This past October, France extended its agreement with the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana to send French teachers overseas each year to teach in Louisiana’s expanding network of French immersion schools.
CODOFIL is a state agency created in 1968 to manage French cultural affairs in Louisiana, including education, diplomacy, tourism activities, community development, grants and economic development.
“Our role at CODOFIL is to preserve the heritage,” CODOFIL executive director Peggy Feehan said. “Louisiana is the only state to have an office of French affairs.”
A Louisiana law mandates that CODOFIL implement French immersion programs in schools across the state and recruit and issue visas for French teachers from abroad. It empowers CODOFIL to “do any and all things necessary to accomplish the development, utilization and preservation of the French language as found in Louisiana for the cultural, economic and touristic benefit of the state.”
The presence of French immersion schools is also an “economic advantage to attract potential businesses [to Louisiana],” Feehan said.
Every year, CODOFIL expands existing immersion programs and implements new ones in areas with sufficient interest and capacity. There are now 43 French immersion schools across Louisiana.
In 1921, Louisiana changed its constitution, banning the teaching of French in Louisiana public schools and making English the official language of the state. This was amid a cultural and governmental push to Americanize Louisiana, which was originally a French colony named after King Louis XIV and was sold to the U.S. in the 1803 Louisiana Purchase.
“Louisiana French” is an umbrella term for the many dialects of French spoken across the state, developed over time through the interactions between Native Americans, Africans, colonial French settlers, Canadians and other groups since the 18th century. When French was banned, all French dialects were effectively lost among the next generation of Louisianans.
Christine Verdin, the principal of the French immersion school École Point-au-Chien in southern Louisiana, hopes for a revival of Louisiana French within the next few decades. Verdin, a native French speaker, is a member of the Pointe-au-Chien Indian Tribe.
“I hear a lot from my Cajun friends, ‘my grandma used to speak French, but no one speaks it now,’” Verdin said. “Well, in a few years I’m hoping people say, ‘We speak French.’”
École Point-au-Chien, which opened in August 2023, is the first French immersion school to teach indigenous Louisiana French.
When Verdin’s tribe first petitioned a nearby school to open a French program, presenting signatures from pre-K and kindergarten parents who supported the idea, the school board denied them. Two years later, they petitioned again — and were denied a second time.
When the school closed due to low enrollment, Verdin, along with other tribal and community members, advocated at the state level to open a French immersion school in its place. They drove to Baton Rouge to meet with members of the Louisian House of Representatives and Louisiana State Senate. Once the tribe garnered sufficient support, particularly from former State Representative Tanner Magee, the plan was put into action.
CODOFIL helped the school with educational resources for teaching Louisiana French.
“CODOFIL did a great job coming up with these [picture] cards, and on the back of the cards, they have different words for that picture, words that Creoles use, Indians use, Cajuns use, along with the traditional French,” Verdin said. “The teachers teach [Louisiana] French, and it could be Cajun or Indian words they bring into their lesson as well.”
Teaching Louisiana French was a unique prospect. French immersion schools only taught standard French when the language ban was lifted in 1968, and Louisiana French was stigmatized in many areas.
“I remember going to Thibodaux and speaking to people who were native speakers of French, and they were embarrassed about the way they spoke,” Natalie Dajko, a professor of anthropology and linguistics at Tulane University, said. “They would say, ‘yeah, I speak French, but I’m not proud of it.’”
Shame associated with speaking non-standard French is a byproduct of the French ban and Americanization. To combat this, Verdin and her team, in coordination with CODOFIL, spearheaded a new language program that incorporates Cajun, Creole and native dialects into French language teaching.
“If we can start with these little ones, it’s going to be a way of hopefully bridging that gap between the grandparents and the kids,” Verdin said.
As French immersion schools continue to emerge across the state, with seven right nearby in New Orleans, seeing French become part of Louisiana’s “vie quotidienne” once again is a real possibility.
“Your language tells the world who you are,” Dajko said. “It ties you to the people you belong to… That’s why it matters to people when their language is disappearing.”
