Abstracts Language, Literature, and Linguistic

Mississippi and Teche Creole: a demographic and linguistic case for separate genesis in Louisiana

by Karin Elizabeth Speedy

This study presents a detailed examination of the early socio-demographic history of Louisiana with particular focus on European and slave settlement in the French and Spanish periods. On the basis of these demographics as well as some textual evidence it is argued that despite theoretical predictions to the contrary, a Creole language did emerge and 'jell' in situ in the period 1719-1770. Instrumental in the creation of this language, which was spoken in settlements along the Mississippi River, were those African slaves who had arrived 1719-1731. Demographics also sugges that the Creole spoken to the west of the Atchafalaya River, unsettled until the 1760s, was the product of a semi-separate genesis. An examination of the relativization strategies of modern representatives of the two Creoles (PC and BB) in addition to the number of differences noted by Klingler (1992) suggest that this was indeed the case.