, but many French loan words are pronounced exactly as they are in French. His year in college seems to have affected his speech very little if at all, since his speech is very much like that of other young residents of St. Martinville who did not attend college.
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89 Community: Franklin [ f r tc T] k I ^ "A ] Population: 8,673 Percent Negro : 30 . 6 Parish: St. Mary [SeiTitrneiTi] State : Louisiana [ | U z i ae Yl S ] St. Mary Parish is on the Gulf Coast about halfway between the western and eastern borders of the state. Most of the area is marsh or swamp; Franklin is on relatively high, very rich alluvial land bordering Bayou Tfeche. Like St. Martinville, it lies within the old Attakapas District, but the settlement of this downstream part of the T&che was delayed because it was relatively inaccessible. It took a two-week trip up the Mississippi and down the T&che to go around the Chacahoula and Des Allemands swamps which lie between Franklin and New Orleans. By 1800 there were only ten or twelve white families in the area, representing both French Creole and English planter stock; at least one of the earliest group, one James Sanders, was from South Carolina. Franklin was founded in 1808 by Alexander C. Lewis. Tradition says he was from Pennsylvania, but old deeds seem to indicate either Kentucky or Tennessee. The population did not increase rapidly; by 1819 it had reached 150.^ At any rate, except for the De la Houssayes and perhaps a few other French Creole families, most of the early planters seem to have been English-speakers from further east. There has always been a cultivated group of English-speakers in Franklin, and the Negroes speak English as a native language, giving 'St. Mary Parish Resources and Facilities^ by the St. Mary Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1949), pp. 7, 9.
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90 evidence that their ancestors were slaves of English-speaking masters. There are also a good many people in and around Franklin of Acadian French descent; most of them have come fairly recently from surrounding rural areas. Anyone with much of a French accent in Franklin probably grew up in the country. Furthermore, among many whose native language was French, a French accent is no longer detectable. Sugar cane is the most important crop, and has been for generations. The fields stretch from the banks of the Tfeche to swamps or marshes away from the bayou on either side and are protected from the waters of both by levees. Shipping is important on the Tfeche and on the Intracoastal Waterway. Informant: LA 25 ^ Caucasian woman, aged 75 Informant was born in St. Mary Parish near Franklin. Her parents were from Denmark; they spoke no English until coming to Franklin, but learned it before informant was born. She has an eighth grade education, has not lived in any other communities besides Franklin, and has not traveled. Her adult life has been spent as a housewife. She has also been active in church work. She attends services at the Methodist Church, which in this community includes few of the very wealthy and few of the very poor. She speaks no language but English, and she lacks the intonation characteristics that distinguish a French accent. But double negatives . and a few other features distinguish her speech from the standard dialect spoken by college-educated Franklinites, Her verb forms are
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91 nearly all standard; this feature is also common in the English of native French-speakers of the area. In words of French origin, she uses nasalization in the same way as native French-speakers. Commwiity : Donaldsonville [daTi + S BTivia-V] Population: 6,082 Percent Negro: 31.9 Parish : Ascension [ B S i n S e "A ] State : Louisiana [ I 9 W 1 z i ie Tl 8 ] Ascension Parish lies on both sides of the Mississippi River a little more than halfway upriver to Baton Rouge from New Orleans. Donaldsonville is situated on the west side of the river at the point where Bayou Lafourche leaves the Mississippi on its own independent course to the gulf. The area was largely uninhabited until Acadian refugees came to Louisiana; by 1770 the Spanish government had established from twenty-five to fifty Acadian families in the area, largely up and down the banks of the Mississippi. A few Spanish Creoles settled on the west side of the river. William Donaldson 4 bought the present site of Donaldsonville from the widow of an Acadian exile and laid out the plan for the city in 1806, three years after the American possession. Other Americans — merchants, speculators, and planters — bought up other Acadian riverfront farms and consolidated them into large plantations. The Acadians moved away from the riverfront toward swampier, less desirable homesites. The plantations, requiring slave labor in antebellum days, imported Negroes from Virginia and Kentucky; Mississippi and South Carolina also sent
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92 considerable numbers of migrants, probably of both races. In parts of the parish where plantation life was dominant, Negroes now outnumber whites. In areas to which the Acadians were relegated, Negroes make up less than a quarter of the population.^ The present economy is geared primarily to raising sugar cane and manufacturing sugar, but other industry is moving in — there is a large nitrogen plant in Donaldsonville. The Anglo, Acadian, and Spanish stocks seem to be assimilating each other rather slowly. Informant: LA 20, Caucasian man, aged 67 Informant was born in McCall, a small settlement some six miles outside Donaldsonville, where he still lives. Both parents were descendants of a small group of Spanish colonists who came to the area before 1800. He has about a fifth grade education and has traveled to Florida for fishing vacations. He has worked as supervisor in several parts of a sugar mill and was an insurance agent for several years, during which time he also drove a school bus. Although he grew up speaking English, he speaks Spanish and Acadian French as well. He is in the transitional generation between Spanish and English; his parents used Spanish as a first language but taught him English and Spanish together. His children do not know Spanish. Grammar is usually nonstandard. He uses hovering stress more frequently than most English-speakers. There is such diversity in '^Ascension Parish Resources and Facilities , by the Ascension Parish Planning Board (Baton Rouge, 1947), pp. 9-13.
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93 speech patterns in Donaldsonville and the area because of the incompletely assimilated French, Spanish, and English languages that no one speaker could be considered typical of the whole community, but LA 20 seems to be typical of one of the groups, at least. Community : Cameron [ U ^e YTl r 9 Tv ] Population: 950 Percent Negro: 6.3 Parish: Cameron [ k ae w r 9 Ti ] State: Louisiana [ I 5 W ^ z, i aS Tl a] ; occasionally [lu.ziaeTl9] Cameron Parish is at the extreme southwest corner of the state. Except for a strip of prairie along its northern edge and for a few large and numerous small lakes, it consists entirely of marsh interrupted by long low ridges called aheniers . Serious settlement of the area did not begin until after the War of 1812 — in fact, not until the second quarter of the nineteenth century — but since the only land suitable for farming was on the prairie and along the narrow cheniers, it did not take long for all the desirable land to be taken up, and Cameron Parish is still the least densely populated area of the state. People with English names seem to have settled mainly near the coast; those with French names spread into other parts of the parish from earlier Acadian settlements to the east and north. "Actual figures are of course not available but it seems safe to say that the ScotchIrish were the dominant element in the population of the cheniers a century ago. They remained for a generation or two longer, then moved
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94 on again, seeking better opportunities elsewhere."^ Even before they moved on, and to a greater degree since then, French, Italians, Germans, Irish, and Spaniards have mingled with the continued trickle of settlers from other states. Slavery was never profitable in the cheniers, and though some early settlers brought slaves with them, the percentage of Negroes in Cameron's population has always been small. Today English is almost the only language heard in Cameron, but many speak it with a French accent. People still live on the cheniers and raise their gardens there, trapping muskrats and nutria from the marsh and letting cattle graze freely on marsh grass. Much of the parish has been reserved for wildlife refuges for the protection of ducks and geese on their wintering ground there. The translocation of a menhaden fishery to Cameron from North Carolina in the 1940s has brought many people from that state and doubled activity at the port of Cameron over the days when shrimp provided the only important commercial fishing. Sport fishing attracts many summer visitors. But offshore oil has probably been responsible for more new residents coming to Cameron in recent years than any other single factor. Informant: LA 21, Caucasian man, aged 72 Informant's mother was born in Cameron Parish; his maternal grandmother was a schoolteacher from Tangipahoa Parish and his maternal ^Cameron Parish Resources and Facilities, by the Cameron Parish Development Board (Baton Rouge, n. d.), p. 13. "^Cameron Parish Resoujpces and Facilities, pp. 7-19.
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95 grandfather was from Ohio. His father was originally from Chambers County, Alabama, but had moved to Dallas County, Texas, before coming to Cameron. Informant himself has lived in Cameron all his life except for two years; he lived in Denver, Colorado, during his fifth and sixth years of school. He has had two years of college and has traveled to all the states except Wisconsin, Minnesota, and the Dakotas. His vocation and avocation are combined in cattle raising. Because of his extensive travels and his acquaintance with Beauregard Parish through his cattle holdings there, he knows a good many words that other people around Cameron may not. It is hard to say how much the sounds of his native speech may have been modified. He has /hvv/ in wh-^words , which is old-fashioned in Cameron. People there whose first language was French generally have only /w/, and this feature seems to have carried over into the speech of younger generations of Anglos. His strong postvocalic / V / is typical of Cameron. Community: Grand Isle [ ^ r ;>e ri d aiSf] Population: 2,074 Percent Negro: 15.1 Parish: Jefferson [Jtfs^isrV] State : Louisiana [ 1 a W I z i ae T\ a ] Grand Isle lies just off the Gulf Coast near where Bayou Lafourche flows into the gulf, almost directly south of New Orleans. In the early 1800s it was one of the hangouts of Jean Lafitte's band of privateers. After Lafitte died at Galveston and the group broke
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96 up, a number of the ex-pirates settled on Grand Isle. They were of mixed nationalities — Italian, Spanish, even English — but the French predominated, and for many years the only language spoken on the island was French, whether the speaker's name be Ludwig, Bradberry, or Chighizola. In the 1930s a bridge was built to the island, and the English language began to supplant the French. Since World War II many children have learned English as a first language, and now some of the younger ones do not speak French at all. Truck farming used to be practiced, but died out before English became a common language, so that English farming terms are virtually unknown there except to people who grew up elsewhere. Commercial and sports fishing, tourism, and oil and sulfur operations are now the main support of the town. It is the scene of an annual tarpon rodeo, and is a popular beach resort. Tourists have little effect on the speech of the island, but no doubt the mainlanders who have moved there to work the oil and sulfur rigs and made Grand Isle their more or less permanent home will be assimilated, socially and linguistically, into the small group of old-line families, which had formerly been augmented mainly by Acadian French from the mainland. This is one place where the schoolteacher's English has had an appreciable effect on native speech, since teachers were one of the most important groups to bring English to the island,^ ^The information in these two paragraphs was gleaned from residents of Grand Isle. A good brief written history, also gleaned from residents of Grand Isle, can be found in Carolyn Ramsey, Cajuns on the Bayous (New York, 1957), pp. 124-128.
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97 Informant: LA Z7 , Caucasian man^ aged 18 Informant's mother and maternal grandfather were born in Grand Isle; his maternal grandmother was bom in Chenifere, Louisiana. His father and paternal grandparents were born in Grand Isle. He is a senior in high school and participates in athletics and keeps up a part-time job at a drive-in restaurant. He has traveled through Texas, Arkansas, Mississippi, and Alabama. He is among the first generation in Grand Isle to use English as a first language. He is not fluent in French but naturally knows a good many French words and expressions because his parents use French in the home with each other, though they use English with the children. Many of the islanders his age speak French as a first language, but virtually everyone now speaks at least some English. French words in English sentences are not anglicized. In English words he uses the usual English Ix I, but in French words he uses the uvular variety. Informant'. LA Z6 , Caucasian hoy, aged 11 Informant is the brother of LA 37 above. He is in the fifth grade. He has probably come into contact with more English and less French than his brother had at the same age, since some of the younger boy's playmates were not born in Grand Isle, and a larger percentage of those who were, speak English as a first language. He shares most of his brother's plionetic characteristics.
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98 New Orleans Community : New Orleans [ "A U o I 9 Yl z ] Population: 627,525; Standard Metropolitan District (City and Suburbs) 868,480 Percent Negro : 30 . 3 Parish: Orleans [ If n z. ]_ State : Louisiana [l3wTz.i^Ta9],LA33; [ I a 2. i 3^ t\ 3 ] , LA 22 Much of the early history of New Orleans has been covered in the preceding chapter. Its settlement history has been more complex than that of any other part of the state, and probably more complex than all the rest of the state put together. Only a very brief summary can be given here. Soon after its founding in 1718, New Orleans took a position as the capital city of the colony of Louisiana, and remained so until Baton Rouge was declared the State capital in 1852, after other sites had been proposed. New Orleans remained Louisiana's largest city and its chief cultural center. It rivaled New York and San Francisco as a port of entry for foreign immigrants, and since the days when Spain ruled Louisiana, its population has been more cosmopolitan than that of any other Southern city. The most important elements of its population have come from France, the American Colonies, which later became the United States, Spain, Great Britain, Italy, and Germany. In the early days of Louisiana's statehood, the two most important factions, the Americans and the Creole French, were so much at odds that they had separate city councils under one mayor.
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99 The Americans lived uptown, that is, upriver from Canal Street, which formed the boundary of the original city of New Orleans, called the French Quarter or the Vieux Carre, where most Creoles lived. A heterogeneous group inhabited the Third Municipality, downstream from the French Quarter.-^ Later groups of Germans, Irish, and, finally, Italians took up residence in various settlements within the city, mostly uptown.^ Like many another river town. New Orleans, as it grew, absorbed plantations on its outskirts. Negroes remained in their quarters, which adjoined white neighborhoods in a checkerboard pattern. Consequently, no single ghetto has grown up in New Orleans, though the Negro sections of town are generally much less prosperous than white sections . Informant: LA 23^ Caucasian woman^ aged 33 Informant's father and paternal grandparents were born in New Orleans. Iler mother and maternal grandparents were from Natchez, Mississippi. Informant grew up and received a high school education in the University District of New Orleans, part of the uptown section of the city settled chiefly after 1803 by Americans from other states. She has lived all her life in New Orleans except for one year in Dover, Delaware, in 1955. Except for that, travel has been limited mostly to family visits in Mississippi. She now lives in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans. ^Harold Sinclair, The Port of New Orleans (New York, 19A2) , pp. 177-178. ^Harnett T. Kane, Queen New Orleans: City By The River (New York, 19A9), p. 135.
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100 She occasionally introduces nasalization into her voice for special effect, but normally there is not much present. Treatment of postvocalic Jr I varies; it may be lost, only slightly weakened, or somewhere in between. She was somewhat self-conscious in front of the recorder and used some unnatural pronunciations — either as /ioS"/, instead of her usual /aiSS'"/. Informant: LA 22, Negro marij aged 62 Informant's father was a Creole Negro born in New Orleans to parents from New Orleans. His mother came from a plantation in an English-settled part of the state; informant was vague about its exact location or the origin of maternal grandparents. Informant himself was born in New Orleans and has never lived anywhere else. Travel has been limited to near-by parts of Louisiana. He has a fifth grade education. For many years he was a gardener for a government building; at the time of the interview for this study, he was a gardener for Loyola University. Postvocalic /r / is absent. He was not noticeably self-conscious in front of the recorder and seemed to be using a fairly natural style of speech. Corrmimity: The Irish Channel, New Orleans [nu. 5 1 3 n Z. ] Population: No figures available Percent Negro: No figures available Parish: Orleans [oltiaz^]_ State: Louisiana [ I 3 wi Z.i 36 T1 a ] There were already Irishmen living in Louisiana during the Spanish domination of the colony. An accurate estimate of -their numbers
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101 is not possible because before 1820, the Irish, Scots, and English who came in were all lumped together as English. But hundreds of Irish names are recorded in the Spanish archives on the colony of Louisiana in Seville. It is probable that most of these earliest Irish immigrants were fairly well assimilated into the French population if they settled in the country parishes; within New Orleans their chance of retaining their heritage was better. Between 1840 and 1870, great social prejudice arose against the Irish in New Orleans, who ranked first among European groups entering the port of New Orleans at that time.^ Some went on to Natchez and Bayou Sara, but others remained in the city, segregating themselves in a sort of communitywithin-a-community which came to be known as the "Irish Channel," There is a good deal of confusion among native New Orleanians over what the boundaries of the Irish Channel are. Originally the Channel consisted of one street, Adele Street, which ran between St. Thomas and Tchoupitoulas Streets. The street is now inhabited by Negroes, and the Irish have spread to other areas. A conservative estimate of its mid-twentieth century extent would set the boundaries at Magazine Street, the river, Jackson Avenue, and Felicity Street.^ A less conservative estimate sets the boundaries at St. Joseph Street, Magazine Street, the river, and Louisiana Avenue.^ The Irish Channel ^Gumbo Ya-YUj by the Writers' Project, Louisiana (Cambridge, Mass., 1945), pp. 51-52. ^Gumbo Ya-Ya, pp. 50-51. ^Kane, p. 363.
