In 1935, Lorenzo Dow Turner, a pioneering Black linguist and academic, recorded Louisiana Creole speakers, preserving this rare language. While it was commonly used in New Orleans in the early 20th century, it slowly fell out of use there and was almost unheard of in the city by the 1950s, according to new research from the University of Cambridge.
Today, Louisiana Creole is at risk of extinction, and Turner’s recordings may be the earliest spoken-word recordings of the language and a key to preserving it. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have analyzed the recordings and caught a rare glimpse into the lives of Louisianans of color and the stories they had to tell.
The research has been published in Language Documentation & Description.
How Louisiana Creole Formed
According to the study, Louisiana Creole stems from French, but it has its own structure, grammar rules, and distinct phrases and words. The language began to take root during the 18th century among colonists, French slavers, enslaved peoples, mainly from West Africa, and their descendants, as well as free people of color…