Working to preserve Cajun French which many fear is a dying

ERATH, La. (AP) — It was French that attracted the Acadians to Louisiana.

After years of imprisonment, Joseph Beausoleil Broussard brought his band of Acadians to the West Indies and then followed his people’s language to New Orleans in 1765. From there they crossed the Atchafalaya and settled in and grew what we would come to call Acadiana.

Warren Perrin tells this story to patrons within the Musée Acadien – Acadian Museum – in Erath.

The 75-year-old attorney and museum founder does so in both English and French, switching between the two languages effortlessly like he did in his bilingual, childhood home in Henry.

Today Louisiana is home to an estimated 250,000 French speakers, including Perrin and the men visiting his museum Friday. But just a generation or two ago, the Bayou State boasted more than one million Francophones.

“Our language is imploding as we don’t use it enough,” Perrin said. “We’re not expanding it in Louisiana. We have a very precious commodity. We’ve got to save it.”

That’s why it has become so important to Louisiana and Acadiana leaders to mark March as Le Mois de la Francophonie, participating in a global celebration of the French language, Francophone culture and the diversity of those who speak it.

“Celebrating the French language and culture is hugely important for a state with such a rich history and connection to the French-speaking world,” reads a Lafayette Consolidated Government release.

French is the fifth most widely spoken language in the world with more than 369 million French speakers on the planet. Educators and government officials in Louisiana have long been part of the effort to grow its numbers of Francophones through the Council for the Development of French in Louisiana.

Created in 1968, this state agency aimed to make up...