Colonial French is a variety of Louisiana French. It is associated with the more widely known Cajun French dialect and Louisiana Creole French, a related creole language. Formerly spoken widely in what is now the U.S. state of Louisiana, it is now considered to have largely merged with Cajun.
Colonial French is conventionally described as the form of French spoken in Lower French Louisiana prior to the mass arrival of Acadians after the Great Upheaval of the mid-18th century, which resulted in the birth of the Cajun dialect. The prestige dialect still used by some Cajuns is often identified as deriving from Colonial French, but some linguists differentiate between the two, referring to the latter as Plantation Society French.
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Famous quotes containing the words colonial and/or french:
“In colonial America, the father was the primary parent. . . . Over the past two hundred years, each generation of fathers has had less authority than the last. . . . Masculinity ceased to be defined in terms of domestic involvement, skills at fathering and husbanding, but began to be defined in terms of making money. Men had to leave home to work. They stopped doing all the things they used to do.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“Salad is roughage and a French idea.”
—U.S. grandmother. As quoted in “Once a Tramp, Always ...,” by M.F.K. Fisher (1969)