1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Oct 30
Summary
Thirteen aluminum-disc recordings made in southern Louisiana in 1935 were publicly released Friday, giving scholars the oldest known spoken examples of Louisiana Creole, or Kouri-Vini.
Oliver Mayeux, a Cambridge University linguist, found and analyzed the interviews recorded by pioneering Black linguist Lorenzo Dow Turner, whose 100-pound machine captured speakers during a field trip across the region.
One recording features Emma Benoit, a 69-year-old widow in Lafayette, recounting her life in Creole; Mayeux said the material could significantly reshape understanding of the language.
The release is especially significant because Louisiana Creole is now spoken by only a few thousand people, though it was once dominant in parts of the state; older 1934 recordings exist only in song, not speech.
Mayeux’s findings were published in the journal Language Documentation and Description, adding a new primary source to the record of a vanishing language.