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102 informants for this study lived between Jackson Avenue and Louisiana Avenue, outside the narrow boundaries of the conservative estimate and as far as twelve or fifteen blocks from Adele Street. Yet they claimed to be long-standing residents of the Irish Channel, justifying at least to some extent the less conservative estimate. Original immigrants to the Channel sought work as roustabouts loading and unloading ships along the river. Their descendants seldom follow the same pursuits, but most of them are still laborers of one kind or another, tough, happy, fun-loving people whose entire attention seems to have two annual focal points: Mardi Gras and St. Patrick's Day. Informant: LA 42, Caucasian man, aged 4? Informant was born in the Irish Channel, which was also his mother's birthplace. His father was born in Ward 17, New Orleans. Further family history is not available. He has an elementary school education, has not lived outside the Irish Channel, nor traveled to other states besides Louisiana. He works for the New Orleans sanitation department as a garbage truck driver and has a part-time job as bartender in a small neighborhood bar. He is a great favorite among habitues of the bar as a jokester and storyteller. He was recommended as a typical speaker of the dialect of the Irish Channel, which is said to sound almost the same as that of Brooklyn. His recording confirms that impression especially in respect to the diaphones of / 36 / and /Ci /, in the use of dental varieties of
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103 /t / and / d / in t/i— function words, and in the treatment of Iv I . But /^\ / in his speech is unlike any other regional variety but southern Louisiana. Informant distinguishes between /DJ / and /3 / ([31]). For at least some Irish Channel speakers, the two fall together as [31 ] in preconsonantal position, as in oily boiZ, oyster, and some other words. He did not use a casual conversational style on the recording, but employed the kind of declamatory speech patterns he used telling stories and giving mock speeches in the bar where he worked. Informant: LA 46, Caucasian man, aged 27 Informant's mother and maternal grandparents were born in the Irish Channel. His father was born in the same part of town, but his paternal grandparents emigrated from Germany. Informant himself was born in the Channel and has never lived anywhere else. He finished high school and studied for three years to be an architectural draftsman. He has traveled in the Southern states, and with his dance band was once sent to Honduras as part of an exchange program. He works as an IBM operator in the daytime and often plays with his band at nights in engagements in the New Orleans area. His speech tempo is fairly slow and the vowel of an important word is often much lengthened for emphasis. Some phonetic characteristics typical of older residents of the Irish Channel seem to be weakened or lost to a degree in his speech.
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104 Simnapy The communities actually studied in Louisiana are essentially the same as the ones originally planned, with the exception that New Orleans counts as two. The numbers of young informants and informants of type III are greater than planned for reasons peculiar to conditions within the state. Communities are grouped as follows: urban communities, 10; rural communities, 8. In northern Louisiana, by the definition of that area given in Chapter I, there are 8 communities, of which 4 are rural and 4 are urban. In the Florida Parishes 3 communities were studied, 2 rural and 1 urban. In French Louisiana there were 5 communities, 2 rural and 3 urban. In New Orleans, the city as a whole counted as one community and the Irish Channel as another, both urban. The 18 communities are represented in this study by 28 informants, who are about two-thirds of the total number of informants used in the Louisiana field work, and are all for whom tape recordings are available except 2. Recordings made by LA 27, DeQuincy, and LA 35, St. Martinville, were eliminated because of unnecessary duplication. Fourteen of the 28 informants represented urban communities and 14 represented rural ones. Their distribution by age group and educational level may be seen in Table 1. The communities of northern Louisiana are represented by 12 informants, of whom 8 are old, 3 are middle-aged, and 1 is young. According to types, 6 are type I, 2 are type II, and 4 are type III.
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105 Table 1. Informants by Type and Age Type Old Middle Young Total I 10 3 1 14 II 2 2 2 6 III _2 _2 1 _8 Total 15 7 6 In the Florida Parishes there are 5 informants, of whom 3 are old and two are middle-aged. Likewise, 3 are type I and 2 are type II. French Louisiana is represented by 7 informants, of whom 3 are old, 1 is middle-aged, and 3 are young. By types, 3 are type I , 1 is type II, and 3 are type III. New Orleans has A informants, of whom 1 is old, 1 is middle-aged, and 2 are young. Two of them are type I, 1 is type II, and 1 is type III. Arrangement of informants by types solely on the basis of years of schooling completed is somewhat arbitrary, but probably less so than personal assessment by the fieldworker would be. But other factors besides schooling do enter into consideration, and for this reason the the paragraphs describing informants are more important than mere grouping based on the number of days they have sat in a classroom. For example, LA 3, St. Francisville , who has a high school education, might actually be considered higher on Louisiana's social scale than LA 10, Jonesville, who spent three years at L. S. U. The difference lies partly in family background, partly in the character of the community.
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106 In St. Francisville — and the same is true of Lake Providence, Clinton, and Natchitoches — people from certain families are expected to maintain a degree of culture and refinement whether or not financial conditions permit them to attend college. In Jonesville, Columbia, or Vienna, on the other hand, a person who showed off his learning too much might well be accused of putting on airs and trying to make himself better than other folks. A similar situation exists in New Orleans. There, LA 46, Irish Channel, is considered type III by virtue of his three years of specialized training after high school. But many New Orleanians would snub him and his entire neighborhood as inferior. A corollary of these social rules is that the dialects used by LA 46 and LA 10, who are both nominally type III, would be considered nonstandard by LA 23, New Orleans, and LA 3, St. Francisville, who are nominally type II. It is hoped, then, that the reader will be able to make his own assessment of the value of groupings here given by referring to the biographies. Even with qualifying factors taken into account, however, the number of type III informants is somewhat higher than desirable. Ordinarily, they exhibit less regional variation in their speech than other types and fewer of them are required to achieve a representative sample. But in Louisiana, landed families whose members were likely to attend college are likely to remain in one location for generations, whereas families that depend on jobs or sharecropping or even merchandising for a livelihood tend to move around more. Therefore, individuals
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107 with family backgrounds suitable to the requirements of field work were sometimes more numerous among the rich and educated than among the bulk of the population. A second factor, no less important, is that many people who had never been to college either considered the project a lot of foolishness or suspected the f ieldworker 's motives or believed themselves too ignorant to make any contribution, or all three. The fact that it was possible despite these limitations to find 14 Informants of type I, together with the fact that 10 of those were age 60 or older in 1967-68, reflects the relatively poor educational prospects in Louisiana in the early part of the century. The relative paucity of type II informants, especially among the oldest group, reflects the old practice of either dropping out of school at an early age to work or continuing all the way through to college. The fact that 6 out of 28 informants are young rather than the planned-for 10 percent was caused in part by the fact that the only native English-speakers in one originally French-speaking community were in the youngest generation. In other parts of the state, the availability of willing informants was the governing factor. By race, 24 informants are Caucasian and 4 are Negro. No percentages had been set up beforehand for representation of separate races, except that it was not considered necessary to use the same percentage of Negro informants as the percentage of Negroes in the population. The Negro population is socially more homogeneous than the white, and, as in the case of type III informants, fewer are
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108 required for a representative sample. Louisiana's population is 31.9 percent Negro; their representation among the informants for this study is proportionately about half that. It should be remembered that the proportions of types and ages of informants aimed at in the field work were formulated for the special purpose of the Dictionary of American Regional English. That purpose was to find as many words as possible, with their variant meanings and pronunciations, that have regional or local distribution among conservative speakers of native American English. The purpose of this study is to discover variants in speech sounds within the state of Louisiana, using material gathered for the Dictionary. The distribution of informants as to type and age group is sufficient for that purpose. The distribution of 15, 7, and 6 in the old, middle, and young groups, respectively, is similar to the distribution of 14, 6, and 8 among types I, II, and III. Each region of the state is represented by a fairly representative cross section of its population, perhaps more fully so than if it had been possible to follow the projected figures exactly. Informants are not distributed thickly enough to permit accurate isoglosses to be drawn but there are enough of them to permit a fairly accurate description of the speech types used in each major region of the state.
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CHAPTER III INDIVIDUAL SPEECH PATTERNS The tables which constitute the bulk of this chapter represent an inventory of the representative stressed vowel sounds found on each recording listed in the preceding chapter. Phonetic sjmibols are substantially the same as those used by Hans Kurath and Raven I. McDavid in The Pronunaiation of English in the Atlantic States. ' There are several reasons for using the Kurath-McDavid alphabet here. The first and by far the most important is that its use facilitates comparison with dialect studies done in other parts of the country. All the published Linguistic Atlas materials as well as most other dialect investigations use this adaptation of the International Phonetic Alaphabet, commonly referred to as IPA. Furthermore, since IPA is widely current in other parts of the world, the transcriptions should be readily legible to foreign scholars. The fact that it was used, with minor modifications, for field transcriptions on the DARE questionnaires will make cross-checking with field records less of a chore than if two dissimilar alphabets were used. And finally, the alphabet used here, while capable of quite narrow transcription in its unmodified form, can be graded, by the use of shift marks and other diacritics, to a degree finer than the auditory discrimination of most f ieldworkers. ^Ann Arbor, 1961. 109 -
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110 But after all, a phonetic alphabet is, in its aim at least, nothing more than a tool for recording sounds, and the choice of one over another has little more influence on theoretical matters than whether one chooses to make tape recordings on cassettes or reels. Each system offers certain sets of advantages and disadvantages, but ideally each is able to record the same information accurately. In actual practice, the fact that the continuous speech stream is represented by discrete written symbols is inevitably responsible for inexactness and distortion. The alphabet used here offends no more in this respect than does any other system of segmental symbols. Table 2 has been included as a supplement to the key to symbols on pp. x-xiv. It shows diagrammatically the approximate relative placement of vowels in the oral cavity. The reader will note that only one symbol [ <^ ] is provided here for vowels lower than [0 ] and farther back than [ O] , whereas Kurath and McDavid provide two symbols to differentiate between rounded and unrounded vowels in that approximate position. It was thought advisable to drop one of the symbols because it was difficult to distinguish consistently between rounded and unrounded low back vowels from tapes alone, without viewing lip position. The symbol [
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Ill Table 2. The Vowel Quadrangle Front Central Back High
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112 Phonemes are abstract units used to classify actual speech sounds. The major value of the present study is expected to be in the phonetic descriptions given; the phonemes employed here may best be thought of as rubrics under which descriptions are arranged to facilitate the kind of comparisons attempted. They are not proposed as elements in a theory of language structure. As in the case of the phonetic alphabet, the phonemic symbols used here are substantially the same as those used by Kurath and McDavid. The reason is much the same — they are the symbols used by most previous studies of American dialects. Furthermore, since in the case of vowels it is syllabic nuclei that are being compared, it is convenient to employ a system which categorizes the nuclei as units. This alphabet does so, proposing eighteen syllabic nuclei and providing an equal number of phonemic symbols to indicate them. Although some of the symbols are digraphs, they nonetheless designate unit categories. Even though they are used here chiefly as a convenience, unitary segmental phonemes are the basis for a systematic phonological analysis by many descriptive linguists. For comparison with this study the most useful exposition of such an analysis is Hans Kurath, A Phonology and Prosody of Modem English. ^ Other phonological systems may offer certain advantages, depending on the use made of them. The best-known competing segmental ^Ann Arbor, 1964.
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113 phonemic system is the binary one employed by George Leonard Trager and Henry Lee Smith, Jr., which breaks down the English vowel system into twelve phonemes which may be combined to form thirty-six syllabic nuclei. That system offers the advantage of providing more phonetic information in the phonemic notation than does the one used here, but the greater number of nuclei possible in the analysis and the consequent reduced degree of generality make it somewhat less efficient as an aid to reference and comparison. A theoretical objection to segmental phonemic systems of any variety is that the speech model they provide does not accurately represent the continuous nature of the speech stream. The tongue, lips, and jaw move smoothly from position to position throughout the articulation of the word ban, for example, but only three points in the movement are symbolized in the transcription /b^TI/. Discrete symbols are said to lead to the assumption that sounds too are discrete, whereas in many cases it is the transitions in the speech stream between the points symbolized that carry the greatest load of information.'' In practice, the theoretical objection amounts to little, since transitions can be assumed, just as smooth slopes can be assumed from the proper arrangement of discrete contour lines on a topographic map. ^An Outline of English Structure (Norman, Oklahoma, 1951). Experiments illustrating this principle are described by Andrd Mal^cot, "Vowel Nasality as a Distinctive Feature in American English," Language:, 36 (1960), 222-229.
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114 Transformational generative grammar does not posit segmental phonemes as structural units at all. Rather, its phonology serves to connect the surface grammatical structure of a language and its phonetic realization, so that phonological rules are sensitive to grammatical classes and structure. The basic phonological units are the distinctive features which, in various combinations, make up what have traditionally been thought of as phonetic segments. In theory, distinctive feature analysis permits a more accurate model of the continuous speech stream than analyses based purely on segmental phonemes because the features are not sequential but simultaneous. A given feature may continue through an entire word, as +voice does in ban, while other features change to indicate successive changes in lip and tongue position. Furthermore, as they approach the phonetic level, the features acquire a range of multiple values; a sound is not just voiced or voiceless, but has some relative degree of voicing. But distinctive feature transcriptions are so difficult to read that generative grammarians find it expedient to use segmental symbols to stand for bundles of features even though it is the features that are structurally relevant. The most comprehensive explanation of English phonology in transformational generative terms is The Sound Pattern of English, by Noam Chomsky and Morris Halle. ^ By using as constants grammatical forms different dialects share, and by categorizing phones according to any of a large set of distinctive features, generative grammar ^New York, 1968.
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115 offers a degree of generality greater than that of either of the other systems mentioned. The principle of its application to the problems of dialect study is illustrated in Robert D. King's Historical Linguistias and Generative Grammar, ^ Since texts alone, especially limited texts like the DARE recordings, do not provide enough information for the writing of generative grammars, generative phonological analysis cannot very well be employed here. Furthermore, generative grammarians are still in the process of refining theory. It may be some time before a new idiom for dialect study is built on the grammatical base which is still being developed. For the present, as in the past, a practical alphabet is indispensable for dialect work. A few additional comments must be made about the phonemic notation used in this study: two symbols used by Kurath and McDavid have been omitted. The symbol they use for New England short o has not been used here, since apparently none of the DARE informants distinguish between two mid back rounded phones. The other symbol omitted is the one designating the low back vowel phoneme intermediate between /d/ and /dI common in such words as cot and caught when they are homophones. Some words which had short /o/ in Middle English do, in centain Louisiana idiolects, have vowels intermediate between /a/ and /o/, but such vowels appear to fall together with the vowel tliat develops from earlier lOXl . The best example is found on the recording of LA3, St. Francisville, where the ^Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1969, pp. 28-39.
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116 utterance "1 can't mock 'em like some people . . ."is easily misinterpreted as "I can't mark 'era like some people ..." until the context establishes the meaning imitate for the word pronounced [mcrsk]. The possibility that this informant and others make contrasts that escape the ears of a stranger with a weak intuitive grasp of the niceties of the dialect should not be discounted. A future investigation might well clarify the relationship of low back vowels in Louisiana speech by testing minimal pairs against the intuition of native informants. Such a project is outside the scope of the present study, however. As far as can be determined on the basis of present purely phonetic evidence, it is necessary to posit only one distinctive vowel in the position between /Q./ and /d/. The omission of two vowel phonemes is responsible for one of the differences in format between these tables and the ones supplied by Kurath and McDavid. Since both columns are removed from one side of the table, the relative placement of phonetic symbols on the gird is affected more than if the omissions were balanced on either side of the center. The information which the tables represent is responsible for another difference. The earlier study was based on a single list of items from a questionnaire, so that the words on each table are the same. This study is based on free conversation, so that the list of words must be different in each case. The primary purpose of the tables is to illustrate the typical range of vowel articulations in typical phonetic environments for each informant. The lists of words vary in length for two reasons. Some
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117 informants use a wider range of variants than others and thus require more examples to illustrate their speech patterns. In addition, some recordings are longer than others and make more examples available. Words are arranged in roughly etjmiological groups in an order corresponding to the order of phonemes across the top and bottom of the grid. Sjraibols for the stressed vocalic nucleus of each word are entered in the cell of the grid corresponding to the word and the phoneme in whose articulatory range the nucleus falls. In those words with more than one stressed syllable, the orthographic symbol for the vowel nucleus represented in the grid is italicized. Certain conventions followed in the transcriptions should be noted. More emphasis is laid on tongue position than on other features. Because English vowels vary in length so radically according to stress, length is marked only if a vowel is unusually long for the degree of stress it has. Although vowels are regularly nasalized before nasal consonants in the same morpheme, as in seen as opposed to see nothing^ nasalization is marked only when no consonantal nasal phone is present. In words like hair^ part, and more, the phone which develops from the historical consonant /r/ in final position or before another consonant is transcribed as part of the vocalic nucleus. In words like fairy and story, the phone that develops from historical /r/ is not represented as part of the preceding nucleus; it is treated instead as the onset of the next syllable. Since /j / in the sequence /ju/ is sometimes dialectally relevant, it too, is represented on the tables when it is present phonetically.
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118 An attempt has been made to select examples under similar conditions of stress and intonation. Differences in vowel sounds are generally easiest to hear when the intonation level changes on a syllable with primary stress. A typical example of that environment is the syllable one in the sentence, "That was in twenty-one," LA 28, DeQuincy. The pitch of the informant's voice remains essentially level from that through twenty, then rises to the highest and falls to the lowest level on one. Whenever possible, examples to illustrate vowel articulations were transcribed from similar environments. Some vowels have different allophones in final and nonfinal syllables. But monosyllables may have the nonfinal allophone if another word follows closely. In some instances, for example make 'em on Table 4, two words are given to show that the vowel represented is, in effect, in a nonfinal syllable. It is emphasized that the examples tabulated are selective rather than exhaustive. In the discussions of phonemes in the following chapter, examples from Tables 3 through 30 will regularly be cited, although other examples transcribed from the tapes but not selected for tabulation will be used as well. It is felt, however, that sufficient examples have been included here to provide a graphic outline of the range of articulations in the idiolect of each informant described in Chapter II.
