Our rather small family in South Louisiana is an example of both these
principles. The family derives from three well-to-do brothers who arrived in
New Orleans from Paris in the late 1700's. The French that their descendents
speak remains pretty much the same 18th century "court" French they brought
with them and not the prevalent Cajun French of the area, which the
Acadian's brought with them to South Louisiana from Nova Scotia, then
*******ized with Spanish and English into a patois that is unique to the
region. The result is that speaking French with someone from Quebec today is
more like speaking to a family member than to an Acadian/Cajun.

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Last update: 12/29/03

"Glen" wrote in message
There is a principle in linguistics, simply stated, that languages tend to
differentiate as they are isolated. Since the colonists were separated
from
their English speaking cousins across the pond there tended to be a
differentiation in the pronunciation. This is seen in other languages as
well, re Old World Spanish, with the lisp, and New World Spanish without
the
lisp)

Interestingly enough, there is a secondary principle which states that if
a
language group is so isolated so that it is not touched by other
linguistic
influences, the language can tend to become static. The deep dialect in
some areas of Tennessee, for example, is the closest surviving remmnant to
Elizabethan English. It is one of the few areas where words such as neer
(as in neer do well), nary, and poke (rather than a bag or a sack) are
still
in common usage. This dialect has been preserved in the more isolated
regions where until fairly recently there was little or no outside the
area
contact, and now it is generally used primarily by old timers. There are
several projects underway by several universities to record and save the
speech patterns for future study.