Josh McNeill

Month: March 22, 2015

Super Dimanche.. Super Sunday.. Dimanche Magnifique?

March 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Louisiana presents an interesting problem when it comes to neologisms. There are cultural events that are well known with titles in English, but what does one refer to these as in French when everyone already understands English? For example, Super Sunday just passed in New Orleans. This festival is one of Mardi Gras Indians’, where they parade through the Central City neighborhood, but what does one call this? “Le Super Sunday” is clear, yet it’s English. “Le Super Dimanche” is pretty much French, but it’s the French of France. “Le Dimanche Magnifique” could work, it’s local, but the signification isn’t completely the same. In a country where English is a foreign language, this problem would be fixed by considering whether the name is so strong that it’ll be recognized without being translated or whether the name requires a translation in order to be understood. In Louisiana, every single person will recognize it without translating because English is the dominant language.

Maybe an example that’s even more difficult is “le second line,” or “la deuxième affilée.” This is a traditional parade in New Orleans and, at the same time, a the title is a compound noun that doesn’t clearly denote what it means, but nearly every that lives in the city will understand it in English. So, should it be left in English or changed into French? How would this change ever happen if no one truly needs to find a French version of the word in order to understand it? I don’t have the answers to these questions but I suppose that this is one of the reasons that words like “drive,” “peanut-beurre,” and “gone” came about in Louisiana French.

In any case, I’d like to leave y’all with these videos of Super Sunday.. or Dimanche Magnifique.. whatever.

It’s in the Jam.

March 15, 2015 / / 0 Comments


That is to say, Kirby Jambon. I recently spoke about the importance of music in Louisiana, concerning language maintenance, and I spoke about the importance of using French in commerce. A recent article, in The Advertiser, brings these ideas, not rare, to the forefront, as well as the increased participation of CODOFIL. All of this is really great, and must continue, but it must not be forgotten that it’s also necessary to increase the domain of usage of the language. As Barry Ancelet, celebrated folklorist from Louisiana, says in the article:

There’s two basic ways that language preservation or regeneration can happen and one of them . . . is to produce stuff of such interest that people want to come to it. They’re interested, they’re attracted to it.

What better way to highlight a creative work than to award a prize to someone, as the Académie française recently did when it awarded the Prix Henri de Régnier to Kirby Jambon for his book of poetry, Petites communions: Poèmes, chansons, et jonglements. In my opinion, the moment when Dewey Balfa returned to Louisiana after having received a standing ovation at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964 is very much comparable to this. In the former instance, external validation was found for Cajun music, then in the latter instance, it was found for Louisiana French literature. This moment could be pivotal for literature in Louisiana. It wasn’t so long ago that the belief that one couldn’t write Louisiana French was common, which is an idea that persists even today, but now, we not only have proof that it’s possible to write it, but that the world values the art that one can create when they write this language.

Purim, New Orleans style.

March 8, 2015 / / 0 Comments

. . . the Sages of the Talmud stated that one should drink on Purim until he can “no longer distinguish between the phrases arur Haman (‘Cursed is Haman’) and baruch Mordechai (‘Blessed is Mordecai’).” – Wikipedia

It’s not clear if they were drunk enough for that, but they were having a good time nonetheless. I’m not Jewish and I’ve never even heard of Purim, but I enjoyed a glass a wine myself.

Purim is a holiday when Jews celebrate that fact that they survived Haman’s plot, that which would have killed off each and every one of them. During the holiday, it’s common to read the megillah, donate to the poor, eat, and drink (as already described). I did find one video of a parade, including costumes, be I believe that this is not the norm. But, in New Orleans, would there ever be another way a day like this? Of course not.

The culture of New Orleans, the requirement to parade, makes all that would be private, public. It creates the opportunity to express our differences in a way that is a part of the culture of everyone. That is what convinces me that this place is special. We rejoice in our differences, but we do it together, creating a unique gumbo, as they say.

Vietnamese, everywhere in the East.

March 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments

So, I was a bit behind on posts because of Mardi Gras. I had to create a costume with pinwheels, attend daily parades and, maybe the most important activity, eat king cake, like this one here. This cake comes from Dong Phuong in New Orleans East, where I went with my friend so that she could buy one.

Despite having lived here for more than two years, I’ve never gone to the East, where there’s a large Vietnamese population. What I found there was writing everywhere in Vietnamese, on advertisements, on the windows, on the stores, on the products in the stores. Vietnamese is a language of business in the East. The cashiers speak it by default as if one must understand it if one wants to do business there. It seems to me that Vietnamese is maybe more institutionalized there than French is elsewhere in Louisiana, but it’s difficult to say that for me, seeing as I haven’t traversed the state all that much.

I intend to find out if on can speak French there also, as part of the project to create a map of the francophone businesses in Louisiana. While I was working at AT&T, I met a Vietnamese woman who spoke French, better than English. She was somewhere older, so maybe that is still common among the old. I’ve heard that this would happen in Terrebonne-Lafourche, that francophones were able to speak with the Vietnamese better in French than English. It would be interesting if the Vietnamese became the newest francophones in Louisiana, helping to preserve the language. I doubt this would happen, but who knows.

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