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119 Table 3. LA 8, Lake Providence
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120 Table 4. LA 12, Vienna
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121 Table 5. LA 17, Mansfield
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122 Table 6. LA 2, Columbia
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123 Table 7. LA 1, Columbia
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124 Table 8. LA 10, Jonesville
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125 Table 9. LA 11, Jonesville
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126 Table 10. LA 14, Natchitoches
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127 Table 11. LA 15, LeCompte
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128 Table 12. LA 16 , LeCompte
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129 Table 13. LA 29, DeQuincy
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130 Table 14. LA 28, DeQuincy
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131 Table 15. LA 3, St. Francisville
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132 Table 16. LA 5, St. Francisville
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133 Table 17. LA 7, Clinton
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134 Table 18. LA 6 , Clinton
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135 Table 19. LA 40, Hammond
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136 Table 20. LA 33, St. Martinville
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137 Table 21. LA 34, St. Martinville
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138 Table 22. LA 25, Franklin
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139 Table 23. LA 20, Donaldsonville
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140 Table 24. LA 31, Cameron
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141 Table 25. LA 37, Grand Isle
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142 Table 26. LA 36, Grand Isle
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143 Table 27. LA 23, New Orleans
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144 Table 28. LA 22, New Orleans
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145 Table 29. LA 42, The Irish Channel
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146 Table 30. LA 46, The Irish Channel
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CHAPTER IV PHONOLOGICAL VARIANTS The discussion of phonemes will largely be limited to those vowels and consonants which either show significant variation from one informant to another or which, while fairly uniform in Louisiana, exhibit characteristics not common to the major regional varieties of American English. All the vowels come under one or both of those classifications, but only a few of the consonants do. The range of articulations for each phoneme is described, and the variants which occur are discussed in two dimensions: allophonic and diaphonio. Allophonic variants, or allophones , vary according to the phonetic context, as in the case of the different kinds of /t/ in but and butter for most native speakers of American English. Diaphonic variants, or diccphones y vary according to geography, as in the case of the different pronunciations of the vowel nucleus of vide typically used by New Yorkers and Louisianians . Although the suprasegmental phonemes pitch and stress are outside the scope of this study, a few preliminary remarks about these and other prosodic features are appropriate in order to establish a context for the segmental phonemes. Proaody Two degrees of stress are marked in the transcriptions: primary and secondary. Vowels in unstressed syllables are unmarked, vowels with secondary stress are marked with a grave accent Z""/, and 147 -
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148 vowels with primary stress are marked with an acute accent /''/• A four-level analysis of stress was not deemed necessary because the two highest levels in a four-stress analysis can be conveniently considered allophones of one significant level. The higher level is the allophone associated with the peak of an intonation contour; since it can be predicted, there is no need to mark it — at least not for our purposes here. Intonation is not marked; when it is an important conditioning factor in the pronunciation of segmental phonemes, as it often is in the case of smooth and glided vowel allophones, the conditions are described briefly in the text. Both intonation and stress vary regionally within Louisiana. Most of the variation, however, occurs at a less obvious level than the difference between the following pronunciations of pecan: [paKiin] and [pAkcLTV]. It generally has to do not with the way individual words are stressed but with the relationship of stressed to unstressed syllables in phrase structures. LA 1, Columbia, for example, exhibits a greater degree of difference between stressed and unstressed syllables than does LA 31, Cameron. Primary stress is signaled by length coupled with articulatory force for most speakers, but a few informants signal primary stress on certain word-final vowels chiefly with the force of articulation — the vowels are quite short. The usual pattern when a two-syllable word comes in a position requiring a change in intonation level is for the change to come between syllables, but on gumbo, LA 11, Jonesville, the informant
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149 begins to drop the pitch of her voice on the first syllable: ^ m, rather than '^ bo. At least in the popular mind, one of the major differences between the English of French Louisiana and what residents of the rest of the state consider "normal" English is the difference in intonation. North Louisianians say that Acadian English is "more musical" than their own speech and that it "has a different rhythm." Unfortunately, no readily comprehensible system has yet been developed with which to transcribe and discuss subphonemic variants of the suprasegmental phonemes. It will be interesting to see what future researchers can do with the DARE recordings toward explaining the exact nature of the differences which lead to those impressionistic evaluations . Consonants The Stop Consonants In general, the stops /p, bjt, d, |<, Q/ appear in Louisiana much as they do in other parts of the United States. It might be expected that in French Louisiana the voiceless stops / Pj t; k / would lack the aspirated allophones [ p' . t' ^ K' ] initially before stressed vowels, since standard French does not have aspirated stops. No significant regional difference in the treatment of these phones was discovered among the informants for this study, all of whom used English as their major language. It may be possible to find initial unaspirated stops among Louisianians for whom English is an imperfectly grasped second language. But the likelihood is not
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150 as great as it would be if standard French were spoken; in Louisiana French the voiceless stops are sometimes aspirated. Some variation was noted in the treatment of intervocalic l\l before vowels with primary or secondary stress. LA 5 , St. Francisville, has an aspirated variety of l\l in bateau [ b ae t' O V ] , but LA lo, Jonesville, has an alveolar tap in the same word: [hieso^]. Most informants have [ t' ] in plantation, but LA 15, LeCompte, has an alveolar tap: [ D I ^ Jl €1 3 9 H] . He has an aspirated stop in tattoo [t'iet'u]. In Louisiana, as in the rest of the country. It I and /d/ are usually articulated with the tongue tip against the alveolar ridge, but some informants in French Louisiana, especially LA 20, Donaldsonville, commonly use dental varieties [t ] and [d] . In southeastern Louisiana, dental stops may be used for etymological /8 / and / / by people who use alveolar stops for /t/ and /d/ . Phonetic evidence alone is not enough to say whether such informants maintain a distinction between dental and alveolar stops, but it is probable that most, like LA 34, St. Martinville, simply use phones that grade all the way from interdental to alveolar, as in the [2)'9-'d'3] and there [a 6 2^] . LA 40, Hammond, regularly uses an implosive variety of /d/ in word final position when no other word follows closely. The feature may be idiosyncratic. ^Marilyn J. Conwell and Alphonse Juilland, Louisiana French Grammar (The Hague, 1963), I, 56-57.
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151 The Fricatives No significant variations were discovered in the articulation of the fricatives /f^ V, S^, Zj 5/. The voiced palatal fricative /i/ showed unusual developments in two idiolects. The interdental fricatives /0 / and /S / and the glottal fricative /h/ exhibited fairly extensive regional variation. In the place name Baton Rouge [b^StTl fU^], and perhaps in other anglicized modern French words ending with the voiced palatal fricative, the French articulation is ordinarily retained at all usage levels. In many other parts of the country the voiced affricate / j / is used in such words, especially among types 1 and II; the result is that / ^ / is probably somewhat more frequent in Louisiana than elsewhere. One informant, LA 20, Donaldsonville , uses the fricative in huge [KJU.^], an Old French borrowing which normally has the voiced affricate / j / . In measure [Yin£.'. lis ], LA 6, Clinton, has a phone that sounds somewhat like the affricate, except that the stoppage of the breath at the beginning of the consonant is incomplete. It is not known whether this feature is idiosyncratic or not. The interdental fricatives / 9 / and / & / occur in medial position, as in rather and method^ regularly in all parts of the state. An exception is LA 37, Grand Isle, who has an alveolar tap in other [ A4 9 ]. In initial and final positions, the interdental fricatives may vary to stops. The following discussions will ignore stops that develop by assimilation to preceding stops. The voiced fricative /^/, as in the, those, and there varies to the voiced stop /d/ so frequently in French Louisiana that
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152 Louisianians often cite the paradigm "dis, dat, dese, and dose" to partially explain how Acadians talk. As a matter of fact, all the French Louisiana informants but two do have stops at least part of the time; they are LA 33, St. Martinville, and LA 31, Cameron. The latter informant's family background is entirely Anglo, and his speech is in nearly all respects like that of Anglo Louisiana. For the sake of convenience, then, Cameron will be considered an Anglo community in the following discussions of phonological variants although it is well within the area defined as French Louisiana. Besides those in French Louisiana, a few other informants sometimes use stops [d~d] where the fricative [^] is etymologically expected, as shown in Figure 5. They are LA 8, Lake Providence, LA 5, St. Francisville, LA 6 and LA 7, Clinton, and LA 42, Irish Channel. Three of the five — the informants from Lake Providence and Clinton — are Negroes, but no definite color line can be drawn because LA 22, New Orleans, also a Negro, regularly has / 3 /. Within New Orleans, stops are said to be characteristic of the Irish Channel, and it is true that LA 42 seldom has / 5 / in initial position; but LA 46, also from the Irish Channel, regularly does. There is no way to be sure whether the latter 's younger age or higher educational level is more important in determining the difference. The voiceless interdental fricative /0 / varies to dental and alveolar stops less frequently than the voiced fricative / ?) / does (see Figure 6). Etymological initial /0/ was sometimes articulated
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153 Figure 5. The Initial consonant of such words as the, those, and there.
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154 Nf IV Orleans 8 Jrisli Chortnel Figure 6. The initial consonant of such words as thing j through j and three and the final consonant of fourth.
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155 as a stop by four informants: LA 6, Clinton, three [t^i ~&ri ]; LA 34, St. Martinville, thr-CM [\.Xo] but three [9ri]; LA 20, Donaldsonville, through [trU-trU]; and LA 42, Irish Channel, think [i'ir)k~Oink ]. Etymological final /9/ was articulated with a stop in fourth [fo^I."'] by LA 42, Irish Channel, and LA 37, Grand Isle. The examples suggest that etymological /9/ is especially likely to be articulated as a stop when it is in a cluster with etymological /T/. Before back vowels, the cluster /0r/ may be simplified to /0/, as in throw [SoV], LA 6, Clinton. One other development needs to be mentioned; LA 6, Clinton, and LA 8, Lake Providence, in one instance each, have final /f/ where / 9 / is etyraologically expected, the former in an irregular plural of tooth [tfflZ ] and the latter in both [bo^f ]. The glottal fricative /h/ has much the same articulation all over the state; it is discussed here because it varies regionally in its freedom to enter the cluster /nW/ . As seen in Figure 7, such words as where J wheriy and whip regularly have [Kw] for all informants in Anglo communities ecept Mansfield and St. Francisville . It should also be noted that LA 31, Cameron, is old fashioned in his preservation of /nw/ clusters; other aspects of the field work indicate that /w/ is more frequent in Cameron. In French Louisiana and the New Orleans area /w/ is regular in such words for most informants. Only LA 20, Donaldsonville, and LA 23, New Orleans, have /hw/ . The Affricates The affricates /t, "f / do not vary significantly in articulation
PAGE 173
156 Hew Orlfans W hw Figure 7. The initial consonant or consonant cluster of such words as where j when^ and whip.
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157 from region to region. A minor limitation on the occurrence of the voiced affricate Ij I has been noted in the discussion of the voiced palatal fricative /z/. The Semivowels The semivowels /W, j / do not appear to vary regionally in articulation. Semivocalic phones sometimes develop within vocalic nuclei; it is a moot point whether such phones should be considered phonemic or not. Several informants from Anglo Louisiana have a semivowel [ j ] after l\\/ and /n/ in here, hear, near, and perhaps in other words with high front vowels followed by etymological /I/. La 17, Mansfield, LA 5 , St. Francisville , and LA 20, DeQuincy, sometimes have a high front vowel [ I ] or semivowel [j ] medially between [ a£ ] and the centering offglide [%] which regularly precedes front consonants. Several informants, for example, LA 15, LeCompte, LA 46, Irish Channel, and LA 25, Franklin, have a medial bilabial semivowel [w ] in words which, like our and flour, have etymological lyl following /dWXj . No regional or social tendencies are apparent. In fact, pronunciations with and without [W ] may occur in the same idiolect: LA 11, Jonesville, pronounces our as [^^9] and [(X°]. A limitation on the clustering of /w/ with the glottal fricative /n/ has already been described. The palatal semivowel / j / shows some regional variation nationally in the initial clusters it may form with the alveolar consonants /r\, t, d/, as in new /TIU, "^ TUU/ , stei) /5\ll '^StjU/, and due /aU.~d|U./. Of the sixteen DARE informants for whom relevant
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158 examples are available, all but two have /J/ in such words. LA 17, Mansfield, says nei) [ TWX ] and LA 42, Irish Channel, says duke [duk]. LA 22, New Orleans, exhibits divided usage; he has / j / in avenue [^vauju.] and stew [stjtiU] but not in aostumes [ KCLst UmZ-] . The Nasals The nasal consonants /Vr\ Y1 n / show little regional articulatory variation within the state. Their chief importance lies in the fact that front checked vowels show reduced contrasts before nasals, a phenomenon discussed under a separate heading in the section on checked vowels. One other feature of the nasals is important. To a greater extent than in many parts of the country, nasals may be lost as separate consonantal segments and represented phonetically only by nasalization of the preceding vowel. Through vowel nasality is a distinctive phonemic feature of French phonology, the nasalization under discussion here appears to be a native development of English speech rather than a borrowing. True, French words with nasal vowels may be borrowed into English with their French pronunciation preserved, as in langer [Iftze] (marble term equivalent to English to lag), LA 34, St. Martlnville. But in all speech regions of the state native English words spoken by native English-speakers may be pronounced in such a way that the only indication of an etymological nasal consonant is a nasalized vowel. Some typical examples are blanket [bl5eklt]> LA 3, St. Francisville, damp [d2eg.p], LA 15, LeCompte, and finally [fall], LA 10, Jonesville. The alveolar nasal /X[/ is especially subject to
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159 loss from the medial cluster /T\t/ , as in hunting iVlAvAlH], LA 3, St. Francisville, and center [SIJ.9 ], LA 37, Grand Isle. Final nasals are not lost as frequently as preconsonantal ones, but they do disappear occasionally, as shown by brown [bra^], LA 6> Clinton. There may be regional and social tendencies in the environments in which nasal segments are replaced by suprasegmental nasalization, but examples presently available are insufficient to warrant generalizations. Retracted and Lateral Consonants Both the retracted consonant /r/ and the lateral consonant /I/ vary regionally within Louisiana. The former shows by far the greater degree of variation. The retracted consonant /r/ has two major allophones. Before vowels and between vowels it is usually [T ], with the tongue tip retracted, the back bunched. Except for the retracted tip, the tongue is in about the position for a high central vowel. After vowels, either finally or before a consonant, it is usually [3^], with the tongue tip retracted, the back bunched, but held in a lower position — about that for a mid central vowel. In fact, the postvocalic allophone of consonantal /r/ and the unstressed retracted vowel / 3^/ share the same articulatory range. The decision whether to call an instance of a consonant or vowel is made on the basis of its environment. After consonants, as in bother [bao9^] and leopard [\£p3'd], it is called a vowel / 3^/ . After vowels, as in where [hwdS^] and marsh [mas^^ ] , it is called a consonant /t/ . The reader is reminded that these
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160 » phonemic groupings are rubrics for convenient reference to phonetic data rather than elements in a general grammatical theory. It would be just as realistic to consider all instances of [T"] and [3"] to be members of one phoneme /r/ , and to consider the retracted phones in bother and leopard to be syllabic consonantal /r/ on the analogy of syllabic /I/. It would be equally realistic to consider all instances of [a^] to be vowels and analyze the vocalic nuclei of where and marsh as diphthongs. An analogy is readily available for that analysis, too. The high front phone at the beginning of yam [ j ae ^ Tn ] is considered to be consonantal / J / , and the high front phone at the end of my [imai] is considered to be the last element of the diphthong l^\ I . Yet those two high front phones are as much alike as the retracted phones in corresponding positions in ram and mare. The system decided upon words well enough for the use it is put to and has the advantage of familiarity to most readers. The chief variation pertinent to /T/ is the frequent loss or weakening of the postvocalic allophone. Figure 8 shows that retraction is lost for most informants at least part of the time. Sometimes a vestigial inglide [% ] remains, and sometimes an etymological 1^" / becomes ^, with no segmental phonetic representation at all, though vowels which historically preceded may be lengthened or positionally modified or both, as discussed in a later section. In general, /Vl is most frequently lost after back vowels. Six informants in scattered parts of the state have postvocalic /W with fair consistency, though among those LA 31, Cameron, sometimes
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161 Mfiv Orleans Jrij/i ChaitncI D Figure 8. The retracted consonant of such words as heve^ marsh, and forty.
