{{for|the ethnic group|Louisiana Creole people}} {{Refimprove|date=September 2010}} {{Infobox language |name=Louisiana Creole |nativename=''kréyol'' |speakers= 70,000 |speakers2 = ~10,000 cited 2013 <ref>{{cite book|author=Neumann-Holzschuh|author2=Klingler|last-author-amp=yes|title=Louisiana Creole|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=228–240|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/lou}}</ref> |date = 1985 |ref = e18 |familycolor=Creole |fam1=[[French-based creole languages|French Creole]] |states=Louisiana, (particularly [[St. Martin Parish, Louisiana|St. Martin Parish]], [[Natchitoches Parish, Louisiana|Natchitoches Parish]], [[St. Landry Parish, Louisiana|St. Landry Parish]], [[Jefferson Parish, Louisiana|Jefferson Parish]], [[Lafayette Parish, Louisiana|Lafayette Parish]] and [[Pointe Coupee|Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana]]); also in [[California]] (chiefly [[Southern California]]), [[Illinois]], and a small community in [[East Texas]].{{Citation needed|date=May 2014}} |iso3=lou |glotto=loui1240 |glottorefname=Louisiana Creole |lingua=51-AAC-ca |map=Louisiana French.svg |mapcaption=French spread in Louisiana. Parishes marked in yellow are those where <span style="background:#ff0;">4–10%</span> of the population speak French or Louisiana French at home, orange <span style="background:#ff7f00;">10–15%</span>, red <span style="background:#f00; color:white;">15–20%</span>, brown <span style="background:#7f0000; color:white;">20–30%</span>. }} == Louisiana Creole French == '''Louisiana Creole''' (''{{lang|lou|kréyol la lwizyàn}}''; {{lang-fr|créole louisianais}}) is a [[French-based creole languages|French-based creole]] created by creole people who could not understand French in Louisiana, which was a French Colony at the time.{{Citation needed|date=April 2017}} The creole people were a mix of different 'races', including African, French, 'and among others'.{{Citation needed|date=April 2017}} Currently the language is endangered since more of its speakers are picking up other popular languages. The amount of people left that still speak this language as their dominant language is about 10,000 people.<ref>{{cite book|author=Neumann-Holzschuh|author2=Klingler|last-author-amp=yes|title=Louisiana Creole|date=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=228–240|url=https://www.ethnologue.com/language/lou}}</ref> ==History== Louisiana Creole French was spoken initially by those living in the French slave colony of [[Louisiana]]. The size of Louisiana you see today was not always the actual size. Instead the colony was much bigger and it was spread though most of the Midwest all the way up to Canada. LCF evolved from a pidgin during the time of slavery and would go on to thrive for decades. The language consists of not only French, but other incorporated languages from West Africans and [[Native Americans]]. Inhabitants of the language were typically the enslaved community. This gave rise to their Creole identity, which refers to descendants of the original European colonists in Louisiana- White or Black, slave or free. In realization a form of Syncretism is developed as well which is the combination of different forms of belief or practice. This is seen in language in which common words have the same meaning but other words that have the same saying could be two distinctive things. Many of the enslaved Africans came from Senegambia region of West Africa beginning in about 1719. These people originally spoke a Mande language related to Manlike and they were in contact with other languages such as [[Ewe]] and [[Yoruba]]. LCF isn’t their primary language and they only use it as a means to communicate with the native people. This leaves room for the next generation of kids to use this pidgin as their native language it took them about 20 years to give rise to LCF. The Slave population was relatively small as there were just about as much blacks and whites within colony. The average number of slaves on Plantations usually was about 40-50 slaves living along the Mississippi (Pointe Coupee and the German Coast) and along the Bayou Teche around Saint Martinville. <ref>http://www.jstor.org/stable/4169003?Search=yes&resultItemClick=true&searchText=no:2&searchText=AND&searchText=sn:00474045&searchText=AND&searchText=vo:29&searchText=AND&searchText=year:2000&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Fymod%3DYour%2Binbound%2Blink%2Bdid%2Bnot%2Bhave%2Ban%2Bexact%2Bmatch%2Bin%2Bour%2Bdatabase.