The Louisiana Purchase and American English

HISTORIANS OF LANGUAGE customarily recount development and change in a language in relation to historical events that affect its form or use. Among the important dates and events learned in the study of the English language are the treaty in 886 between King Alfred of Wessex and Guthram the Dane, which gave speakers of Northern Germanic dialects a place in England; the Battle of Hastings in 1066, which put speakers of Norman French in important positions in church and state and changed the functions of the English language; the Black Death of 1348, which eventually killed at least a third of the population of every station and changed the economic structure of England; and British colonization, which brought various dialects of English to North America. That these remote events had linguistic consequences is generally accepted, though scholars are still examining just how these events contributed to specific developments in the language. The consequences of more recent events, of course, are even harder to discern. With the passage of a half century since World War II, Jan Tillery and Guy Bailey (2003, 164) and others are beginning to identify developments in Southern American English that seem to have been set in motion by changes to the South and to Southerners brought about by World War II.

This issue of American Speech focuses on the linguistic effects of the Louisiana Purchase, an event that some historians consider second in importance only to independence and the adoption of the Constitution.

On 20 December 1803, on the Place d'Armes in New Orleans between the Mississippi River on one side and the St. Louis Cathedral and Cabildo on the other, the flag of France came down for the last time in North America and replaced by the flag of the United States of America. On that day, the size of the nation doubled, and free navigation of the Mississippi and its tributaries opened the center of the continent to American commerce and migration. The Louisiana Purchase also guaranteed American English passage across the Mississippi and eventually across the continent, making it the language of the United States from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

For the three centuries preceding the Louisiana Purchase, four European powers had claimed the land that now constitutes the 48 contiguous states: the British in the east, the French in the lands drained by the Mississippi River, the Spanish in Florida and the west, and the Russians in the northwest. In the early 1600s the first three sought to solidify their claims by permanent settlement: Jamestown began in 1607, Quebec City in 1608, and Santa Fe in 1609. The land they settled was already peopled by indigenous tribes, whom the European colonists variously warred with, formed fragile alliances with, and killed off in great numbers through European disease. Disputes among the European powers in North America arose in part from wars and threats of wars in Europe, which culminated in the 1750s with war on both sides of the Atlantic, called the French and Indian War in America and the Seven Years' War in Europe. In 1762, when France had lost Canada and faced the prospect of losing the Louisiana territory, France ceded the territory by secret family treaty to Spain. In 1763, by the Treaty of Paris, France lost its remaining North American colonies to Britain. Britain and Spain split the Louisiana territory at the Mississippi, and Spain kept Florida.

By 1800, when First Counsel Napoleon Bonaparte turned his attention to restoring France's overseas empire, the 13 British colonies had won independence and the territory south of Canada and west to the Mississippi. The American population was rapidly expanding west of the Appalachians. Full access to and control of the Mississippi and its tributaries were vital to American growth and required having the port of New Orleans. In 1795 the United States had made an agreement with Spain to allow the United States free navigation...