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162 lacks it after /O/. Ten informants appear not to have postvocalic ItI at all. The remaining twelve vary in their treatment of etymological /It/; for most of them it may be present in one instance of a word and absent from another instance of the same word. Several overlapping tendencies are apparent. Four of those who regularly have postvocalic IT I are in the age group considered old: sixty or older. The remaining two, LA 1, Columbia, and LA 33, St. Martinville, are middle aged. Of the young informants, those under forty, five exhibit divided usage; only LA 46, the Irish Channel, consistently lacks postvocalic /r/ . Of those who consistently lack postvocalic /it/, all but one, LA 12, Vienna, are within forty miles of either the Mississippi or Red River. All of the Negro informants consistently lack postvocalic /r/, and all informants in French Louisiana showed divided usage except LA 33, St. Martinville. No instances of the loss of an initial etymological /r/ were noted, but intervocalic /r/ is sometimes lost, as in barrel [ b «£ S T ] , LA 7, Clinton, harrow [h^S~Vl^r&], LA 6, Clinton, and very [VCI ] , LA 15, LeCompte. In the case of barrel, we can speculate that the vowel in the second syllable was syncopated, leaving /r/ in postvocalic rather than intervocalic position, but no such explanation is possible in the case of very. One hardly knows what to make of the variant pronunciations of harrow. French varieties of /T/^ do not occur in the English speech of any of the DARE informants. ^For descriptions see Conwell and Juilland, pp. 61-62,
PAGE 180
163 The lateral consonant /(/ shows allophonic distribution patterns similar to those of /T/. Regularly before vowels and commonly between vowels it is [I], called clear /!/, articulated with the tip of the tongue against the alveolar ridge and the voice passing over one or both sides of the tongue; except for the contact of the tongue tip at the alveolar ridge, the tongue is in about the position for a high central vowel. After vowels, either finally or before another consonant, it is commonly [^ ], called dark /I/, with the tongue tip against the alveolar ridge and the voice passing over the side of the tongue, as with clear /I/, but the back of the tongue is in much the same position as for mid central or back vowels. A lateral phone may be considered syllabic when it follows homorganic — that is, alveolar — consonants, as in cattle [ka2J. I ], when the tongue tip does not leave the alveolar ridge between the alveolar stop and its lateral release. The dark variety is usual but not invariable in this position. These tendencies are fairly general in American English. They have been treated in some detail because the variants in Louisiana can best be described in relation to the general pattern. In Louisiana, as elsewhere, postvocalic /I/ is usually dark. In fact, the inglides noted before /I/ for normally smooth or upgliding vowels, as typically in bale [be-l-ST] and field [ f >. 5 x ] , can be seen as the phones produced as the tongue approaches the position for [t ]. It might be expected that clear postvocalic /|/ would be more frequent in French Louisiana than elsewhere, since Louisiana French has no
PAGE 181
164 allophone of /I/ articulated like English iVlIn word^final position, French /I/ may be weakened or lost, but it does not condition an inglide on the preceding vowel. The clear allophone was found in postvocalic position in French Louisiana, as in tail [te| ] and boil [b:3ll ], LA 20, Donaldsonville, but this informant is the only one who has them more than sporadically. He also has the dark variety fairly often, as in quails [kWe^'^Z.] and canal [ |0"n '^6 ^4'] . When the consonantal articulation — contact of the tongue tip with the alveolar ridge — of English [ I ] is lost, the historical consonant becomes a vowel and is said to be vocalized. Preconsonantal /I/ following low back vowels was vocalized so long ago in English that standard traditional pronunciations of many words, for example yolk and calm, have no /!/. Vocalized etymological /I/ was also found after front vowels in Louisiana; in most instances it develops into a mid central or back vowel, as typically in help [hc^p] and milk [THI^k]. In wolf [vJvSf], LA 2, Columbia, a historical /I/ has been vocalized after a back consonant. Final postvocalic /I/ is rarely vocalized, but one instance was noted: LA 15, LeCompte, says bills [bl'ifZ]; it may be most realistic to explain the loss of consonantal articulation as a case of assimilation to the /z/ of the suffix. Syllabic /I/ is usually dark, but one informant, LA 6, Clinton, sometimes has clear syllabic /I/, as in middle [YTllQ )]. More commonly, ^Conwell and Juilland, p. 61,
PAGE 182
165 syllabic / I / or the / I / that follows schwa in an unstressed final syllable may be vocalized. In the speech of LA 8, Lake Providence, the vowel that develops or remains is neutral, as shown by grindle [grin 5] (bowfln) and double [cJAb^]. LA 20, Donaldsonville, however, has a distinctive back vowel in people [plpv]. Free Vowels The Vowel of me, street, read, and people The high front vowel nucleus / I / in such words as me, street, read, and people may be either a high, close monophthong [ I ] or a diphthong beginning at or near the position for [I ], and gliding to or toward [ J ]: [li ~1J ]• As shown in Figure 9, the diphthongal variety was not found in the recordings from French Louisiana. Most speakers in the rest of the state, including New Orleans, use both varieties. It is not quite accurate to say that the two are in complementary distribution because they grade into each other, ranging from apparently "pure" monophthong to slight diphthong to moderately distinct diphthong. The most distinctly glided diphthongs are ordinarily found in free position under primary stress accompanied by a change in intonation level. Instances in which the glide on / 1 / is absent or almost imperceptible occur most frequently under secondary stress, in syllables preceding unstressed syllables and, in monosyllables, before nasals. In neither of the first two cases is it likely that there would occur a change in intonation level, which seems to be a favorable condition for
PAGE 183
166 Hfw Orkans li-i Irish ChonncI Figure 9. The vowel of such words as me^ street ^ readj and people.
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167 increased diphthongization — or at least for hearing it. Among those who use both varieties of /i/, [II ~ I \ ] is rare before nasals and in syllables followed by an unstressed syllable, and [| ] is rare in free position. The most important allophone, ingliding [I J] before /I/ followed by a consonant or pause, seems to be common to all regions of the state, as seen in the following examples: fields [\\ ?fz.], LA 15, LeCompte; appeal [spTsf], LA 25, Franklin, eel-oat [Ts t K 36 5 t ] , LA 5, St. Francisville; but peel it [p^|l"t], LA 6 , Clinton. No tendency is apparent for l\\ I and /l 1 / to fall together in pronunciation. The Voidel of way, make, grade, and maybe The mid front vowel nucleus /e/ in such words as waxj , make, grade, and maybe may appear as either an upgliding diphthong [eJ~
PAGE 185
168 Figure 10 shows that the diphthong predominates in Anglo Louisiana, the monophthong in French Louisiana and the New Orleans area. In French Louisiana, final stressed [ 6 ] in free position is often quite short, a fact which is especially noticeable when it falls at the end of an intonation contour, where most English-speakers expect to hear a lengthened vowel. The feature may be related to Louisiana French phonology. In French, the free allophone [ e ] of the mid front unrounded phoneme is closer and, ordinarily, shorter than the checked allophone [<£.]. -^ But it is doubtful that French influence alone can adequately explain the pattern, since the same feature can be observed in speakers from northern Florida. The Vowel of stir, church, word, squirrel, and thirty The vowel nucleus / 3 / in such words as stir, church, word, squirrel, and thirty exhibits wide allophonic and diaphonic variation in Louisiana. Historically, it is a development of /AT/,^ and a constriction of the tongue approximating that of consonantal /r/ is a feature of the vowel at least part of the time. The nature of this constriction, often called "r-coloring," has been variously described, no doubt reflecting some variance in articulation as well as variance of opinion among researchers. However it is described, the essential characteristic of r-coloring seems to be retraction of the tip of the tongue accomplished by bunching, rather than spreading, the tongue near ^Conwell and Juilland, p. 43. ^Hans Kurath, A Phonology and Prosody of Modem English (Ann Arbor, 1964).
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169 Figure 10. The vowel of such words as Way, make, grade, and maybe.
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170 the back of the mouth. Either the tip, the back, or as is most frequent in Louisiana, the blade may be closest to the palate; in any case, the greater the retraction, the greater the r-coloring. Almost half the informants have moderately retracted [S ] at least part of the time, but the degree of retraction varies greatly. For most informants, /^/ is articulated most of the time with the tongue much less retracted than it is for consonantal /r/ ; at its extreme it approaches the neutral mid vowel [/\ ] in character. Many speakers who use this weakly retracted [ 3 ] in free position have an upgliding preconsonantal allophone [31 ] , most frequently used and most sharply upglided before palatals and velars in monosyllables, as in church [tdit], and work [W3lk]. For many speakers, [«3] and [31] seem to be in perfect complementary distribution; for others either allophone may be used before a consonant , especially those farther forward than palatal, and in polysyllables. Upglided [31 ] never occurs finally. Another variety, rounded [0], may occur either finally or preconsonantally after the labials /w/ and /( /, as in squirrels [skwol'z], LA 1 and LA 2, Columbia, and LA 15, LeCompte, and where [hwo] , LA 29, DeQuincy. LA 6, Clinton, has it in furrow [f ] ; her husband LA 7 pronounces far the same way. It is probably significant that all informants who use [0 ] except one, LA 1, are type I. The diaphones of /3/ may or may not have inglides before /I/. Strongly retracted [3^] has an inglide in the examples available, both from DeQuincy: girl [Q:;?-^f], LA 28, and world [WjC § f ] , LA 29.
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171 Weakly retracted [3 ] may be either smooth, as in World [W3fd], LA 14 Natchitoches, or inglided, as in girl [Q3St], LA 11, Jonesville, and LA 36, Grand Isle. Upglided [31 ] likewise may add an inglide before /I/, as in oil [31 I'j'], LA 22, New Orleans,^ though it frequently lacks it, as in squirrel [skW35\ ], LA 3, St. Francisville. The use of constricted [3'] or unconstricted [s3 ] — that is, strongly or weakly retracted varieties of /3/ — is directly related to the presence or absence of consonantal /tI after other vowels. As shown in Figure 11, it is not possible to draw a clear geographical isophone between the two major types for several reasons. First, there is no clear-cut articulatory line between the two major types of /3/; the tongue may be retracted much, less, little, or hardly at all. Therefore, it is often difficult to say whether an utterance should be considered to include [3 ] or [^]. Second, many idiolects include both varieties. In some the degree of retraction varies enough within a single discourse that it must be said, if we insist on the concept of separate constricted and unconstracted sounds, that they include both types, apparently in free variation. It seems more realistic to consider that the phone in such idiolects is an intermediate, overlapping type. In other idiolects, most noticeably that of LA 17, Mansfield, constricted and unconstricted varieties seem to reflect stylistic changes, the unconstricted type being used more frequently in somewhat formal discourse. Finally, though usage is ^This unusual pronunciation is discus.sed more fully in a later section.
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172 -
PAGE 190
173 divided .in most communities, the selection of informants for this study was not designed to assess the nature or extent of such division. An impressionistic estimate based on all aspects of the field work agrees with the maps for /^ / that constricted [3-] is most frequent in the southwestern part of the state. It is least frequent among blacks, among whites of plantation heritage in the Black Belt, and in the Irish Channel. The Vowel of bar, start, and market The vowel nucleus / cy / as in ioTj starts and market in the speech of those who do not have postvocalic /r/ is ordinarily articulated in low back position somewhat farther back than [ Q, ] and somewhat lower than [O ]. It may be smooth [ (J ] or ingliding [CTS] , and is usually comparatively long. Occasionally, it is articulated farther forward [
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174 postvocalic It I. LA 23, New Orleans, sometimes uses an r-less [Q ], as in are, though [Cr3^~fl.3'] is more common for her. For other informants in the New Orleans area, in French Louisiana, and, incidentally, in Hammond and DeQuincy, /fl. / and lol do not contrast where they were historically followed by I V I y whether or not that /T/ has been lost. For several reasons, the relationship of / Q" / to / CL / and /O / is particularly difficult to describe in the Feliciana Parishes, represented by St. Francisville and Clinton. For one thing, they are in a band across Louisiana's elbow where Middle English short /O/ may develop into [
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175 Hew Orlfans IriJ.'i ChortncI Figure 12. The syllabic nucleus of such words as boPj start j and market.
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176 Some further treatment of these matters can be found in a later section. Here the important fact is that those speakers for this study who live north of a line between Hammond and DeQuincy (see Figure 12) and who lack postvocalic IX I have a low back vowel which appears to contrast with both I (X I and /o / and which develops primarily but not exclusively from earlier I CLT I . The Vcwel of right, wife, fry, time, and ride The vowel nucleus / a i / in such words as rights wife, fry^ time, and ride may be an upglided diphthong [ dl ~ aJ, ] or a monophthong [a]. Occasionally the first element is back to or toward [^]. There is a continuous gradation between the type with a distinct rising and fronting off glide and the monophthong. The most distinctly glided phones typically occur before voiceless consonants, as in tij^e [tdlP], LA 14, Natchitoches, and night [na>lt], LA 46, Irish Channel. Monophthongs or vowels with weakened off glides are more common before voiceless consonants, as in hy [ba^] and times [tAi-inZ.], LA 14, and sties [Sd'cJ-z.], LA 46. LA 46 has a strongly glided vowel finally in guy [ Q a.' I ] , but the unglided vowel also occurs in final position in the New Orleans area: LA 23, New Orleans, has it in I [ Q.> ] • Before l\ /, /eii / is realized as an inglided diphthong, as typically in miles ["mat+Z.]. Regionally, distinctly glided vowels seem to be a little more likely to occur finally or before a voiced consonant in French Louisiana than in New Orleans or Anglo Louisiana; but Figures 13 and 14 show that regional differences are minor. Slightly backed [ Sl* ] as the first
PAGE 194
177 Figure 13, The vowel of such words as rightj wife^ and nice.
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178 Hfvj Orleans Irisii Channel Figure 14. The vowel of such words as I, fry^ time, and ride.
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179 element of the diphthong is recorded for all three white informants in the New Orleans area. It was the author's impression from field work that these phones [d^I ~ d' ] are distinctively characteristic of New Orleans speech; but note that the black informant LA 22 does not have them. The speech of several informants in scattered parts of Anglo Louisiana does not fit the general description given above in respect to the treatment of / dl/; note especially Tables 3 and 11 for LA 8, Lake Providence, and LA 15, LeCompte, respectively. The Vowel of boy, choice, poison, and oysters The vowel nucleus /Ol / in such words as boy^ choice, poison, and oysters may be an upglided or inglided diphthong in Louisiana. In most positions for most speakers, it begins at low back rounded [D ], from which point it may glide toward mid central [ 8 ] , mid front [ £. ] , or high front [I ]. Some speakers for whom /O / is a diphthong occasionally pronounce /Ol / as triphthongal [ TOI -^ 3W9]. Certain other combinations of phones have been arranged in the tables in Chapter III as variants of this phoneme, largely because the words they occur in have / 3\ / in standard varieties of English. The regional distribution of such phones is shown in Figures 15 and 16. One variant, [AI ], an upgliding diphthong beginning with the neutral mid vowel, occurs in the word point on the recording of LA 5, St. Francisville, in joint on the recording of LA 8, Lake Providence, and in boil on the recording of LA 22, New Orleans. LA 7, Clinton, has [1gl ] in point. LA 8 uses the same vowel [0.1 ] in joists and join as in five and time. It is significant that all words pronounced with a diphthong having centralized first elements had ui (usually spelled oi or oy)
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180 New Orleans 06-01 Iriih Chorincl Figure 15. The vowel of such words as boi/j choice ^ poison^ and oysters.
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181 Hew/ Orlfans Irish Chortncl Figure 16. Mid central to low central beginning point for the vowel of such words as pointy join^ boilj and oil.
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182 when borrowed from Anglo-French into English. The subsequent change to [01] in standard varieties of English has come about, according to one widely held view, chiefly because of the spelling. In that light, it is probably significant that all four informants are type I; it is also interesting to note that all but one are in communities on the Mississippi, and that all but one are black. It will be noted that both /j / and / o'\ / may be pronounced as an ingliding diphthong [D§ ]. In every instance but one, speakers who have /O? / In oi words have upgliding [ <3 ] or smooth [o] for /o/. LA 42, Irish Channel, has [ 3? ] in Poydras, a street name. His /O/ is also [39 ]. Ingliding [Df ] occurs as a development of of /O I / only among type I informants in the Louisiana recordings. Strongly upglided [DI] seems to be somewhat more frequent among type III informants than others. Phonotactically, it occurs most often before voiceless consonants. The so-called slow diphthong [DC] with mid front or centralized offglide is somewhat more likely to occur before a voiced consonant or in final position. Triphthongal [CJOI ~ OWa] is occasional in the speech of LA 23, New Orleans, LA 28, DeQuincy, and LA 6, Clinton. Inglides are not as regular before / I / for / o'\ / as for / I / and /e/. The ingliding variety mentioned above sometimes occurs, as in oil [ Ogf ], LA 12, Vienna; or the offglide may be lowered rather than centralized, as in boil [ b D C f ] , LA 11, Jonesville. An inglide may also follow an upglide, as in the pronunciation of oil used by LA 22, described in the next paragraph. LA 20, Donaldsonville, has
PAGE 200
183 [Oi ] in boil; but his final / I / in that word is clear / I /, more closely resembling initial and intervocalic varieties of / I / than the dark allophone [r ] used finally by other informants. One other problem related to /Ol / needs to be mentioned. It is a common belief in New Orleans that people from the Irish Channel consistently confuse l0\ I and 1 2> I , saying, for example, toin for turn and ersters for oysters. That belief is an inaccurate reflection of the situation that results when /O ) / comes to be pronounced like the preconsonantal allophone of /Oi /, as [31]. The actual situation, then, is that tiiim and oysters are pronounced with substantially the same sound. Since many people from the Irish Channel itself declare that the two sounds confused them in school, they must fall together at least part of the time. The Irish Channel recordings of LA 42 and LA 46 do not confirm that they do; however, oil [ 3 5-? x ] , and oysters [2>lstBL]y were heard from Irish Channel natives who did not make recordings. It is also important to note that LA 22, New Orleans, has oil [ Of ?f •^ 3?'!'] , though he has [Ol] in oysters. All in all, it appears that the two sounds fall together less frequently in actual speech than in folklore. The Vowel of plow, loud, down, south, and powder The vowel nucleus /d.U./ in such words as plow, loud, down, south, and powder is invariably a diphthong in the Louisiana materials. It usually begins at or near the position for [ 0> ] and glides up and back toward [If], but ingliding variants [d©] and [CIS] were found in St. Francisville (both informants), Clinton (one informant).
