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Culture War Roundup for the week of October 16, 2023

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As a partial speaker is seems very close indeed to quebecois french, but referring to it as french, unmodified, seems bound up in standardization attempts that actual Cajuns- particularly the ones most likely to be interested in language revitalization- sometimes object to.

Unlike English, which is functionally linguistic anarchy because descriptivists control the Anglosphere (not passing judgement, only observing in this context), French has the Académie Française, which claims to be the arbiter of "proper" French. In tech circles I've run into this because they dislike adopting loanwords (especially from those dastardly Anglophones) like email, instead demanding courriel and similar.

I can imagine why someone descended from an isolated group of French speakers long ago might identify with the local dialect rather than what some snooty academics in Paris have to say.

L’academie francais is a thing, obviously, and that Cajun revival efforts are led by europhiles who insist on saying ‘l’ordinateur’ instead of ‘le computer’(as actual first language speakers would) is only part of the problem. A bigger part is that the academics in charge of these efforts simply have no desire to reach out to icky red triber texaphiles who would be willing to learn- and use- the language if these people came their way a bit instead of insisting on special preschools for the children of teachers and summer abroad programs for europhile college kids.