Announcements
Two big things happened with our group this month.The first was, on April 1, 2016, and this was no April fool's joke, we reached over 20,000 members. This is absolutely amazing to me. We are growing and the love of our language and culture is strong. We just have to keep up the effort.
The second big thing is on April, 14, 2016 the VTF turned 2 years old. We have seen and learned so much in those two years. Many folks have been with up the whole time and many are just learning about us.
BTW - Yes, we are going to try doing the newsletter in both French and English. I wanted to start with this issue, but unfortunately this thing called life got in the way. It is coming though folks. Bare with me.
Anneliese Lee Livaudais is the an International Exchange Coordinator for EF High School Exchange Year. She is looking for families who are interested in hosting a French foriegn exchange student. If you are interested or know someone who may be, you can read her group post HERE.
We are building a list of people who give French Lessons.
If you give lessons, please fill out this form to be included in our list
If you're looking for a French Tutor, this is a short list, but we hope to have more people added as they make themselves known to us.
For the folks who may be interested in tutoring, there are options you can consider. Modern technology makes it easier to tutor people from long distances and from the comfort of your own home.
Last month
April 2016 can go down in VTF history as the Month of the invasion of the "meme's"
Using the meme's people have shown how creative and humorous they can be. Unfortunately it also showed us how many of our people are creative and humorous! They took over the page and frustrated as many people as they entertained. It became such an issue as to require us to add something to our guidelines asking people to reduce it to a slow drip.
The Question of Phonetics
An interesting, if not somewhat frustrating discussion came up about the French word "Cher" and the English phonetic spelling of "Sha". There were two basic positions on this topic.The first being that "Sha" is a commonly accepted spelling for the term of endearment used by almost every breathing person in Louisiana, south of Mansfield. The argument being that if people understood what you meant, then you were okay. You had communicated.
The second being that "Sha" was simply the English phonetic representation of the French word "Cher" and while yes, most folks in Louisiana knew what you meant if you wrote "sha", it was not an actual word. It's a phonetic. The argument being, that using "Sha" was okay here in Louisiana, IF you didn't know the actual word it represented, but once you know the actual French word, you should use it.
Our friend Clint Bruce made an interesting observation the next morning resulting in a small epiphany about the middle ground and why folks seemed so passionate about keeping "Sha". He pointed out that it seemed to him the word/spelling had through popular use become part of Cajun English. I can't help but feel he might be onto something there. Regardless of it being inducted into the Cajun English hall of fame or not, (and Lord knows I love our Cajun English), our official position is that when writing in French (Cajun, Creole, Louisiana or otherwise) it's a good idea to spell it correctly as "cher(e)".
Moving on ...
There have been a number of arguments to the effect of our language being mostly passed down by word of mouth and not in writing, THUS we should continue this tradition.
I have to pose the question, "How's that been working out for us?"
The short answer is, it hasn't been. We are down to only a few people left in the state who are native speakers of our Louisiana (Cajun/Creole) French. We do not have the environment for people to passively learn as they did just 40 or 50 years ago. Our only option is to put our damaged pride aside and accept that we need to learn to read and write the language, on top of any oral instruction we may find, if we expect for the language to survive and prosper.
Within the VTF, we have several very kind people who are volunteering their time to help the rest of us who desire to learn, even if just a little, to read and write in French. As we learn from them, we pass it forward to the newer members. Don't fear that you're not learning Louisiana French, because many of our native speakers, in a casual way, are working with our more experienced people who are versed in the writing of French. In doing so, they are helping preserve the structure and pronunciatons of our language while applying standard spelling.
A small example.
The word "vous" (voo) can mean "you" singular, or "you" plural. Here we like to use "vous-autres" (vooz-awt) for "you" plural. (It equates to "y'all"). Same with "nous" and "nous-autres". We don't want to lose that from our language. So the collaboration is a big deal.
Just know, we will frequently offer up the correct spellings for words. It's what we do. So please don't take offense when someone takes of their time to share some of their knowledge and insight into the language with you. Bien Merci!
Something of interest
Tiffany B Casey, our resident food aficionado, from There Once Was A Kitchen Table stumbled upon a young artist putting real Cajun Music onto the streets of New Orleans. Tristan Harrell, a protégé of the great Mr. Bruce Daigrepont can be seen in these two videos with his friend on guitar.In case you missed the videos, here are the links to the posts in the group.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/cajunfrench/permalink/993271700710219/
https://www.facebook.com/groups/cajunfrench/permalink/998377536866302/
Latest on learning materials
Our latest video effort is on the major body parts. Whiles it's design is targeting our youth, the information is just as useful to us grown ups.
Our next project will be all of the parts of the human head.
* We have a new document out pertaining to While / During / Until
In The News
by • http://lanote.org/2016/03/calvin-borel-and-the-bush-tracks-of-louisiana/
Research
Results of Dr. Landry's research project in March.We have a fun survey question just for kicks. Looking at some of the many things we ate in a bowl of milk. If you haven't already, go answer the question. It only takes a few seconds.
http://goo.gl/forms/Wr1W19giOE
Food Related
An excellent argument addressing the various arguments we all love to have over one of our favorite dishes, Gumbo!Tiffany B Casey has graciously agreed to do Food related articles for our Monthly Newsletters. This months article is titled "My Liaison with the Liaison"
Upcoming Events
Click on the image to open the facebook postThe Louisiana Travel web page has an excellent Louisiana Events section and I highly recommend checking it out as well as the Louisiana Association of Fairs and Festivals.
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