PAGE 201
184 Lake Providence, and the Irish Channel (both infoirmants) . The evidence at hand is insufficient to ascertain whether upand ingliding variants are in free variation in any one idiolect. It is clear, however, that there exists no regional phonotactic pattern similar to that along certain sections of the Atlantic coast in which one variant, [9V] or ["PU], occurs before voiceless consonants, and another, [ "SCU" ] or [ dV ], in other positions.^ LA 40, Hammond, has [ ^6 9 ] in ground [QTBES^Q] and [^V] elsewhere, indicating the possibility that the relatively low and front variety and the high and back variety are in complementary distribution in his idiolect, but no such pattern is readily discernible elsewhere. Figure 17 illustrates that characteristic articulatory placement in French and Anglo Louisiana exhibits opposite tendencies. In French Louisiana, the first element is generally somewhat backed to or toward [ d ] and the offglide is relatively high. In Anglo Louisiana the nucleus often begins with [ 2£. ] and sometimes glides no further back and up than [0], though [ ] is more typical. LA 8, Lake Providence, and LA 15, LeCompte, both in Anglo Louisiana, comprise an exception by saying [dV] at least part of the time. LA 28, DeQuincy, sometimes has the triphthong [ 92 i D ] , apparently in free variation with the diphthong [36 ~ 92° ]. The Vowel of law, dog, all, salt, and daughter The low back vowel nucleus /O/ in such words as lau^ dog, all, salt, and daughter exhibits upglided, smooth, and inglided varieties. ^Hans Kurath and Raven I. McDavid, Jr., The Pronimctation of English in the Atlantic States (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961), pp. 110-111.
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185 9eo e(y~a5v~c^a Figure 17. The vowel of such words as ploWj loudj dowriy souths and powder.
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186 Monophthongal [0 ] occupies the tongue position between [ Q. ] and [O] with a noticeable degree of tongue height variation. Upglided diaphones ordinarily begin somewhat farther back than the [ fl. ] of top and glide upward to or toward [ ] . The tongue glide is accompanied by progressive lip rounding. In articulation, then, it is almost exactly like upglided [Oy] , except that both initial and final points of the glide are lower. The ingliding variety, on the other hand, is progressively u rounded as the tongue glides toward neutral position. Generally, upglided and inglided types do not occur in the same idiolect. In those idiolects which have them, upglided phones usually either vary freely with monophthongs or regularly serve as the realizations of / 3 /. Those idiolects which have inglided phones have them most frequently before alveolar consonants and not at all before velars or / I / where the monophthong is regular. Inglided [o^] is rare in final position except when the inglide is a development of final /r/. LA 46, Irish Channel, has it in the first element of the compound crawfish [krOSfl^Jj where it may be considered either final if the elements are considered separately, or preconsonantal in a nonfinal syllable if the compound is judged as a single word. In either case, the inglided phone is unusual. Upglided types are characteristic of Anglo Louisiana; inglided types of French Louisiana, as indicated in Figure 18. Monophthongal [0 ] is found in both regions, but much less frequently in Anglo Louisiana. In Anglo Louisiana, the monophthong appears to diminish in frequency west of the Mississippi delta. High and somewhat centralized
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187 Hew Orkam Iri3^ Chonnel Figure 18. The vowel of such words as ZazJ, dog^ allj salty and daughter.
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188 varieties occur with some regularity in French Louisiana, perhaps influenced by the open allophone of French /O/. Vowels in the region of / / present particular difficulties for anyone attempting to fit them into a traditional phonetic scheme, especially before the consonant /r/. Another feature difficult to describe in terms of traditional phonemics is that unsyllabic / i / occurs frequently beside / ^ / in the Louisiana materials as a development of etymological preconsonantal / I /. As typical examples, LA 25, Franklin, says milk [inaisk], and LA 2, Columbia, says Wolf [WUif]. The Vowel of hoe, road, both, and over The mid back vocalic nucleus / / in such words as hoe^ road^ both, and over may be either a monophthong [o": ~ 0^], an inglided diphthong [02], or an upglided diphthong [O'iJ'-AX]. It is ordinarily at least somewhat rounded; upglided varieties are characterized by progressive lip rounding accompanying the raising of the back of the tongue. The first element is often somewhat centralized to or toward [A]. Monophthongs vary widely in length and closeness, often within one idiolect. Figure 19 shows a fairly distinct regional distribution for the major types. Glided phones of the type [0^1 can be found virtually all over the state. Smooth and inglided types are almost entirely limited to French Louisiana and New Orleans, and are especially characteristic of English-speakers from families with strong Frenchlanguage traditions. Upglided [OV] exhibits no major allophonic changes in tongue or lip position except before /T/, or before the unsyllabic [^] which
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189 Hew Orleans V Chorrncl Figure 19. The vowel of such words as hoe^ roadj both, and over.
PAGE 207
190 is the reflex of /r/ in those dialects which do not have postvocalic ITI . That environment is discussed in a separate section. It is noteworthy that /O/, like /D/, does not have an inglided allophone before / I /. The smooth and inglided phones of French Louisiana present a wider range of variation. In the matter of relative closeness, speakers in St. Martinville, Donaldsonville, and Grand Isle exhibit relatively open and relatively close variants. There is undoubtedly some relationship between these variants and the two major allophones of the Louisiana French phoneme /O/. In French, the open allophone [ ] occurs in checked syllables in complementary distribution with the close allophone [O ] in open syllables.^ There are numerous exceptions even in French, and the rule hardly seems to influence the distribution in English at all. LA 33, St. Martinville, has close [O'^ ] in checked position in home and pirogue J relatively more open [O] in other words, including open position in know. LA 20, Donaldsonville, on the other hand, has long open [ O*''. ] in pirogue and shorter open [ O^ ] in don't. In other morphemes in both checked and open syllables, he has the relatively close short monophthong [O]. It is similarly difficult to abstract a pattern from the usage of the other speakers of Louisiana French background, except in the case of final phrase position. When /O/ occurs finally in a word taking primary stress at the end of a phrase, it is usually Conwell and Juilland, p. 46.
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191 close and often very short, especially noticeable since most English speakers expect a lengthened vowel in that position. That shortening is not confined to Southern Louisiana; it has also been heard from speakers from Northern Florida. In Southern Louisiana, inglided [0§ ] is not necessarily a reflex of etymological /or/. LA 37, Grand Isle, has it in coaah [UoSd], and LA 42, Irish Channel, has it in known [TlOSn]. Apparently, until more information is gathered, preferably with a questionnaire developed to focus on such details, the exact distribution of phones in the region of / / will remain problematical. The Vowel of through, boot, food, and school The high back vowel nucleus /U/ in such words as through^ boot, foody and school may be either a monophthong or a slightly upglided diphthong. In addition, a few speakers in Louisiana have an inglided allophone before / I /. The monophthong is articulated with the back of the tongue high and the lips moderately rounded. The diphthong may begin at a lowered and somewhat centralized position [U], at a centralized position [ bt ] , or at a lowered centralized position [tF]. From there it glides back or up and back to or toward /W/, with progressive lip rounding. The centralized positions are most frequent after /j /, as in mule [Yr\JttU.T], and new [llj-btU], but they are often heard after other palatals as well as some alveolars. Figure 20 shows a fairly distinct regional division. The diphthongal variety was found at least occasionally on the recordings
PAGE 209
192 Hfv)/ Orkans a111 Iri:fi Chonncl U a Figure 20. The vowel of such words as through ^ booty food, and school.
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193 for all Anglo communitlea in the state except Natchitoches and Mansfield, which were represented by type III speakers. The monophthong prevails in French Louisiana; the upgliding diphthong was found there only once. Both speakers in the Irish Channel have only [ \ ], as does LA 22, New Orleans, except after /)/> where he uses the diphthong with centralized initial element. Among regional varieties of American English, Midland, and Northern types generally have inglided [Ul,] before /I/, whereas Coastal Southern has relatively long [U'. ~t(U]. Because relevant instances were not found on every tape, it is not possible to determine the exact distribution of the two types in Louisiana, but it is clear that inglided [U^ ] is comparatively infrequent. It is used by LA 23, New Orleans, LA 33, St. Martinville, and occasionally by LA 16, LeCompte. Checked Vowels The Vowel of hit, sick, mill, in, and pickle The high front checked vowel nucleus / I / as in bit^ siokj milly in, and pickle is articulated in a position slightly lower and farther back than that for the high front free vowel / | /. It may be either a monophthong [ I ] or a slightly inglided diphthong [15]. In syllables carrying primary stress and a change in intonation level, the smooth variety occurs before palatals and velars, the inglided variety before other consonants, as in fifth [fl?r9] and six [5lUs ] under similar conditions of stress and intonation. In nonfinal syllables —
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194 I~I^ K-I IS
PAGE 212
195 those which do not come last in an intonation contour — the offglide is usually weakened or lost, with the exception that an inglide is nearly always preserved before final or preconsonantal l\/. Except before certain nasals and clusters including nasals, an environment discussed in a following section, the patterns described above are remarkably uniform throughout Louisiana, as shown in Figure 21. Apparently, the only exception occurs in the speech of LA 20, Donaldsonville, who has monophthongal [ I ] in filter [fl \\.d ], where the postvocalic /I/ is clear, rather than dark, as it is normally in English. He has inglided [I^ ] and dark [f ] in mill [TfllS'l']. The Vowel of leg, head, yes, tell, and better The mid front checked vowel nucleus / £• / as in leg, head, J/^s, tell and better is articulated in mid front position, somewhat lower and farther back than the corresponding free vowel /e /. It may be either a monophthong [ L.] or an ingliding diphthong [ <5 S ] . The usual pattern in which the two varieties occur is the same as for the two varieties of 111', in syllables carrying primary stress and a change in intonation level, the monophthong occurs before palatals and velars, the inglided variety before other consonants. Under weakened stress and in prefinal syllables the offglide is weakened or lost; as a typical example, LA 33, St. Martinville, has inglided [£.2] in best [ b £®St] , but smooth [ £ ] in pleasant [ p| i Z 9 "H t ] . There are some significant departures from the general rule in three conmiunities in French Louisiana (see Figure 22) , where the
PAGE 213
196 Figure 22. The vowel of such words as leg^ head, yes, tell, and better.
PAGE 214
197 monophthong occurs with a fair degree of regularity before certain alveolar and labial consonants. LA 25, Franklin, has smooth [ <^ ] in yet I'^Ct] and men [7T\£Tl]. LA 20, Donaldsonville, has it in dead [dccl]. In Grand Isle, LA 37 has smooth [ £, ] in left [ 1 £_f ] , head [hed], and ahead [ahcd]. But his younger brother LA 36 has ingliding [eg ] in them [txSSm]. In some words which etyraologically have I €^ I , a rising offglide develops before / Q / in some idiolects. For example, LA 1, Columbia, and LA 31, Cameron, both pronounce leg as [ 1 £1 ^ Q ]. LA 6, Clinton, has an upglided vowel in the second syllable of nutmeg [ Yl A t ~yn Ciq ] . LA 25, Franklin, pronounces eggs as [eJflZ], in which an etymological / £. / is shifted fully to the usual position for / Q, / . On the basis of phonetic similarity, even {C\], with a significantly lower beginning point, groups more naturally with /e/ than with IL / . The position of an etymological /£,/ may also be modified after /^ / or /j /. The common pronunciation of get as [qi ?t] scarcely needs to be mentioned; also, LA 7, Clinton, uses a slightly raised mid front vowel in yet [jf^t], and LA 17, Mansfield, uses a similar one in yes. On the other hand, LA 16, LeCompte, has a somewhat lowered vowel in yes [ \ C^ ^ ]. The Vowel of bad, back, pan, lag, ladder, half, and chance The low front checked vowel nucleus /a6/ as in bady back, pan, T'Ogj ladder, half, and chance may be a monophthong [ 5^ ] , an inglided
PAGE 215
198 diphthong [^2>], or an upglided diphthong [36-1.]. Occasionally, the triphthong [36^-2. ] occurs. Figure 23 shows that smooth [ 'ae. ] and ingliding [ "96 ^ ] are found in all parts of the state. In French Louisiana, these variants exhibit a pattern similar to that shown by smooth and ingliding variants of /I/ and ILI. That is, in syllables with primary stress and an intonation change, the smooth variety [ ae ] ordinarily appears before palatals and velars, and ingliding [ 'se. 2 ] appears before other consonants. Those same generalizations hold true in Anglo Louisiana with the following exception: upgliding [36.^ ] may appear before /i/, 1^1 , /S/ y and /5/, and before /A/ plus a voiceless consonant. Before jv / the occurrence of upgliding [3ei ] appears to be limited to plurals of words which have /f / in the singular; LA 10, Jonesville, has it in calf [k^lf ] and calves [K^S^VZ ], but in have under similar stress he — like other informants — has an ingliding phone: [hsefV]. The general rules are not without exceptions. LA 8, Lake Providence, has [a^i] before /n/ alone in man [YYiae^^] but not in hand [K^eJ-^Tl ]. LA 46, Irish Channel, has ingliding [36?] before a palatal in mash [Tri'ae^S], but not consistently; another instance of the same word has a smooth phone. Figure 24 illustrates the marked regional differences in the occurrence of upgliding [ 36 J ] . It was found only once in French Louisiana. LA 36, Grand Isle, has it in lag [ ! '32 5 Q ] , where the vowel shows a development similar to that sometimes found in /£,/ before / /. By contrast, only one informant from Anglo Louisiana,
PAGE 216
199 ^a^SSAid^^s ae'-aea X~^ei ^-"^ ] Nfiv Or Irani Irish Chorrncl pi Figure 23. The vowel of such words as badj baokj pan^ lag^ and laddev.
PAGE 217
200 Hew Orkans Iriili Choftncl Figure 24. The vowel of such words as halfj grasSj and chance.
PAGE 218
201 LA 14, Natchitoches, appears not to have it. Certain other articulatory differences are of interest. LA 33, St. Martinville, and LA 23, New Orleans, sometimes have backed [a,]; and LA 42, Irish Channel, occasionally has slightly backed [ 36 * ] . More important are the raised variants [ 3£ '^ ~ 96'^~ 36*^5.], which are found in the speech of nine informants; LA 6 and LA 7, Clinton; LA 8, Lake Providence; LA 22, New Orleans; LA 15, LeCompte; LA 25, Franklin; LA 37, Grand Isle; and LA 46 and LA 42, Irish Channel. It is difficult to see an overall pattern by region or age, but it is significant that all four black informants, the first four on the list, are included in this group. Certain problems involving / 36 / and the other front checked vowels before nasals are discussed in the next section. Front Checked Vouels Before Nasals The front checked vowel nuclei /!/, / C / , and / "32 / exhibit a complex set of relationships before nasals. In the speech of most informants, no consistent phonetic distinction can be discerned between the vowel nuclei of words which etymologically have /In/ and those which etymologically have /£,T\/, so that stressed in rimes with men, for example. Final /fll/ has much the same apparent effect, but the effect does not show up in the speech of as many informants as it does before /A/. For a somewhat smaller number of informants, no consistent phonetic distinctions are made between etymological /l/, / L/, and / a£ / before the velar nasal /r\/. In some idiolects, front checked vowels
PAGE 219
202 before the clusters /nd.^ ^ J / > arid /T\S/ appear much the same way they do before /TJ /. In other clusters the nasals have the same apparent effect as they do finally. Before the velar nasal / 1] / , either alone or followed by another consonant, the vowel which actually occurs in words which etymologically have / 1 / is often [C ~£5 ] or [ 36 ~ 36^ ] in Anglo Louisiana, as shown in Figure 25. The result is that sing may be pronounced like sang and think may be homophonous with thank. Such lowered variants are not found on the recordings for French Louisiana and appear to be rare in the New Orleans area. LA 23, New Orleans, occasionally uses a lowered vowel, as in thing [0£.)1], but [ I ] is more common, as in bring [pTTin] and think [DloK]. The other New Orleans informant and the ones from the Irish Channel use [ I ] consistently. Additionally, certain informants in the Anglo area seem not to use a lowered vowel before / )f\ / ; they are LA 16, LeCompte, LA 14, Natchitoches, and LA 40, Hammond. No pattern emerges on the basis of sex, age, region, or type. As a matter of fact, LA 16, who uses [I ], is married to LA 15, who uses [36 '^ 965,]. Apparently, neither she nor her husband notices the difference in pronunciation. Figure 26 shows that in most of the state, phones produced in the region of [L ] do not occur before / 1\ / . Instead, in those words where etymology would lead us to expect [ d ] , we find [I ~1S]; the vowel has the same quality as in words where [ I ] is etymologically predictable. The distributive pattern is the same as that for the
PAGE 220
203 Figure 25. The vowel of such words as think j things and finger.
PAGE 221
20A Ne«v Orkans Irisfi Channel CI Figure 26, The vowel of such words as merij ten, and center.
