Ebonics meets Cajun
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The controversy over Ebonics is not the first time that this country
(or, to be precise, a region of it) has been faced with the problem of which 
dialect is appropriate for classroom use and instruction. In 1968, when 
Louisiana declared itself a bilingual state and initiated an ambitious 
program of French language instruction at the elementary level, including 
some French immersion programs, regional Cajun French (whose existence
of course provided the main souce of validity to the attribution of 
bilingual status to the state) was not considered appropriate for 
introduction into the classroom and an international standard was 
chosen instead. This stance has now been modified and some regional 
usage makes its way into the classroom, either via teachers who have 
been to workshops on Cajun French (there is some parallelism here
to the proposed Ebonics workshops for teachers, with the difference 
that regional French is, for the most part, not actively used by either 
the Cajun or non-Cajun children that those teachers face) or via
native Cajun French speakers being intoduced into the classroom. Never- 
theless, since so few educational materials are available in anything 
other than the international standard, it remains the mainstay of French 
instruction. Although many of the parameters differ (primarily because 
the status of Cajun French among the young is not the same as is AAVE), 
the present hue and cry over Ebonics strongly reminds me of the
way that Cajun French was belittled to by some to justify its exclusion 
from the classroom.
     
Mike Picone
University of Alabama