[NNWM] The Louisiana Interface
Oct. 15th, 2004 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldMy previous post on my NaNoWriMo world's popular music brought the world's Louisiana (still a state of the American union) to mind.
Up until the Civil War, for instance, half of Louisiana's population spoke French natively, and la francophonie louisianaise was fairly vibrant. It was also closely associated with Slave Power, though, and under Reconstruction government recognition of the French language was rescinded while the old Francophone dynasties were undermined. Market competition did the rest, pushing French in Louisiana to extinction and Louisiana to its current nondescript competition.
Louisiana evolved rather differently, in large part due to a significantly greater influx of French immigrants in a significantly long French tenure in the Francophone core of the state, and because of the greater radicalism of the Louisianais. Graduated abolition began early; later, Louisiana managed to find itself on the Union side, emerging with its Francophone nature intact and with a prosperous trading economy. In the 20th century, Louisiana becomes one of the United States' major interfaces with the wider world, interacting with a largely French-using rest-of-World, translating from an insular and Anglophone United States. As a liberal and fairly pluralistic enclave, it also stands out in the context of the wider South.
American popular music--jazz and r'n'b in particular--can trace their origins to New Orleans. In a world where residents of that city are likely to call themselves Néo-Orléanais but can draw on only a limited domestic market in French owing to language differents, touring in the wider world seems like a good way to earn a living.
I don't think I'll do anything with this in Going North. Think of it as extra background.
Up until the Civil War, for instance, half of Louisiana's population spoke French natively, and la francophonie louisianaise was fairly vibrant. It was also closely associated with Slave Power, though, and under Reconstruction government recognition of the French language was rescinded while the old Francophone dynasties were undermined. Market competition did the rest, pushing French in Louisiana to extinction and Louisiana to its current nondescript competition.
Louisiana evolved rather differently, in large part due to a significantly greater influx of French immigrants in a significantly long French tenure in the Francophone core of the state, and because of the greater radicalism of the Louisianais. Graduated abolition began early; later, Louisiana managed to find itself on the Union side, emerging with its Francophone nature intact and with a prosperous trading economy. In the 20th century, Louisiana becomes one of the United States' major interfaces with the wider world, interacting with a largely French-using rest-of-World, translating from an insular and Anglophone United States. As a liberal and fairly pluralistic enclave, it also stands out in the context of the wider South.
American popular music--jazz and r'n'b in particular--can trace their origins to New Orleans. In a world where residents of that city are likely to call themselves Néo-Orléanais but can draw on only a limited domestic market in French owing to language differents, touring in the wider world seems like a good way to earn a living.
I don't think I'll do anything with this in Going North. Think of it as extra background.