PAGE 222
205 allophones of /I/ before consonants farther forward than palatal. That is, the monophthong [I ] occurs in nonfinal syllables, and inglided [It.] normally occurs when no other syllable follows closely, as in the following typical examples from LA 11, Jonesville: tidenty [Iwilrttl] , but ten [tiSn]. LA 40, Hammond, follows essentially the same pattern, but phonetically the vowel he uses is somewhat lower, being articulated somewhere between the positions for [X ] and [ L ] . In Franklin, Donaldsonville, New Orleans, the Irish Channel, and Grand Isle, either [l ~I^] or [ £. ~ £?.] may occur before /n/. The difference cannot consistently be predicted etymologically . All three informants from Grand Isle and Donaldsonville, for example, use vowels ranging in quality between [I ] and [ £. ] in words which etymologically have /6"A/. They do use [I~'lS] consistently in words which etymologically have /IY\/. The evidence at hand is insufficient to determine whether a given phonetic quality is consistently used in different instances of the same word. In New Orleans and the Irish Channel, [L ~ €•?] is usually, but not invariably, used in words which etymologically have ILy\i. In many idiolects which have only [l '^1^] before /n/, both [I~IS] and [L ~C?] may occur before /fH/ . Both LA 2, Columbia, and LA 28, DeQuincy, for example, have [£S] in them [?)£.?Tf\.]; in addition, LA 28 has [L.] in lemon [ I tTTl B T\ ] . LA 31, Cameron, however, has a high vowel in stem [Stl^TTA], where the mid vowel [L] is etymologically predictable. No instances of [£~C5] in words which etymologically have /lTt\/ were noted on any of the Louisiana recordings. A unique
PAGE 223
206 variant deserves to be noted: LA 5, St. Francisville , has a high monophthongal [ I'^ ] in them [Sl*TT\]. The sound is substantially different phonetically from both the ingliding [I 5] of breoJV^ shrn-mp^ and the high close [l ~ II ] of mean^ green-baok. Rarely, an etymological /I/ is lowered before Z"^^, "m / , or /t\S/. la 6, Clinton, has an upglided mid vowel in pinch [QtX.'wt,]. For the sake of comparison, she has [ £. ~ 36i ] before / Tj / , and [I^] before / Yl / alone. LA 29, DeQuincy, has [a^i ] in engines [aei T\jir\7.] LA 31, Cameron, has mid front [ d ] in since [SCTlts]) but high front [I ] in inches [lY\tiZ]. The evidence at hand is not sufficient to draw a complete picture of the phonology of the front checked vowels before nasals. A few important generalizations can be made, however. In Anglo Louisiana, the number of consistent phonetic distinctions is reduced; the phones involved are /I / and IcI before /A/ and to a somewhat lesser extent before /fn/ , and /I/, / Ll , and / 36 / before / Y\ / . In French Louisiana and New Orleans, distinctions before /H / are generally maintained along etymological lines. All three front checked vowels occur before /n/, but it cannot always be predicted whether [I ] or [ V] will appear in words such as men and pen. The fact that [I~I^] appears consistently in words that etymologically have /I/ and sporadically in words that etymologically have /6/ probably indicates that the mid front vowel is in the process of being lost before /Y\/.
PAGE 224
207 The Vouel of lock, pot, pond, and bother The low central vowel nucleus /Q. / in such words as look, pot, pond, and bother is nearly always a monophthong. Its usual articulation is low central to low back [ Q. ] . Most informants also have a phone [^] articulated farther back than [ CL ] and lower than [O]. For some this sound may be considered an allophone of /CL/; for others it is structured as a phoneme in its own right. For this discussion, the phonemic boundary between /CJ / and / Q. I posited for some informants will be ignored. The question of phonemic boundaries has been taken up in the discussion of free vowel /CJ/. Furthermore, this discussion will ignore the frequent use of [
PAGE 225
208 a a-d? a. a a. a Irish ChoftncI Figure 27. The vowel of such words as loak^ poty pond, and hotheT.
PAGE 226
209 in shop. Furthermore, LA 31, Cameron, has [d] and I CJ" ] in successive instances of otter. it is apparent that the low back vowels will have to be studied more fully in Louisiana before their relationships can be accurately known. In those parts of the state outside the band of communities just mentioned, / d / is regularly [ Ol] in the environments discussed here, without any major articulatory changes for diffent phonetic environments . The vowel nucleus / Q. / is considered to be a checked vowel because it occurs in final position only in words borrowed into English fairly recently. In Louisiana the most notable of these words is Mardi Gvas, usually /Ynflrdi ^Cfl-/. Most other words borrowed from French with endings similarly spelled have final /O/, as for example the place names Arkansas [flS^ksYISJ], Tensas [\.1X\S>2] , and Ouachita [W fl. S I "t 5 ] > all ultimately of Indian origin. For LA 10, Jonesville, Mardi Gras follows the same pattern: [TU^diar D° ] , indicating a tendency to structure I O1 only as a checked vowel. The Vowel of up, run, hush, jug, and hung The mid central vowel nucleus /A/ in such words as up, run, hushj jug, and hung may be articulated near the center of mid central position: [ A ]; frequently it is shifted up and back toward /l// : [A^^~Y]; less often it is shifted down and back toward the area of /CI/ and /O/ : [ A.' ^ ] . Under primary stress, it is not ordinarily shifted up or forward, though such a shift occurs frequently under ^Kurath, Phonology and Prosody, p. 91.
PAGE 227
210 secondary stress. The relatively high back type has an ingliding variant [A*'^^ ~ If S ] ; naturally enough, the phone [A], which is already central, does not have a centralizing off glide. Rarely, a type [Ai ~ Vi ] with a rising and fronting off glide appears. For most informants in Anglo Louisiana, relatively high back phones [A"^ ~ Y ] seem to be in free variation with those articulated in a more central position [ A ] . Perhaps it would be more accurate to state that, on the average, the point of articulation is somewhat high and back [ A^*^ ] and that there is a wide latitude of articulatory placement which includes [A] and [Y]. Ingliding phones were found in the speech of eleven informants, most frequently before final /y1, nt/, and /£./; they were also noted before /p, d, W, "t/, and /I/. Phones with a rising and fronting offglide [aJ ^VJ] were considerably less frequent; they were found before /J, Ji, j, Yl6/ , and /a/ in the speech of only four informants. For one of those four, LA 2, Columbia, enough examples are available to suggest that he has upgliding mid central phones consistently before palatals. The relevant words are brush [brXH^], hushed [KA^i^t ], jud^e [ Y A"^ I. T ], and much [Tnyic]. For the other three informants, no generalizations about the distribution of upgliding phones are warranted. It appears that rising and centralizing offglides do not appear in the same idiolect, but since upgliding phones occur mostly before palatals and ingliding phones occur mostly before labials and alveolars , they cannot be considered regional or social variants of a single allophone.
PAGE 228
211 The regional and phonological relationships of relatively low back [^*''~^*''] are complex. For two informants in French Louisiana, LA 20, Donaldsonville, and LA 36, Grand Isle, the usual point of articulation for the mid central vowel is somewhat shifted toward /O /, considerably lower than the relatively high back position most frequent in Anglo Louisiana. A few Anglo informants who have [A ] or [A~"g'] in most phonetic environments use a lowered and backed variant before /n/, either finally or clustered, and before the cluster /ynn / . For example, LA 22, New Orleans, has it in hungry [ h A** f] QTl ], LA 5 , St. Francisville, in bumpy [b A*^W PI], and LA 7, Clinton, in sturnp [StA'^inp] and young [ j '^ ' " H ]• Uniquely, LA 29, DeQuincy , has a diphthong in young [ |£,Dr|], showing both fronting after / | / and backing before /n/. Regionally, the relatively high back vowels [ A^"'^ "^ ] in the mid central range are characteristic of Anglo Louisiana, as shown in Figure 28. They occur less frequently in the speech of type III informants than in that of types I and II. Such vowels are comparatively rare in French Louisiana and the New Orleans area. The informants from St. Martinville have [Y] only once apiece, in trucks I'tT'^fKS], LA 33, and bunch [bVnC], LA 34. LA 46, Irish Channel, also has it once in butt [byt ]. As a general rule, however, the point of articulation in French Louisiana is at or very near mid central [ A J . with the variants that do occur shifted back and down more frequently than toward l\J / . It is significant that variant pronunciations are much less frequent in the French part of the state than in the Anglo.
PAGE 229
212 ^>*~v~y>Al A~A> A^-^-A* A'^^-A'^A'^^i Hew Organs A Irish Chorrncl A Figure 28. The vowel of such words as up^ run^ hushj jug^ and hung.
PAGE 230
213 It is also significant that, within Anglo Louisiana, variant pronunciations are more frequent and have a wider range of articulations among type 1 informants than among type III, with type II somewhere between. Of 5 type III informants, 3 have essentially the same phone in all positions, 1 has smooth phones with moderate positional latitude, and 1 has smooth and ingliding allophones with moderate positional latitude. Of 9 type I informants, all have allophones with and without offglides, and all have moderate to wide latitude of articulatory placement. Of A type II informants, 2 have smooth and ingliding allophones and 3 have moderate latitude of placement. Though /A/ is classed as a checked vowel, mid central phones may on occasion be found in final position. LA 8, Lake Providence, cited bro ' [\dtA ] as a familiar appellation for a brother. And a resident of the Irish Channel who was not an informant pronounced fov as [f A ] in stressed position in the following exclamation: "All, he don't even know what it's for!" Both examples are from field notes; neither appears on a tape recording. The usual pronunciation of the adverb just all over Louisiana is ["(15 ~ Yjst] with a high central rather than a mid central vowel; but [jASt ], [Y^?S], and [^15] are also recorded. Since the word almost never occurs under primary stress, it is not strictly comparable to the other words cited here which had short u in Middle English, It may be more realistic to consider the phones in that word developments of schwa /B/ than of /A/.
PAGE 231
214 The Vowel of put, bull, book, and sugar The high back checked vowel nucleus /v/ in such words as put^ bully hooky and sugar is articulated in a position slightly lower and more central than that for the corresponding free vowel /U./ and is commonly less closely rounded. It may be a monophthong [V ] or an ingliding diphthong [uf]. Rarely, a type [V i ] with a fronting offglide occurs. The vowel nucleus may sometimes be centralized [V-] or centralized and unrounded [V ]. Because examples are infrequent, a definitive description of the distribution of smooth and gliding allophones cannot be given. Ingliding [U S ] was usually noted before the alveolar stops / "t / and /d/ in final syllables, as in these typical examples: should [SV^u], wouldy wood [Wlf^d], and foot [ r V ? t ] . It seems to be somewhat more frequent before /Q/ than before /X/. It occurs once before a palatal fricative in pushed [puf^t ], LA 23, New Orleans, but the type [vl ] with a fronting off glide may also occur in that position. LA 5, St. Francilville, has the latter phone in push [DViS]. Also, LA 22, New Orleans, has the same sound in Baton Rouge [ b'36t'n Tvix], where it has developed from the free vowel /U/ followed by a palatal fricative; and [vJ ] is regular in one standard pronunciation of Louisiana [ I V^ Z I 3€ Yl B ] . The smooth phone [v ] predominates before other consonants and in nonfinal syllables, as typically in cook [kvK], shook [Svk], room [rum], bulls [bvlz.], butoher [\>\Tt^], cushion [\
PAGE 232
215 Figure 29 reveals no significant regional variation in the distribution of smooth and ingliding allophones of /V/. Differences in the range of articulatory placement are related to those of /A/. As a variant of /l//, the relatively centralized unrounded phone [Y], in some idiolects where it occurs, seems to be at one limit of a rather wide articulatory latitude with gradations between [\J ] and [A]j and often including fronted [V ] as well. For example, in three instances of the word good, LA 31, Cameron, has three different pronunciations: [oydj Q "8" ^ d ] , and [QAf-d]. In couldn't under secondary stress he has [V ] : [ k VaT\ t ] . LA 2, Columbia, has [X"] once in good [Oyd], but another time he has a normal ingliding phone: [QVSd]. On the other hand, both New Orleans informants have [y] in shook [SVK], but not in other words, leading one to suspect that it may be in complementary distribution with [V ] there. But confirming evidence is not available. Although [ y ] is also listed as one of the phones representing /A/, there is little tendency for /U / and /A/ to fall together in any one idiolect. The informants from New Orleans and Cameron do not use relatively high back varieties of /A/, leaving /"if/ free to shift slightly toward a central unrounded position without danger of overlap. In the speech of LA 2, month [YinY2n9] and one instance of good [gvd] do have vowels of much the same quality, but this pronunciation of good occurs alongside others which have vowels clearly different from any in the range [A~y] given for /A/.
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216 Nffiv Orleans Jrisfj Chonncl Figure 29. The vowel of such words as putj hull, hook, and sugar.
PAGE 234
217 Vowels Before the Retraoted Consonant Before /V/, the development of English vowels has not been the same as in other positions:^ in the Louisiana recordings the inventory of vowel sounds occurring before historical /V / is smaller than for most other positions, and contrast relationships and articulatory features are not the same. The situation is complicated by the fact that in the speech of half or more of the informants, retracted phones [3^~ P ] do not occur after vowels except when another vowel follows immediately. Instead, the /Y"/ which occurred at an earlier state of the language and which is still consistently represented in standard spelling has either developed into a neutral vocalic phone or been lost. Yet the vowels of syllables where such a loss has occurred group naturally with vowels noted before [3^], indicating that historical /T/, whether or not it is now articulated as a retracted phone, is an important feature in the environment of vowels that precede it. In order to indicate that abstract feature without confusing it with actual speech sounds, the symbol /R/ will be used to stand for retracted consonants at a hypothetical earlier stage of the language, and the symbol / 'C / will continue to be used to stand for retracted phones [3^~r] which function structurally as consonants. For purposes of discussion, two kinds of postvocalic /R/ may be posited: tautosyllabic and intervocalic. Tautosyllabic postvocalic /R/ occurs in final position and before consonants, as in hear and horse. Intervocalic /R/ ^See Kurath, Phonology and Prosody, pp. 27-29 for a concise history.
PAGE 235
218 occurs between vowels, as in orange. The two types develop differently. Tautosyllabic /R/ may develop into [3^], [S], or 4) (zero); with certain exceptions, intervocalic /R/ develops into [ X^ ] . Vowels, too, have developed somewhat differently before each type. Those before tautosyllabic /R/ will be discussed first. All informants have vowels in the range of / I / before tautosyllabic /R/. Ordinarily, such vowels are somewhat closer and longer than the [l~I^] occurring before other consonants, and the centering offglide, always present in /iR/ when retraction is lost, is a little longer. In Jonesville, St. Francilville, and Clinton the vocalic nucleus of the homonyms here and hear may be nazalized, usually with a lowering and backing offglide, as in [hl3 ~ hj C J ] , LA 10, Jonesville. Five other speakers besides LA 10 sometimes have an intrusive / i / in here J hear^ and nearj in such cases the vowel nucleus following [i ] may have a lowered beginning point; some examples showing the range of articulations are nearly [Y1JC3*iI], LA 29, DeQuincy, and here [nil ?], LA 7, Clinton. Figure 30 shows that all six speakers who have intrusive / j / are in Anglo Louisiana; the fact that all six are over sixty indicated that it is probably old-fashioned. The phone [Q.] was found to be rare before tautosyllabic /R/; two instances were noted, both in the same word. LA 46, Irish Channel, has it in player [plsiS], and LA 34, St. Martinville, has it in the plural form players [pi eS^X]. The fact that two morphemes are involved here is relevant; play has retained its usual pronunciation when combined with the suffix -er. The sequence [£5^] was noted
PAGE 236
219 M?tv Orkans Jr'tih Channel p9 Figure 30. The vowel nucleus of such words as deer^ here, and near.
PAGE 237
220 twice, in theiVy from LA 23, New Orleans, and in haiv , LA 28, DeQuincy. It appears to vary freely with [ £" e*" ] ; LA 28 says [ h (£ I a^ ] and [hc^a*"] in successive sentences. Mid front vowels in the range of /£,/ occur before tautosyllabic / R / in the speech of all the informants, though such vowels may be articulated somewhat lower than the {L ~C§,] found before other consonants. In fact, LA 17, Mansfield, and LA 2, Columbia, have a type [C" '^ 36"'] intermediate between the usual articulation for /6/ and that for /ae/. In addition, eight informants in east central Louisiana, have, besides [ £, ] , a phonetically distinct [ '36 ] , as shown in Figure 31. In where and there ^ [ £^ ] is regular, though LA 2, Columbia, says where [hwse ]. Otherwise, phonetic environment seems to be the best key to relative distribution. The higher vowel [ £, ] usually occurs after /k/, low front [ "36 ] , when present, after other consonants. LA 14, Natchitoches, and LA 10, Jonesville, furnish typical examples: LA 14 says ocxre [ k £ ^ ] but hare [ b se » ] , and LA 10 says soared [5kc5 d] and careful [k£§ fal] but bear [h^^]. Low front [ ae ] was also noted after /p/ and /cL/, and initially. As in most varieties of English, the historically expected mid central vowel /A/ before tautosyllabic /R/ regularly develops into a retracted vowel [3~cM, here counted as the free vowel phoneme /3 / discussed earlier. Likewise, a separate free vowel / Q / is posited for historical /aR/ when the /R/ develops into <() or [^]. That vowel too has been discussed, but it seems appropriate to mention it again here in relation to the development of / CL / and /o / before /R/.
