Speaking French in Louisiana, 1720-1955 by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780807168448
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: 2018-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

TABLE 4.3. Pastoral letters to clergy and laity analyzed by style, language, year, and archbishop/administrator

To summarize, for the predominantly French administration that managed the Church from 1861 to 1887, bilingualism was the modus operandi. The Archiepiscopal Council minutes were in French, archdiocesan newspapers were published in French, and pastoral letters were written in French and English to reach out to francophone and anglophone communities. Still, many sacramental registers switched from French to English during this administration. The decline of French registers was somewhat compensated for by the creation of new churches in French-speaking areas. If Archbishop Blanc’s tenure, during which English was introduced within the Church, is taken together with the tenures of Archbishops Odin, Perché, and Leray, one can say that French and English cohabited in the Louisiana Church during a period of more than seventy-five years. This being said, the Archiepiscopal Council minutes and the metalinguistic comments demonstrate increasing concern at the turn of the century for those Catholics who spoke English and who no longer attended services where French and German were spoken. While French archdiocesan administrations endured political and social disruptions as well as financial disarray, bilingualism was fading out from Louisiana legislative and judicial civil branches and being replaced by English only.

By 1888, one could no longer be certain that archbishops in the Archdiocese of New Orleans would be French. In the archbishops’ administration, there is written evidence, other than the archbishops’ nationality, that a switch from French to English occurred. Recruitment of English-speaking clergy, both native- and foreign-born, considerably augmented the staff of the Archiepiscopal Council. Administrative discussions entirely in English were more frequent and minutes began to be transcribed in English by 1913. A few years after the sacramental registers at the St. Louis Cathedral, the heart of the archdiocesan administration, switched from French to English (1911), the publication of a new Catholic newspaper in English was approved by the Archiepiscopal Council and pastoral letters were only published in English (1920). The archdiocesan administration’s location also influenced its practices. Being situated in New Orleans, where the shift from French to English was almost completed within the general population, local language factors (education, church parishes, French-speaking communities) no longer existed or were not robust enough to slow the path of language change within the last French institution in Louisiana.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.