%2BBut%2Bbased%2Bon%2Bthe%2Belements%2Bwe%2Bcould%2Bmatch%252C%2Bwe%2Bhave%2Breturned%2Bthe%2Bfollowing%2Bresults.%26amp%3BQuery%3Dno%253A2%2BAND%2Bsn%253A00474045%2BAND%2Bvo%253A29%2BAND%2Byear%253A2000</ref> ==Geographic distribution== LCF comes from the French colony of Louisiana, which at one time ranged from current Louisiana all the way up to Canada. It is an Americanized language that gave rise in North America only. There are other creoles that are a bit similar, which have rise during the same time period. These other languages were Cajun French (Louisiana based language), Haitian Creole, among others. Speakers today are mainly centered on south and south west of Louisiana, while other smaller sectors are still known in the Great Lakes, Missouri, and Illinois region, which was part of France’s upper and lower regions at the time. People of St. Martin Parish of Louisiana is where a majority of LCF speakers live and 27% of the population if fluent in French. The geographic zones are German Coast & Acadian Coast, False River, and Bayou Tech.today only about ~10,000 speakers are left. ==Sounds/Phonology== ==== Consonants ==== {| class="wikitable" |- | b || voiced bilabial stop || ''bobo'' [bobo]-sore |- | d || voiceless dental or alveolar stop || ''malad'' [malad]-sick |- | g || voiced velar stop || ''bagas'' [bagas] ‘bagasse’ |} ==== Vowels ==== {| class="wikitable" |- !  !! Vowels !! Pitch |- | a || a, á, â, Æ || low front unrounded |- | e || e, é, è, ê, ë || upper-mid front unrounded |- | i || i, í, ì, î, ï || high-front unrounded |- | o || o, ó, ò, ô, ö, Œ || upper-mid back rounded |- | ou || ou || high-back rounded |- | u || u || high front rounded |} ==Grammar== A general outline of the grammar of the language. Focus on what makes the grammar of the language unique compared to other languages, related as well as unrelated. Lists of each [[word class]] and their individual properties, as well as full-fledged inflection or conjugation tables, are probably best put in a separate article. <ref>https://books.google.com/books?id=ZKS6AiLkI4AC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false</ref> {| class="wikitable" |- !  !! Subjective !! Subjective !! Objective !! Objective !! Possessive !! Possessive |- | || English || Creole || English || Creole || English || Creole |- | 1st person || I || mo || me || mò || mine || mokin/mochin (masculine) makènn/mochènn (feminine) |- | 2nd person || you || to|| you || twa || yours || tokin/tochin tokènn/tochènn |- | 3rd person || he, she || li, ça || him, her || li || his, her, hers || sokin/sochin sokènn/sochènn |- | 1st plural || we || no, not, nougat || us || nougat, nou, zòt || our, ours || nokin/nochin nokènn/nochènn |- | 2nd plural || you || vos, vouzòt || you || vou, vouzòt || your, yours || vokin/vochin vokènn/vochènn |- | 3rd plural || they || yé || them || yé || their, theirs || yékin/yéchin yékènn/yéchènn |}<ref>* [http://www.LouisianaCreoleDictionary.com Louisiana Creole Dictionary]</ref> ==== Nouns ==== Nouns have no gender. For plural hyphenate the plural article yè goes to the end of the noun. bèf = cow bèf yè = (the) cows When the pronoun precedes a verb, it is the subject and when it follows a verb, it is the direct object. When the pronoun precedes a noun, it is the possessive adjective. Se mo liv. = It's my book. Se motchen. = It's mine. ====Verbs==== Verbs are left in their infinitive forms, sometimes with markers in front of them to signify verb tense. The verb tense though depend on the statement though. For "to be" use se between nouns in present, use t_ for past tense, sa for future, and sé for conditional. ====Adjectives==== Adjectives require no verb and are translated as "to be..." They also follow their nouns. malad = sick Mwen malad. = I am sick. Nou malad. = We are sick. ====Adverbs==== In making adverbs from adjectives, -man is like the English -ly. ra = rare rareman = rarely ===Morphology=== Louisiana Creole French people people originally spoke a [[Mande]] language related to Manlike and they were in contact with other languages such as Ewe and Yoruba. This would happen to be a result of the Atlantic Salve Trade where Africans mostly from [[Senegal]] and [[Gambia]] in which they spoke those previous languages. Their native tongue had to be vanished and as a result began to pick up French. They of course couldn't be as fluent in the language because of the way they spoke in theirs lives in which their tongue couldn't help them speak fluently in French. ===Syntax=== Louisiana Creole French uses the Subect-Verb-Object ([[SVO]]) syntax. This form of formatting sentences is similar to that of English and is the second most used syntax behind only SOV. ==Vocabulary/Lexis== The vocabulary of LCF is mostly composed of the French origin that has other African and Native American languages as influences which serves their creolization. They use local words in distinguishing things like animals and plants of their surroundings. Many nouns contain part or all of the determiner of the French noun. {|class="wikitable" ! Number ! Louisiana Creole ! French |- |1 |un |un |- |2 |dé |deux |- |3 |trò/trwa |trois |- |4 |kat |quatre |- |5 |cink |cinq |- |6 |sis |six |- |7 |sèt |sept |- |8 |wit |huit |- |9 |nèf |neuf |- |10 |dis |dix |} ====Common Verbs==== Dormi: to sleep Shanté: to sing Dansé: to dance Jonglé: to ponder Pensé: to think Maré: to attach Kouri: to run, to go Ganyé, gain: to have ==Writing system== A brief description of the [[writing system]](s) used to write the language. Writing systems have their own page, so what's written here should just be a brief discussion of how this language makes any special use of the writing system and a link to all the writing systems used to write the language. {| class="wikitable" |- ! English !! Louisiana French  !! French (Modern) |- | He is full of courage || Li plen kouraj.|| Il est plein de courage. |- | She has a nice dress. || Li gen en bèl ròb. || Elle a une belle robe |- | Rice is goo for health. || Diri bon pou lavante || Le riz est bon pour la santé |- | I wash it with cold water. || Mon lab li ak solo fre. || Je le lave aver de l’eau froide |- | I have children who speak Creole.|| Mo gen le petit ki para kreyòl. || J’ai des enfants qui parlent créole. |- | The dog was called Jif || Ye te pele ti chyen-la Jif. || Le chien s’est appelé Ji |} ==Language Endangerment== LCF is currently an endangered language as the people who speak this language as their primary language are dying off. There are only about ~10,000 people as of 2013 who still speak it. The problem has to be that the new generation is currently forbidden the language because of everyday life here in America where everything is in English, especially things we learn in school. This replaces their connection to their previous culture and the dynamics that it holds. The language posses a survival of the fittest mentality as the more advanced languages kept taking over. LCF isn’t an advanced language because of its pidgin and was spoken by mostly the poor population. After the [[Louisiana purchase]] in 1803 was when the outlook for the language didn’t seem to well as the English began to incorporate English on all of the people in Louisiana. What they did was change the language used in books, magazines, and newspapers to English. Even though there were still a majority of French speakers still living in the colony, for them to strive economically they had to shift more towards the American culture. This puts LCF speakers another step down in the hierarchy, as they had to start over again. LCF is associated with slavery and all of the negativity that linkage entails.<ref>https://intersolinc.wordpress.com/2015/02/09/louisiana-creole-language/</ref> In order to strive for a better life for the next generation, it was important for LCF speakers to let their kids learn the new native language. This divide between H and L languages as new generations don’t pick it up unless their parents by virtue helps them learn both.<ref>http://linguistics.ucdavis.edu/pics-and-pdfs/Honors%20Thesis%20Aimee%20Carlisle.pdf</ref> ==References== Be sure to [[Wikipedia:Citing sources|cite sources]]. Use these [[Wikipedia:Citing sources/example style|example styles]] and [[Wikipedia:Template_messages/Sources_of_articles/Generic_citations|citation templates]] as a guide. {{reflist}} ==External links== The first link should be the appropriate [[Template:Interwiki|<nowiki>{{Interwiki}}]], if such a thing exists.

Bibliography

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