PAGE 238
221 Hfw Orleans Iris/i Clionnel Figure 31. The vowel nucleus of such words as chair j becw^ and core.
PAGE 239
222 In general, Middle English short I 'd^ I , which developed into I S/Z. I ixi most environments, changed to Modern English I
PAGE 240
223 D~DX~^ Nftv Orleans oa^ Figure 32. The vowel nucleus of such words as horse and order.
PAGE 241
224 Hew Orleans Jriifi Chcnncl Figure 33. The vowel nucleus of such words as door and coarse.
PAGE 242
225 But three black and two white informants have such an offglide at least occasionally, as in boards [bOV-Sdz], LA 6, Clinton, and bored [bo\i5d], LA 23, New Orleans. The other three informants are in the neighboring communities of St. Francisville and Clinton; all five are within thirty or forty miles of the Mississippi. Words that in Middle English had / '. V / are regularly pronounced with a higher vowel than those that had /^t/. LA 5, St. Francisville, furnishes the following examples typical of all informants: more [Tn05], gourdhead [QO^dVictd], and board [ boVi4.d ] , hut warhorse [v/i) ho S ] , forked [foB'kid], and shorter [Softs]. Only six instances of vowels in the range of / V / before tautosyllabic /R/ were noted. Unfortunately, the sample is not large enough to permit a description of distribution. Sure is the word most frequently noted; its pronunciation may be either [^1/5] or [SvST"]. It is likely that [SO ~ jOS] could also be found in Louisiana, but it was not noted on the DARE recordings. Vowels in the range of /au/, unlike those in the range of /O/, regularly have a rising and backing offglide before tautosyllabic /R/. Often, the semivowel [w] develops before the [ 9 ~ a'] that develops from /R/, as in floiu' [fl^Cwe], LA 25, Franklin. On the average, the beginning element of the diphthong is farther back before /R/ than in other positions. An extreme example is LA 11, Jonesville, who has [ 3eS ] in house and [ au ] in down but [ aS'^a.Wd] in our. The fully glided diphthong [dl ] was noted occasionally before tautosyllabic /R/, as in fire [fdlSf^], LA 40, Hammond, and wire [waLl§]> LA 46, Irish Channel. Most other informants have smooth or
PAGE 243
226 inglided low back to low central vowels as the regular development of Middle English long / \ '. / before /R/. Typically, the articulatory position is the same as for the beginning element of the usual phonetic realization of /gi /; some examples are tired [taa^'d], LA 37, Grand Isle, retired [rita«d], LA 14, Natchitoches, and briars [bra: Z ], LA 2, Columbia. The Clinton informants have vowels noticeably farther back than [a]: LA 8 has [a~fl.:] in wire [\N(X] and iron [ a '. W ] . This vowel is different from the [
PAGE 244
227 generally preserve [Q, ] before intervocalic /R /, as in hardly [ h 5 d I I ] and horrible [harsbef], LA 25, Franklin, or parts [pcjgts] and harrow [\\O.TB], LA 8, Lake Providence.^ Other vowels which occur before both tautosyllabic and intervocalic / R / have about the same quality in both positions. Not all vowels can occur even before intervocalic /R/. Words with /e/ and / i / in such a position are infrequent, and / \k / , /a/, /oi/, and /au/ were not noted before intervocalic / R, / at all. It is possible, of course, that some of those sequences may occur in Louisiana and either did not happen to occur in taped conversations or escaped notice. The vowels before /R/ cannot be satisfactorily systematized phonologically with the unitary phonemic notation used here. If the analogy of /^ / and / 2> / is followed, then new symbols are needed for such phones as the [ I'^ ^ ] in beard when it contrasts with the vowels of bead and bid or the [Qt ~ 0^] in bored when it contrasts with the vowels of bowed and bawd. But the inventory of phonemes is already long. Rather than add to it, Kurath and McDavid posit an unsyllabic /5/ which functions as a consonant; beard [ bl*^d ] would then be phonemically represented as /blSO/, and bored [boV^d] would be /bo§d/. This solution to the problem is essentially the same as the one proposed in the binary system of Trager and Smith, in which bored would be phonemicized as /bohd/ and beard as /bind/. ^The unusual development of Middle English short /d/ to Modern English / (^ / rather than / "96 / before Intervocalic /R/ may have been conditioned by the original back rounded vowel in the second syllable. Compare the same speaker's carry [ k 36 Y" I ]. Similarly, LA 7, Clinton, has [Oi] in barrow (male swine castrated before maturity), but [ "ae ] in barrel. His wife LA 6 has [ 3£ ] in harroWy however.
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228 A different but related problem must be confronted in such a case as that of card and aord when they are both pronounced [Kcf^'d]. It is unnecessary to posit a new phoneme here because [Sf-] establishes contrast with ood and oawed. But there is no way to decide whether [ CT ] should be assigned to /a / or to / 3 / except by divine revelation or some other process equally difficult to confirm objectively. The essence of the problem is that the vowels before /R/ constitute a separate subsystem. Neither articulatory characteristics nor contrast relationships are quite the same as in the general system. If we set up archiphonemes for the subsystem which span the range of two or more phonemes in the general system, we produce much the same effect on phonemic inventory as we would by merely adding phonemes. If we assign phones before / R / to some of the phonemes in the general system, we must make arbitrary decisions about which phonemes they belong to. Transformational generative phonology, by eliminating the phonemic level and working directly between a more abstract gvammatioal level and the phonetic realization, offers a scientifically elegant solution. The principle on which the system works may be briefly exemplified by describing the way bore would appear in three grammatical relationships in three representative idiolects — those of LA 14, Natchitoches, LA 31, Cameron, and LA 8, Lake Providence. Since all three idiolects have [ T ] in medial position, boring would be pronounced [bomn~ Dorir)] in all three. We can then abstract the underlying grammatical form /boT/, and write one rule which predicts the pronunciation [bor] for that form in all three idiolects when it is followed
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229 by the underlying grammatical form / I Tl g /. But when /\i5v/ stands alone or is followed by the underlying form /ed/, different phonetic rules must be written for each idiolect. The rule for LA 14 must predict [b0?d] for /bor + ed/ and [ \)0l ] for / hoY / alone. The rule for LA 31 must predict [bosfd] and [ b O 2^ ] , and the one for LA 8 must predict [ bo\J^d] and [ b OH ] . The differences in these speech types are then defined as the grammatical differences in the rules for pronunciation. The scheme adequately explains the phonological differences without obscuring the relationships among the three idiolects. Unstressed Vowels The vowels of unstressed syllables are here considered to be in a separate subsystem from the vowels of stressed syllables. Although they are roughly comparable to certain stressed vowels, the unstressed vowels are set off by the relationships they exhibit within the phonological structure and by their wide latitude of articulatory placement. Most unstressed vowels fall naturally into three groups: high front /I /, neutral /Q/, called schwa, and retracted / ^/ . Additionally, back vowels distinct from the other three types were found in a few instances. Because minimal pairs involving the unstressed vowels are uncommon, their relationships cannot be precisely determined from recordings of free conversation. At best, a few broad tendencies can be described. The High Front Unstressed Vowel The high front unstressed vowel 111, as in the second syllable of marriage or ferry ^ may range in quality from mid front [ C ] to high
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230 front [i ] and [I ] to high central [I]. Lowered and centralized varieties of 111 grade into /a/. The vowel III may occur in nonfinal syllables, as in events [rvisntS] and barbecue [barblkjU], in final syllables either finally or preconsonantally , as in marriage [Tnaer ij ] and very [v£.ri], and in unstressed monosyllables as in him [ITt\]. Generally speaking, high front allophones are most frequent before or after palatal consonants and in final position. The greatest raising and fronting occurs in the prevocalic position as in the second syllable of area [dr/a], where the articulatory placement is essentially the same as for the stressed free vowel [i ]. There appears to be little regional variation in the allophonic distribution just described. The following tendencies in the relation of III to other unstressed vowels were noted. In some etymological classes of unstressed syllables. 111 regularly occurs; in others it varies more or less freely with /a/; and in still others it never occurs. Among the syllables where it occurs regularly are the -es and -ed endings when they include a vowel, as in roses [roVZ-IZ], lasts [1365 1 Z] (stc), and repeated [ TI p M I d ]. Some of the other final syllables in which it occurs regularly, given in their usual spellings, are -est^ -ist, -iCy -age, and -ing. It is also regular finally as a development of Middle English high front vowels, as in Very [Vdri ], from Middle English verry , verray , though one instance of [VCre] is recorded, from LA 22, New Orleans. In extra [ck-Stri], LA 40, Hammond, magnolia [ m ^ 3 n 6 y f j i ] , lA 29, DeQuincy, and angora [a€l]g6ri] ,
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231 LA 2, Columbia, it has developed in final position from earlier /Q/. Medial syllables may take either / 9 / or /I/, apparently without distinction, as in tragedy [traeJBdl ] and furniture [fjnids], LA 11, Jonesville. LA 14, Natchitoches, has /l/ in the second syllable of marriage [TABeriJ], but / 9 / in the second syllable of manager [TTiaensTa] . In suffixes ending in final / "n / or / "H / plus a consonant, /9 / and 111 grade into each other; some typical examples from various speakers are covenant [ Vcy PYniT\t] , pageant [p3eTlT\t], and innocent [fnasantj. High front unstressed 111 was not found on any of the Louisiana recordings as a development of etymological /6R/ or of a final back vowel. The Retracted Unstressed Vowel The retracted unstressed vowel /a*"/ as in the second syllable of mallard or finger is phonetically similar to the strongly retracted variety [ •3" ] of the stressed vowel /3 / and to postvocalic consonantal I ^ I '. the back of the tongue is bunched and the tip is retracted. The degree of retraction varies, and weakly retracted varieties grade into /8/. Etymologically , 1^1 seldom occurs except as a development of vowels plus It I. Notes made at the time of field work indicate that two informants, LA 17, Mansfield, and LA 28, DeQuincy, may occasionally have /3^/ in final position in window and a few other unspecified words, but tape-recorded examples are lacking. It occurs in final syllables either finally, as in bother [bft^S^], or preconsonantally , as in different [ dl f a* T» ^t ] , and in unstressed monosyllables, as in for [ 3^]
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232 and ccoe [9^]. It no doubt occurs in nonfinal syllables as well, but no recorded instances were noted. LA 17, Mansfield, who varies between [^ ] and [3^] in final syllables developed from /9 R / , has neutral [s] , in the second syllable of government [ g/^V 9 TTi 9"n t] . On the whole, /3^/ is more common in final position than before consonants. Thirteen of the 28 informants for this study have 1^1 , and for most of them it intergrades with 1^1, as shown in Figure 34. Fifteen informants have only / a / in syllables that are etymologically /sR/. The relative geographic distribution of /9^/ and /a/ is much the same as that for the strongly and weakly retracted varieties of the stressed vowel /3 /. No isophones can be drawn, but in general the more strongly retracted types are most frequent in southwestern Louisiana. The Neutral Unstressed Vowel The neutral unstressed vowel schwa /9/, as in the first syllable of about and the first and third syllables of banana, is most frequently articulated in mid central position. Its quality varies so widely, though, that an inclusive definition must say that any unstressed vocalic sound not noticeably either retracted or raised and fronted is considered to be /9/. Schwa occurs in nonfinal syllables, as in apieae [apl'lS ] and tragedy [t r ci€j 3 d i ] , in final syllables either finally or preconsonantally, as in seven [SCV3TI] and mama [mama], and in unstressed monosyllables, as in a [9 ] and an [a'n]. For fifteen out of twenty-eight
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233 Figure 3A. The vowel in the final syllable of such words as nevev and finger.
PAGE 251
234 informants it occurs regularly as the development of etymological /©R/, and most of the other thirteen have it in such syllables at least part of the time. No other significant regional tendencies appear. As noted in the discussion of the high front unstressed vowel, schwa intergrades with / I / in medial and some final syllables in all parts of the state. Other Unstressed Vowels A few instances of unstressed back vowels were noted. LA 31, Cameron, and LA 20, Donaldsonville, have unstressed [Vf ] before [w] In estuary [£stv \^'(S.^ I ] and Louisiana [ 1 U W i z I 3eTl S ] respectively. LA 20 has it also in final position in people [pi pu]. LA 14 , Natchitoches, has unstressed [U] in education [tJUKSiS 9 Yl ] . And LA 23, New Orleans, has unstressed [ ] in homogeneous [ h Oi^Tnoj i niBS] . In the first two examples, the [W] following the vowel is probably responsible for preserving or promoting rounding and backing, but no such explanation is possible in the other cases. The last two examples are probably influenced most by a consciousness of the way the words are spelled. It must be noted that the pronunciation of education used by LA 14 is apparently a social class marker indicating, in Natchitoches, if not elsewhere in Louisiana, good breeding and savoire faire. The back vowel in the second syllable of people has evidently developed from [8 ] backed by assimilation to the dark allophone of /!/, which has been vocalized. The vowel is similar to the back vocalic off glides that develop when [T ] is lost after vowels, as in
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235 wolf [WVSf], LA 2, Columbia, and bills [blVz], LA 15, LeCompte. It is clearly different from the [ 9 ] that LA 20 has as a development of earlier /bR/, as in crusher [k\rAS3^]. But not all informants who use vocalized realizations of etymological / 3 ' / maintain such a distinction; LA 8, Lake Providence, uses the same final vowel in grindle [QriTia] and double [dAbQ] as In pressure [pr£,ia]. Summary and Conclusion As mentioned earlier, the lexically oriented DARE field records do not permit dialect boundaries to be drawn with the same precision as if the field work, had been planned and executed toward that end. The descriptions just given, together with the maps that accompany them, were designed to show what speech characteristics may be expected within regions, not to show what the regions are. Even so, the material available is sufficient to draw certain tentative conclusions about the extent of the speech regions of Louisiana as well as the characteristics that help to distinguish them. Regional Variation It is obvious by now that no phonological justification has been found for distinguishing the Florida Parishes from northern Louisiana; hence they have been repeatedly lumped together under the name "Anglo Louisiana." The people who settled these areas brought with them two major speech types, which have come to be called Southern or Coastal Southern and South Midland. The resultant intermixture of
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236 speech characteristics, relative both to the lexicon, as shown by previous researchers, and to phonology, as shown in this study, has been so thorough that virtually all communities and most individuals show divided usage. Yet certain speech features can be said to characterize Anglo Louisiana either because nearly all informants share them or because they are rare or absent in other regions in the state. The most clear-cut consonantal distinction involves the cluster /hW/; it is regularly preserved in all Anglo communities except St. Francisville. The interdental fricatives /G/ and / "b / do not vary to /t/ and /d/ in most parts of Anglo Louisiana, though scattered instances of such variation were observed along the Mississippi valley. Free vowels are usually articulated as upglided diphthongs, except for / CJ / , which, in those idiolects in which it occurs, is generally inglided before consonants and smooth in final position. Phones in the ranges of /i/, /o/, and /U/ are sometimes smooth, especially before consonants, but /£/ , /O/ , lo\ I , and /au/ are regularly diphthongal. The latter two may, however, be inglided rather than upglided. The tendency is for /^l / to be weakly glided or monophthongal finally or before voiced consonants and to be more strongly glided before voiceless consonants. There are a good many exceptions to this rule, and in any case the phoneme behaves about the same in French as in Anglo Louisiana. It is mentioned here so that later it can be compared to the phonetic realizations usual in New Orleans. In general, the checked vowels show fewer differences between speech regions than free vowels do. The mid central checked vowel /A/
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237 is an exception. In Anglo Louisiana it is frequently realized as a phone [A^'^"' Y] shifted toward the position for /\J / . This phone may be inglided, or, in some idiolects, upglided. Other checked vowels show regional variation only in certain phonetic environments. For example, the upglided allophone of low front / 3& / which some speakers use before palatal, alveolar, and labial voiceless fricatives and before /n/ plus another consonant are limited to Anglo Louisiana. The complex patterns of reduced contrast before nasals are limited largely to Anglo Louisiana, though it does appear that the falling together of /I/ and /£./ before /y[/ is being extended southward. The introduction of /] / before historic /l R / after /h/ and /n/ , resulting in such pronunciations as here [hi ID] and nearly [Y\I<£3^I I ] is also limited to Anglo Louisiana. But that dialectal feature appears to be on its way out, since it is limited to speakers aged sixty or over. In the wedge of parishes in southern Louisiana first settled by French speaking people, a mixture of English speech patterns similar to that farther north has been complicated by an admixture of French. The result on the vocabulary has been to make French Louisiana a focal zone from which borrowed Louisiana French words have penetrated into surrounding regions. Study of the DARE recordings indicates that phonological characteristics distinctive to the region have not spread to the same extent; only border communities show French Influence, and even there the influence is limited. Furthermore, in those French Louisiana communities with a long history of Anglo settlement, like Cameron and Franklin, French phonological influence may be severely
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238 limited, expecially among families whose background is chiefly or entirely Anglo. Among the consonants, the /W cluster does not occur in French Louisiana except in the speech of LA 20, Donaldsonville , and LA 31, Cameron. The latter is effectively an Anglo informant residing in French Louisiana. Etymological /0 / and / "& / often vary to dental, and sometimes to alveolar, varieties of /t/ and /d/ in initial and final positions, though they rarely do so medially. The free vowels, except for /B.i, SiU., d'W. are phonetically realized as monophthongs more often in French Louisiana than in other parts of the state. Especially noticeable are smooth pronunciations of /G/ and 101 , which are almost invariably glided in Anglo Louisiana. Glided /U/ is rare in French areas, and glided /I/ is even rarer. The free vowel /J/, often upglided, never inglided in Anglo Louisiana, is sometimes inglided but seldom upglided in French Louisiana. Smooth phones in the region of /O/ may occur in any part of the state. The diphthong /au/ begins farther back and ends higher than in Anglo Louisiana. The diphthong /a>/ has approximately the same variants in both regions. The checked vowels show less allophonic variation than in Anglo Louisiana. Etymological high front III is characteristically not lowered before / r) / , and there appear at least vestiges of a contrast between /I/ and III before /n/ . The mid central vowel / A / is only rarely shifted toward /V /; in fact, in Grand Isle it is more likely to be shifted toward /a/. Glided pronunciations of /A / were not observed. Neither were upglided pronunciations of /afi/; in those
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239 environments where the English of other parts of the state sometimes has upglided phones, that of French Louisiana has inglided ones. The mixture of cultural and linguistic streams in New Orleans has resulted in overall speech patterns apparently unique to the city and its environs, though most individual features can be found elsewhere. Probably, New Orleans and its suburbs should be set off as a separate subregion. Only after further research will it be clear how many speech patterns can be found within the city; residents themselves disagree about the exact number, but not about the existence of several distinct types. The only example of an articulation apparently characteristic of New Orleans itself is the somewhat backed beginning element of the phoneme Ml/, together with the frequent complete absence of an upglide before voiced consonants and in final position. In other respects, three New Orleans and Irish Channel informants most frequently follow patterns established as general for French Louisiana. LA 23 generally follows the usage of Anglo Louisiana. But even she follows French Louisiana patterns with respect to the treatment of checked front vowels before /Tl/ , the absence of an upglided variety of /3e/, and the treatment of words like here and near. Except for LA 23, New Orleanians also follovv? French Louisiana patterns in resepct to the preservation of an unlowered /I / before /r)/, the use of monophthongal varieties of /U/ , the variation between dental fricatives and dental — usually not alveolar — stops, and the absence of the cluster /hw/.
