Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, ?

Dictionary to Document Unique French Creole Dialect

By Alan Amelinckx, Acadiana Correspondent

PARKS - The unique French dialects of Acadiana are slowly fading away, but one man in Parks is committed to preserving them.

Etienne Dugas, a 29-year-old Parks native, is helping to compile a dictionary of the French Creole dialect of this area. Dugas was first approached in August by Tom Klingler, a professor of French at Tulane, and Albert Valvman, a linguist at the University of Indiana.

Valvman and Klingler were attempting to document the linguistic richness of the Creole dialect but needed a local person to per form the fieldwork for the project.

While Klingler is interviewing Creole speakers in the Pointe Coupee area, Dugas is covering the area of Bayou Teche. After the interviews are completed in both areas, they will use the material to compare the different dialects and record the similarities and differences with the dictionary.

"The questionnaire is a list of words, and my job is to find out if the people of the Bayou Teche area use the same word as the word on the questionnaire, which comes from the Pointe Coupee area," Dugas said.

"If they do, then I verify it, and if not, then I find out which words are used."

Dugas has chosen the subjects of his field study from among his friends and relatives who have been speaking Creole all their lives. Their ages range from 40 to 60. Each time Dugas finishes a questionnaire, he mails it to Valvman in Indiana where the information is then documented.

Dugas grew up speaking Creole at home with his family, but said that he began to take the uniqueness of his situation for granted. He said that it was only after he began to study standard French at USL that he fully grasped the beauty of his own dialect.

"Creole describes the way people live; it's a very rich language and it's got a lot of humor in it, which is rare," he said.

Dugas said that since Creole is written phonetically, it will be necessary to include a pronunciation guide along with the dictionary. He also said that the primary pronunciation influence of Creole comes from the French spoken by slaves brought to Louisiana from Haiti. As a result, the Creole spoken today is a mix of 17th century French and African tribal dialects.

The Creole word for "to buy" is ashte, from the French word acheter, and the Creole for "here" is icitte, from the French ici. Coun in Creole means "to go," which is very similar to the word courir in French.

"I have" translated into Creole is mo gain similar in sound to the French word gagner.

The French verb venir meaning "to come" becomes vini in Creole.

The changes from French to Creole are apparently the result of Africanization, according to Dugas.

In the summer of 1994, Dugas visited New Brunswick, Canada, which further deepened his appreciation influence of Creole.

He was the official Creole-speaking representative from Louisiana on the trip, which was sponsored by CODOFIL (the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana), in order to strengthen the ties between the Francophone communities of Louisiana and the Francophone communities in Canada.

When the chance arose to help compile the Creole dictionary this year, Dugas said that he saw it as a golden opportunity. He hopes that the dictionary will be an integral part of keeping the Creole heritage alive for future generations to enjoy and appreciate. He is especially concerned with the younger generation.

"I feel that Creole is a dying dialect and there are not too many young people in my area that speak it," he said. "What better way to preserve it and keep it alive?"