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There are in fact two distinct French-related speech varieties found in the Cane River Valley. Louisiana Creole bears many similarities to the other French-based creole languages, which are spoken in the Caribbean (for example, in Haiti, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Dominica, and St. Lucia), the Indian Ocean (in Mauritius and the French overseas department of Réunion), and the French overseas territory of New Caledonia. Louisiana Creole most closely resembles Haitian Creole. In the course of our research we were only able to locate a single speaker, Lair LaCour, who retained any degree of fluency in Creole, although several others knew enough to produce some isolated words and phrases in the language. All of these speakers were Creoles and were born and raised on Cane River. We do not know if the language was formerly spoken in other parts of the parish, as well, but its survival to this day along Cane River is an indication that it was once strongly implanted there. This is not surprising, considering that the language was most likely introduced to the area by slaves brought from elsewhere to work on the plantations of the Cane River (see Historical Background).
The other type of French spoken in the region is one that will here be referred to as Louisiana Regional French. It is in most respects identical to what is often called Cajun French in many other parts of Louisiana. (For an explanation of our preference for the label Louisiana Regional French, click here.) We were able to locate several speakers who were fluent in this variety. Most are from the Cloutierville and Little River area, but we also identified two from Cypress and one from Gorum. Well into the twentieth century, the use of French extended at least as far north as the town of Campti, but today the language has completely disappeared there.
The Francophones featured on this web site are among the last native speakers of Louisiana Regional French and Louisiana Creole who were born and raised in Natchitoches Parish. Their willingness to participate in this project has made it possible to preserve valuable samples of their speech for future generations and to place the recorded samples on this web site, where they are easily available to anyone interested in this fascinating part of the French heritage of Natchitoches Parish.
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