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240 New Orleans English is most like that of Anglo Louisiana with respect to the use of glided varieties of /i / and of fronted and lowered phones representing /au/ . Characteristics of /S/ and /o/ were divided, but favored Anglo Louisiana somewhat. With respect to /O/, usage in New Orleans is divided about evenly, according to the evidence available, between patterns of French and Anglo Louisiana. In addition to the many variants that correspond well to the boundaries of the speech regions just discussed, a few do not. The area in which /a/ and /3/ fall together before /R/, if it has been correctly defined, lies in the southern third of the state, overlapping both French and Anglo communities in that area. And the area in which Middle English short /O/ may, in certain words where it was not followed by /r/, develop into Modern English /g / or Id I extends in a wide band across the state from the southeast corner of Mississippi to the southwest corner of Louisiana itself. Raised phones in the region of / ae / appear in a band along the Mississippi. Widespread variation in the treatment of postvocalic /r/ and the related vowels /Cf, 2>, 3^/ serves mostly to illustrate the mixture of Midland and Southern speech features in Louisiana, but the pattern without postvocalic 1^1 seems to be less frequent in the southwestern part of the state than elsewhere. Variation by Age and Social Level Generally speaking, the DARE materials did not permit many conclusions about phonological variation according to age or educational level. The realization of /iR/ as [jia*~j'£!o] which seems to be
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241 limited to older speakers in Anglo Louisiana is practically the only clear-cut case of age variation. A much less well-defined tendency involves postvocalic /V^/ . Some informants consistently have it, some consistently lack it, but most exhibit dj.vided usage. In general, most of those whose usage is consistent or nearly so are in the old group. The exact converse is not quite true; it cannot be said that most of those whose usage is divided are young or middle aged. But it is true that all but one young informant exhibit divided usage. The implication is that speech patterns with and without postvocalic /v/ which formerly existed side by side in communities are being merged in the speech patterns of individuals. It is possible that further research based on a larger sampling of informants would reveal other age differences, but no other unmistakable trends are apparent from the DARE recordings. Social variation is about as difficult to describe accurately as is age variation. The tendency of LA 17, Mansfield, to employ rless forms more frequently in relatively formal speech than in more relaxed functional varieties indicates a certain amount of social prestige for speech patterns without postvocalic /r/, at least in Mansfield. No clear social tendencies are revealed, however, when informants with and without postvocalic It I are tabulated according to type. Three phenomena appear to be limited to type I informants: the rounded varlent of /3/, the pronunciations [AI~ai] for vowel nuclei spelled ot^ and centering off glides for the vowel nucleus /0»/. To avoid getting bogged down in a plethora of details, the general
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242 tendency with regard to informant types can be summarized thus: other factors being equal, type III informants usually exhibit the simplest phonological patterns, with fewer allophones in a more regular distribution than type I informants. Type II informants are usually somewhere between. There are a number of exceptions to this tendency, but comparison of Table 10 or Table 24, both illustrating type III speech, to Table 3 or Table 16, both illustrating type I speech, will show the general tendency well enough. In order for such comparisons to be fully meaningful, it would be necessary to start with a sampling of more than one type and age classification from each community. As in the case of age and type, no firm conclusions can be drawn about the special social classification of race. As before, however, certain tendencies can be tentatively set forth. All four black informants are among the total of ten who consistently do not have postvocalic IVI , a ready example of the tendency that South Midland features are less common in the speech of Negroes than that of whites. Certain other features, like the raised variants of /3e/, are relatively more frequent among black people than white, but regional distinctions may be more important than racial ones. The development of final Id I to /-f / and the lengthening of stressed vowels in disyllables with the second syllable unstressed were heard only from black informants. The sampling was too small, however, to justify saying that they are racial speech features. As in other parts of the interior South, dialectal patterns have not yet settled down. Almost any generalization should be
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243 understood to Include the acknowledgement of numerous exceptions. Perhaps the most important conclusion to be drawn is that phonological variations in Louisiana speech show a set of relationships so complex that simple, clear statements about them cannot accurately reflect the facts. The descriptions in this study are presented in the hope that they may assist in the formulation of more accurate generalizations about American English than have been possible even if those generalizations must also be more complex than before.
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2A5 Bunner, E. History of Louisiana^ from Its First Discovery and Settlement to the Present Time. New York: Harper and Brothers, 1842. Calcasieu Parish, Resources and Facilities. By the Calcasieu Parish Planning Board. Baton Rouge: State of Louisiana Press, 1945. Cameron Parish Resources and Facilities. By the Cameron Parish Development Board. Baton Rouge: State of Louisiana Press, n.d. Cassidy, Frederic G. "A Method for Collecting Dialect." Publication of the American Dialect Society, No. 20, pp. 5-96. Cassidy, Frederic G. Letter to the author. November 14, 1967. Catahoula Parish Resources and Facilities. By the Catahoula Parish Planning Board. Baton Rouge: State of Louisiana Press, 1949, Chomsky, Noam, and Morris Halle. The Sound Pattern of English. New York: Harper and Row, 1968. Conwell, Marilyn J., and Alphonse Juilland. Louisiana French Grammar. 2 vols. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton and Company, 1963. Davis, Edwin Adams. Louisiana the Pelican State. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1959. DeSoto Parish Resources and Facilities. By the DeSoto Parish Development Board. Baton Rouge: State of Louisiana Press, 1949. East Carroll Parish Resources and Facilities. By the East Carroll Parish Development Board. Baton Rouge: State of Louisiana Press, 1951. Fodor, Jerry A., and Jerrold J. Katz. The Structure of Language: Readings in the Philosophy of Language. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1964. Folk, Mary Lucile Pierce. "A Word Atlas of North Louisiana." Dissertation, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, 1961. For tier, Alc^e. A History of Louisiana. 4 vols. New York: Manzi, Joyant and Co., 1904.
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246 Fowler, Murray. "Stress-determined Allophones in English." Wordy 16 (1960), 344-347. Gayarre, Charles. Histoire de la Louisiane. 1 vols. New Orleans: Magne and Weisse, 1846 (Vol. I), 1847 (Vol. II). Gilmore, H. W. "Social Isolation of the French Speaking People of Rural Louisiana." Social Forces, 12 (October 1933), 78-84. Gimson, A. C. "The Instability of English Alveolar Articulations." Le Mattre Fronetique. No. 113 (Janvier-Juin 1960), 7-10. Gumbo Ya-Ya. By the Writers' Project, Louisiana. Cambridge, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1945. Harrell, Richard S. "A Linguistic Anomaly." General Linguistics , 5 (1961), 37-38. Haugen, Einar, and W. F. Twaddell. "Facts and Phonemics." Language, 18 (1942), 228-237. Hermann, Binger. The Louisiana Purchase and Our Title West of the Rocky Mountains. Washington, D. C. : Government Printing Office, 1900. Hockett, Charles F. "A System of Descriptive Phonology." Language, 18 (1942), 321. House, Arthur S. "On Vowel Duration in English." Journal of the Acoustical Society, 33 (1961), 1174-1178. Hultzen, Lee S. "Free Allophones." Language, 33 (1957), 36-41. Hultzdn, Lee S. "Symbol for the Nonsyllabic Postvocalic R of General American: An Essay in Phonetic Methodology." Quarterly Journal of Speech, 36 (1950), 189-201. Hultzen, Lee S. "System Status of Obscured Vowels in English." Language, 37 (1961), 565-569. Jacobs, Roderick A., and Peter S. Rosenbaum. English Transformational Grammar. Waltham, Massachusetts: Blaisdell, 1968. Kane, Harnett T. Queen New Orleans: City by the River. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1949.
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247 Kenyon, John S. American Pronunciation. Ann Arbor: George Wahr Publishing Company, 1950. King, Robert D. Historical Linguistics and Generative Grammar. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969. Kunkel, Paul A. "The Indians of Louisiana, About 1700 — ^Their Customs and Manner of Living." Louisiana Historical Quarterly ^ 34 (1951), 174-203. Kurath, Hans. "The Binary Interpretation of English Vowels: A Critique." Language, 33 (1957), 111-112. Kurath, Hans. Handbook of the Linguistic Geography of New England. Providence, Rhode Island: Brown University, 1939. Kurath, Hans. "Phonemics and Phonics in Historical Phonology." American Speech, 36 (1961), 93-100. Kurath, Hans. A Phonology and Prosody of Modem English. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1964. Kurath, Hans, and Raven I. McDavid, Jr. The Pronunciation of English in the Atlantic States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961. Kurath, Hans. "Some Questions of English Phonology: A Reply." Language, 34 (1958), 259-260. Kurath, Hans. A Word Geography of the Eastern United States. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1949. Laf argue, Andrd. "Louisiana Linguistic and Folklore Backgrounds." Louisiana Historical Quarterly, 24 (1941), 744-755. Lauvri&re, Emile. Histoire de la Louisiane Franqaise, 1673-1939. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1940. Lincoln Parish Resources and Facilities. By the Lincoln Parish Planning Board. Baton Rouge: State of Louisiana Press, 1943. The Louisiana Union Catalog. By the Louisiana Library Association. Baton Rouge: Louisiana Library Association, 1960. Mal^cot, Andre. "Vowel Nasality as a Distinctive Feature in American English." Language, 36 (1960), 222-229.
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248 Malone, Kemp. "Glides, Diphthongs, and Boundaries." English Studies, 42 (1961), 235-237. Malone, Kemp. "On Symmetry in Phonemic Analysis." Language^ 38 (1962), 142-146. Massignon, Genevieve. Les Parlers Franoais D'Aoadie. 2 vols. Paris: Librairie C. Klincksieck, n.d. Meillet, A. Linguistique Historique et Linguistique GSnirale. Paris: Librarie Honore Champion, 1958. McDavid, Raven I.. Jr. "American Social Dialects." College English, 26 (1965), 254-260. McDavid, Raven I., Jr. "The Second Round in Dialectotogy of North American English." Journal of the Canadvan Lvngu%st%a Association, 6 (1960), 108-115. McDavid, Raven I., Jr. "Structural Linguistics and Linguistic Geography." Orbis: Bulletin international de Doaumentatvon linguistique, 10 (1961), 35-46. Natchitoches Parish REsources and Facilities. By the Natchitoches Parish Planning Board. Baton Rouge: State of Louisiana Press, n.d. "On the Choice of Communities and Informants for D.A.R.E." Mimeographed sheet, n.d. Owsley, Frank Lawrence. Plain Folk of the Old South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1949. The Oxford English Dictionary. Eds. James A. H. Murray, et al. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1933. Paullin, Charles. Atlas of the Historical Geography of the U. S. Published jointly by Carnegie Institution of Washington and the American Geographical Society of New York, 1932. Pierce, Joe S. "The Phonemes of English." Linguistics, No. 17 (October 1965), 36-57. Pop, Sever. La Dialectologie . 2 vols. Louvain: Chez L'Auteur, 1950. Pyles, Thomas. The Origins and Development of the English Language. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1964.
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250 U. S. Bureau of the Census. County and City Data Book, 1967 (A Statistical Abstract Supplement). Washington, D. C. : U. S. Government Printing Office, 1967. Weinreich, Uriel. Languages in Contact. The Hague, The Netherlands: Mouton, 1966. Williamson, Frederick William, and George T. Goodman. Eastern Louisiana: A History of the Watershed of the Ouachita River and the Florida Parishes. Eds. Frederick William Williamson and George T. Goodman. Louisville, Kentucky: Historical Record Association, n.d. Wise, Claude Merton. Introduction to Phonetics. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1957. Wood, Gordon R. "An Atlas Survey of the Interior South." Orbis: Bulletin international de Documentation linguistique^ 9 (1960), 7-17. Wood, Gordon R. "Dialect Contours in the Southern States." American Speech, 38 (1963), 243-256. Wood, Gordon R. "Word Distribution in the Interior South." Publication of the American Dialect Society, No. 35 (April 1961), 1-16.
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BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH August Weston Rubrecht was born October 17, 1941, at Garfield, Arkansas. In 1959 he graduated from Rogers High School, Rogers, Arkansas. He attended Ambassador College, Pasadena, California, and John Brown University, Siloam Springs, Arkansas. In August, 1964, he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts with a major in English from Arkansas Polytechnic College, Russellville , Arkansas. From September, 1964, until August, 1967, he studied in the Graduate School of the University of Florida on an NDEA Fellowship. He then worked for a year as a field worker for the Dictionary of American Regional English, Madison, Wisconsin. In September, 1968, August Weston Rubrecht was married to the former Lois Lynn Virnau. He returned to the University of Florida to study on a Graduate School Fellowship for one year. From 1969 until the present time he has taught at the University of Florida while pursuing his work toward the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. 251 -
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I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. /' '. • : r\f John T. Algeo Associate Professor of English I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. , /n Richard A. Dwyer Associate Professor of English I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ij Wayne Coi Li-n-ruyi^ Jw Wayne Conner Professor and Chairman of Romance Languages and Literature I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. /lc,^^/^9^^L^ Kevin M. McCarthy Assistant Professor of English
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I certify that I have read this study and that in my opinion it conforms to acceptable standards of scholarly presentation and is fully adequate, in scope and quality, as a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Janl^s R. Hodges I Professor and Chairman of Comprehensive English This dissertation was submitted to the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and to the Graduate Council, and was accepted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. August, 1971 ;e of Art Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Dean, Graduate School
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^ ^.^<^l^ n^^' AS, <'^' OaI 1 13 5.78.
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