Louis Moreau Gottschalk - an unjustly forgotten American composer of classical music
posted by Gyan on Sep 9, 2006 - 13 comments

Holding up sprigs of parsley, Trujillo's men queried their prospective victims: What is this thing called? The terrified victim's fate lay in his pronunciation of the answer. Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo spearheaded an anti-Haitian massacre in which armed thugs killed every Creole speaker who couldn't pronounce the trilled R in the Spanish word for parsley. (Using pronunciation to make ethnic distinctions is called a shibboleth, a tactic often used in wars.) The murders inspired Edwige Danticat's The Farming of Bones and Mario Vargas Llosa's Feast of the Goat, as well as a poem recited for Bill Clinton by poet laureate Rita Dove. Ironically, Trujillo's desire to "whiten" Hispaniola not only led him to order the 1937 massacre, but to lobby in 1938 for the settlement of Jews fleeing Hitler.
posted by jonp72 on Aug 5, 2006 - 9 comments

Cajun Music MP3s, featuring music from the 1920s to 1970s.
posted by LarryC on May 6, 2006 - 16 comments

Streaming video documentary films about American traditional music. Great American roots music films for free! Click and watch full length documentaries about the Popovich Brothers Tamburitza band of South Bend Indiana, Louisiana creole fiddler Canray Fontenot, the last Black medicine-show performer, sacred harp singing and much more. An amazing collaboration between folklorists and indie film makers.
posted by zaelic on Mar 8, 2004 - 2 comments

Sa k a prifé? With lists of Louisianan Creole grammar and vocabulary and a few real audio files, you'll be navigating your pirogue through the swamps in no time, or, at least, ordering correctly at your favorite Cajun restaurant.
posted by Katemonkey on Nov 15, 2002 - 9 comments

God, you our Fadda. You stay in da sky. We like all da peopo know fo shua how you stay, an dat you good an spesho inside, an we like dem give you plenny respeck. We like you come king ova hea now. We like everybody make jalike you like, ova hea inside da world, jalike da angel guys up inside da sky make jalike you like. Give us da food we need fo every day. Let us go, an throw out our shame fo all da kine bad stuff we do to you, jalike us guys let da odda guys go awready, an we no stay huhu wit dem fo all da kine bad stuff dey do to us. No let us get chance fo do bad kine stuff, But take us outa dea, so da Bad Guy no can hurt us. Cuz you our king, you get da real power, an you stay awesome fo eva. Dass it!

Hawaii Creole English, from the Language Museum, which lists examples of 2000 languges.
posted by swift on Jul 18, 2002 - 14 comments