French on Shifting Ground: Cultural and Coastal Erosion in South Louisiana by Nathalie Dajko

Abstract

Reviewed by: French on Shifting Ground: Cultural and Coastal Erosion in South Louisiana by Nathalie Dajko Carole Salmon Dajko, Nathalie. French on Shifting Ground: Cultural and Coastal Erosion in South Louisiana. UP of Mississippi, 2020. ISBN 978-1-4968-3093-7. Pp. xviii +184. Sociolinguists specializing in Louisiana French have long established its steady decline since the beginning of the twentieth century, despite cultural revival movements and linguistic preservation efforts that started after World War II. Simultaneously, during all those decades, geographers have been monitoring the erosion of coastal marshes in the Gulf of Mexico, which constitute the southern border of the Pelican State and the base of what is called the Acadiana triangle. As Dajko explains, causes leading to such land erosion are numerous and complex, but she aims at exploring “the theoretical construct of place and the role that language [...] plays in its construction” (12). This region is composed of twenty-two parishes and her study focuses on two in particular: Lafourche and Terre- bonne, where French-speaking Cajuns historically settled and where their culture and identity are still vibrant, even if their language is shifting to English. Moreover, other varieties of French and Creole can be found, and Dajko offers a detailed inventory of those varieties in southern Louisiana. About a hundred years ago, the future of French started to be threatened when in 1921, a change to the State’s constitution made English the mandatory language of schooling. Even though some researchers, such as Michael Picone (1997), have previously linked language and land, Dajko’s extensive study specifically explores the loss of the language (here, French) with the loss of the place (here, coastal marshes). Since pieces of land the size of a football field are disappearing in the Gulf at a rapid pace, the correlation between land erosion and language loss in French-speaking communities in coastal southern Louisiana is evident—and frightening. Dajko’s fieldwork is composed of around 250 interviews with local French speakers, collected between 2006 and 2008 in Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes. The volume provides extensive descriptions of the demographic history as well as economic factors in the area being studied, which helps the reader understand how important these communities’ connection to their land has been—but also how, ironically, some of their activities have contributed to land erosion, especially the cutting of canals for the oil industry. By reading this volume, one can fully understand the connections between land, language, and what Dajko calls— referring to her participants’ answers—“bayou identity.” The author shares her results from surveys in perceptual linguistics, such as verbal guise tests, cultural domain tests, and maps drawings, which allowed her to measure language ideology features and identity perception among her Lafourche and Terrebonne participants. She also offers a linguistic landscape study of bayou Point(e) au(x) chêne(s)—or for some, Point(e) au(x) chien(s), those two toponymic variants underlying various identities among this place. Dajko’s study clearly establishes that when it [End Page 230] comes to their own identity perception, French-speaking participants consider that belonging to a place (bayou identity) is more important than ethnic belonging. French in Terrebonne-Lafourche is enregistered (linguistic features have become associated with social features, 127) because of language death, therefore confirming the place-based identity of those French-speaking communities. [End Page 231] Carole Salmon Furman University (SC) Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French