"When history rhymes with trajectory". The stakes of language denomination in the historiography of the varieties of French spoken in Acadia and Louisiana

The categorizations regarding language are rarely consensual, especially when considering linguistic minorities. Different types of stakes are hidden behind language designation, depending on whether the designation hinges upon activists or cultural, political or academic authorities. The metalinguistic terminology mobilized by discourses on language itself conveys linguistic ideologies. In the case of Acadia and Louisiana, the ideological positioning of French speakers is twofold: a positioning not only with respect to the Other English speaker, but also with respect to the Other French speaker. As French speaker, the tension is important between the willingness to claim and acknowledge divergent practices of a center, that is still hegemonic in the imaginary (France); and the willingness to erase the differences that would slow down an integration in the French-speaking world. That tension is discernible in the choice of denomination such as français acadien, français d’Acadie or français en Acadie. Focusing on Acadia and Louisiana, we consider and study the links between the metalinguistic terminology and the historiography of language. The history of language plays an ambiguous role. Mentioned to legitimate or depreciate linguistic practices towards a most often exogenous evaluative norm, it is also often associated with the external history of the conditions of implantation of French during colonization. Even though the history of language is seldom thematized, its position is central in these two communities where historical filiation (of Cajuns with Acadia, of Acadians with a mythical Acadia) even determines the ethnonyms.