kcrouge wrote:

>
> In reply to you question, Gerry, I checked French-American because my
> ancestors did not come to Louisiana from Acadia.

------------------------------------------------------------
Gerry: Oh, it's too bad you're not like Evangeline! Are you familiar
with:

THIS is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers the wail of the forest.
etc.

I was required to memorize the entire poem in elementary school, either
in 7th or 8th grade. A beautiful love story. And I lived for more
thaan 20 years in Cambridge, MA where the Longfellow House was one of
the important historical markers.

>They all came from France.
> I also wrote that I speak French, as does my husband. It comes in very
> handy when we don't want our daughter to know what we are talking about.

Gerry: You and your husband have a wonderful language that your
daughter would benefit from learning. My parents refused to teach me
either Polish or Lithuanian because they liked to communicate
"secretly". The only person who lost out was me.

We

> haven't taught her the language. It is remiss of us because the Cajun
> language is dying. We have French immersion programs in many of the public
> schools now to help preserve this vital part of our culture. When I taught
> in public school, I would give each student 100 points at the beginning of
> each 6 week grading period. I called it a grammar and proper language usage
> grade. For each improper use of language, 5 points was deducted from this
> grade. After a while, many of my students thought before they spoke. Some
> of the worse infractions were subject/verb agreement, verb tense, and double
> negatives. He don't, I had went, and I ain't got no... were the most common
> mistakes.

Gerry: Teaching a language such as English to French, Hispanic, Black
etc. is really a problematic subject to convey, isn't it. When I taught
I didn't have difficulty justifying that my students would speak
correctly. But today if I still were an English teacher, I'd be very
concerned about whether I was or was not politically correct in teaching
English.

Cheers,
Gerry