The fluid boundaries of the French communities in Louisiana can be attributed to the presence of several varieties of French in the state as well as the mixture of ethnic and racial attributes among the people who speak these dialects.  Researchers generally posit the existence of three types of French in Louisiana: Colonial French (which is extinct), Cajun French, and Creole French, the topic of the current study.  The received view of the word 'Creole' in Louisiana is manifold.  Historically it referred to descendants of the original European colonists who had emigrated to Louisiana.  The term evolved and underwent many permutations due to the social, economic and political changes in the colony/state, and today is used to refer to French-speaking African-Americans.

Most of the research done on this language has concentrated on the vocabulary and folklore of Creole French (Klingler 1992, Ancelet 1994), although Neumann (1985) conducted a comprehensive morphosyntactic study of the Creole spoken in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.  In this paper, the previous findings on Louisian Creole French will be extended by giving the results of a survey on the linguistic attitudes and cultural identity of the African-Americans in South Louisiana who self-identify as creole.

Surveys were administered to 240 Aferican-Americans in South Louisiana, and the sample was stratified by age, sex, Creole ancestry and degree of fluency in Creole French.  Results will be presented showing the criteria necessary in order to be considered a Creole, how Louisiana Creole compares with Cajun and standard French, which of the languages should young people learn in Louisiaina, and who speaks Creole French to whom.

By analyzing the responses of the informants, a more complete picture has been obtained of the Louisiana Creole community in terms of attitudes toward the language, sense of belonging in the community, identity, linguistic competence in Creole French, and the networks of Creole speakers.  These results are important for the future of not only the language, but the community itself.

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