Globalization, Localization, and the Preservation of French in North America (including Creole Relevancies)

Abstract

Abstract A panoramic overview of French in North America (and related creoles) reveals a complex interaction of vectors characterizing both globalization and localization. Though globalization threatens the preservation of local linguacultural integrity, it can be harnessed as a potential solution to that same threat (howbeit partial) by resorting to planned international immigration in order to swell local ranks of francophones throughout Canada, by recruiting an international francophone teaching corps to raise up the next generation of francophones in Louisiana, or by using the same democratized media facilitating globalization itself to commoditize and broadcast local legacy language and culture to an unbounded audience. However, whether in Ontario, Acadia, Louisiana, or Maine, globalization used as a method for preserving French seems to come with a price, namely the devernacularization of legacy French and its potential replacement with a different French. Conversely, though unplanned, when felicitous vectors merge, globalization becomes the agent leading to the creation of a localized French (or Haitian Creole) space where previously there had been little awareness of one, as in New York City and Florida. The most recent figures available (at the time of writing, May 2024) for the relevant populations of francophones and creolophones are provided.

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