Cajun French Language - Term Paper Example

Most universities carry Latin mottos. Harvard's is Veritas (Truth). Another univesity has Veritas Liberabit Vos (The Truth Shall Set You Free) and the University of Chicago proudly banners its own motto which is "Crescat scientia vita excolatur". Whether their students know its meaning is of no bearing . Latin and the rest of them cannot be extinct because somehow they still find some use, such as in sacred rituals or liturgies, in scientific or legal functions or even as mottos. Dead languages can still be revived as what happened to Hebrew which already was on the verge of being extinct and was almost replaced by Aramaic but had been successfully revived to become a spoken language by majority of Jews.

Even Sanskrit is being redeemed from oblivion by residents of the Indian hamlet of Mathoor (Kushala). The Coptic language of Egypt continues to be utilized as the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria and many Coptic Christians want it revitalized. Latin is at the moment used in Roman Catholic Tridentine masses and law, and medical students have to study the meanings of so many Latin phrases. Aramaic , on the other hand, is on the verge of becoming an endangered language. . Once the lingua franca of the whole Near East especially in Syria and Israel, it is now superseded by Arabic, the language of the conquering Islamic armies.

But it is neither dead or extinct because as of today, the remote areas of Kurdistan still persist in using Aramaic as their native tongue and a modernized Neo-Aramaic is still spoken by 800,000 Christians in Near East, specifically the Nestorians, Chaldeans and Jacobites as well as 25,000 Jews (Joseph 223). The Origins of the Cajun French Language It is a misconception to think of the French language as consisting of only one language i.e. the same language spoken in Paris and its environs.

The truth of the matter is that there are more than 39 other regional dialects or patois other than the one spoken in Paris. Because of the political, commercial and cultural prestige of Paris, its patois which is termed as MetropolitanFrench was accepted as the model French language. Other than this, there is the Provencal or Occitan patois, spoken in Southern France by about 12 million people; the Basque or Euskara, used by the Basques of southwestern France and also in Northern Spain; the Picard; Alsacien; Breton; Norman; Vendeen; Lorrain; Walloon, Gascon and so many others.

But our interest is focused on the patois spoken in two French midwestern regions- Anjou and Poitou, France. Anjou is a western French province which is dissected by the Loire River. Its capital is the city of Angers. Poitou-Charantes meanwhile, is an adjacent region which is centered in the city of Poitiers. The dialect in these regions called Poitevin-Saintongeais. The other dialect is Limousin. But of interest to us is the former, because this is the dialect of those French