7 French in the USA Albert Valdman Introduction French is the fourth most common non-English language spoken in the US (Table 1.1).1 However, it is also one of the four languages among the top twelve that experienced a decline in the number of speakers between 1990 and 2000, and again between 2000 and 2007. This is due to both low levels of immigration of French speakers to the USA and also low rates of intergenerational transmis- sion of the language. This chapter provides a general presentation of French in the USA with a focus on two communities established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that have endured to the present: the New England and Louisianan Franco-American communities, where there still exists some severely limited intergenerational transmission of the local vernacular bolstered by grassroots efforts to maintain and revitalize these varieties. Brief mention will be made of small geographically isolated communities where the local vernacular is moribund. After exploring the history of French in the USA, this chapter provides demographic information about the various communities, the public presence of French, and aspects of language shift and language attrition that affect these various communities. History Numerous French place names including Butte, Des Moines, Eau Claire, Terre Haute, and Baton Rouge serve as an eloquent testimony to the former French presence on the territory that forms a large part of the present-day USA. But even though French coureurs des bois, (adventurers, hunters, and fur traders) from present-day Quebec´ province criss-crossed much of the territory during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they have left few linguistic traces except for these toponyms. The major and relatively cohesive present-day francophone communities in the USA spread from two original settlements: New France (part of which is present-day Quebec´ Province) and Acadia (present-day Nova Scotia and New Brunswick). Samuel de Champlain first established a trading post on the tiny Copyright @ 2010. Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. 110 EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 7/18/2019 1:37 PM via INDIANA UNIV LIBRARIES- BLOOMINGTON AN: 329393 ; Potowski, Kim.; Language Diversity in the USA Account: iub.main.ehost French in the USA 111 island of Sainte-Croix (in present-day Maine) in 1604. From an original group of seventy-nine settlers, by 1755 the Acadian population had grown to 14,000 residents. That community has had an influence on the expansion of French far greater than its original low demographic weight. Victims of a brutal expulsion from their native land, which their descendants label le grand derangement´ (the great removal), Acadians were scattered in France, in the West Indies, and in the American colonies. Between 1765 and 1780, about 4,000 Acadians found a permanent refuge in Louisiana which, at that time, was under Spanish rule. But it is New France that constituted the principal bastion of francophony in North America. The first French settlement in New France was established in 1608 near the present site of Quebec´ City (Quebec)´ by Champlain. In 1642, a second settlement was established at the site of present-day Montreal.´ It was from the Montreal´ and Quebec´ regions that expeditions were launched along the Great Lakes region, the Illinois country, and the banks of the Mississippi down to the Gulf of Mexico. Although the colonists of the original French settlement in Louisiana came directly from France rather than down the Mississippi, they were led by a Canadian, Lemoyne d’Iberville. It is also from Quebec´ province that the demographic streams, driven by economic hardships, originated, that in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries settled in the New England textile mill towns and, to a lesser degree, in the upper Midwest. Demographics Three fundamental features distinguish the francophone communities in the USA from other communities such as Spanish speakers. First, current migratory currents bringing francophone speakers to the USA are limited. Second, the presence of standard French (SF),2 reinforced by its use in schools, negatively affects the maintenance of indigenous vernacular varieties. Third, in any case, these varieties assume a limited functional role. With regard to current migratory currents, except for very small numbers of expatriate groups living in the New York area, California, and major cities like Atlanta, Chicago, and Philadelphia, the francophone communities are not renewed by a large and steady flow of immigrants. In 2005, only 4,399 per- manent immigrants arrived from France out of a total of 1,122,373 holders of permanent resident cards (Lagarde 2007). To be sure, there are large cohe- sive Haitian diaspora communities in Boston, the New York area, and southern Florida totaling more than one million persons that are bolstered by new arrivals (Zephir´ 2005). But most of these immigrants, especially those newly arriving, are primary speakers of Haitian Creole, not of French. French migratory currents toward the North American continent, particularly the Canadian part of “New France,” were not substantial. In the late seventeenth and in the eighteenth centuries, French colonial policy favored the plantation Copyright @ 2010. Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 7/18/2019 1:37 PM via INDIANA UNIV LIBRARIES- BLOOMINGTON AN: 329393 ; Potowski, Kim.; Language Diversity in the USA Account: iub.main.ehost 112 Language Diversity in the USA Table 7.1. Language spoken at home for selected areas: 1990 versus 2000 Census 1990 Census 2000 State/Region French French creole French French creole LA 227,376 34,797 194,100 4,470 New England 338,923 18,554 263,125 56,265 NY 183,868 52,208 174,080 114,745 CA 129,986 3,393 134,405 4,105 FL 110,725 83,121 125,650 208,485 TX 57,081 7,233 61,770 3,505 Total 1,047,959 199,306 953,130 391,575 US total 1,701,655 220,626 1,624,030 453,370 Source: US Census Bureau 2000a: Population 5 years and over. islands of the Caribbean with their potential for lucrative cash crops to the “acres of snow” of Canada referred to by Voltaire. For example, between 1663 and 1679, only 2,000 French migrated to New France (Charbonneau and Guillemette 1994: 163). At the time of the conquest of New France by the English in 1760, its population had reached only 70,000. However, by the middle of the nineteenth century, a high birth rate which the French Canadians call la revanche des berceaux (the revenge of the cradles) fueled a demographic expansion, and the population of former New France had risen to nearly a million (Thibault 2003: 899). It was this demographic vitality combined with economic difficulties that spurred migration in all directions from the province of Quebec.´ Beginning in the early 1960s, a new francophone community termed Floribec was established north of Miami by retiring Queb´ ecois´ “snowbirds” fleeing the icy winters of their homeland. This community of about 60,000 retirees, sup- plemented by Haitian immigrants, accounts for Florida’s standing as the Amer- ican state with the largest combined francophone and creolophone population. Between 1990 and 2000, there was approximately a 4.5 percent reduction in the number of persons declaring the use of French at home, but a 100 percent increase in the number of those declaring the use of French Creole, as dis- played in Table 7.1. Most of the latter are speakers of Haitian Creole living mainly in Florida, New York, and Massachusetts. The figure for French Creole in Louisiana refers most likely to speakers of Louisiana Creole (LC), an indige- nous variety differing from Haitian Creole that developed in the early years of the eighteenth century. Research by Klingler (2003) confirms that LC is mori- bund. The two long-established communities, New England and Louisiana, Copyright @ 2010. Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except fair uses permitted under U.S. or applicable copyright law. EBSCO : eBook Collection (EBSCOhost) - printed on 7/18/2019 1:37 PM via INDIANA UNIV LIBRARIES- BLOOMINGTON AN: 329393 ; Potowski, Kim.; Language Diversity in the USA Account: iub.main.ehost French in the USA 113 Table 7.2. States with the largest French-speaking populations Percentage of all US Ages 5 + French speakers New York 141,017 10.64 Louisiana 129,910 9.80 California 129,454 9.76 Florida 103,095 7.77 Massachusetts 58,308 4.39 Texas 57,992 4.37 Maine 54,599 4.11 Maryland 46,959 3.54 Pennsylvania 42,732 3.22 New Jersey 41,243 3.11 Total in USA 1,355,805 Source: Modern Language Association 2009, US Census Bureau 2007c. show sharp declines in the use of French, whereas there are slight increases in California, Florida, and Texas. Table 7.2 shows the ten states with the largest French-speaking populations. That New England and Louisiana remain the communities with the highest concentration of French speakers is obvious because Louisiana and Maine are near the top of the list, despite having much smaller total populations than some of the other listed states. The relatively high numbers in Florida are also evident, and California can be seen to have a large number of speakers though, with its large population, this accounts for a relatively low concentration. Vernacular French communities The six New England states, northern New York state, and south Louisiana (the latter region often referred to as Acadiana or the Francophone Triangle) consti- tute the bastions of francophony in the USA.