An overlooked set of 1935 recordings of the Louisiana Creole language has been identified as the earliest known extended audio of its spoken form, offering a rare chance to hear how people in New Orleans once communicated. The voices were captured by Lorenzo Dow Turner, a pioneering Black linguist, and have now been studied for the first time.
Oliver Mayeux, a linguist at the University of Cambridge, uncovered the material among digitized discs in Indiana University’s archives. His findings, published in the journal Language Documentation and Description, examine 13 aluminum discs that Turner recorded in New Orleans, Lafayette and Opelousas.
The collection preserves speech, songs and personal accounts from Black Louisianans, many born in the 1800s. Earlier collectors captured Creole songs in 1934, but Turner’s material contains the earliest known extended recordings of speech. It also documents the New Orleans variety, which had largely disappeared by the 1950s.
1935 recordings capture the Louisiana Creole language in everyday life
Turner used a heavy, electricity-powered machine to capture the voices. During racial segregation, Black physicians helped him find speakers and opened their offices for interviews.
The recordings include laughter, interruptions, and moments when people are urged to speak Creole rather than French. Mayeux said those exchanges reveal differences earlier written accounts often left out. A recording of pianist Jessie Covington Dent helped identify Turner’s Louisiana contacts.
Louisiana Creole developed in the 18th century through contact among French colonists, enslaved West Africans and other communities. It draws much of its vocabulary from French but has its own grammar. Mayeux found speakers moving between Creole and Louisiana French, sometimes changing how they spoke depending on the setting.
“Turner’s lost recordings contain far more linguistic diversity than the texts we relied upon until now,” Mayeux said. The discs also show older forms of speech alongside newer influences, offering clues to the language’s development.
Emma Benoit and a former officer speak across the decades
One voice belongs to Emma Benoit, a sharecropper born in 1868 who raised 12 children and four orphans. Former New Orleans police officer George Doyle recalls his time on the force before it was segregated. Odelia Edmond recalls Zozo Labrique, a New Orleans folk figure who sold red brick dust.
Once spoken in the saloons, streets and docks of New Orleans, Louisiana Creole has now almost disappeared.
Cambridge research into recordings from nearly a century ago is helping revive the language, and uncover the stories of its Black speakers born deep in the 19th century.… pic.twitter.com/zYBCiJFACQ
— Cambridge University (@Cambridge_Uni) October 30, 2026
Mayeux identified speakers through census records, newspapers, and family documents. Sparse and sometimes inaccurate labels had obscured their identities. An archived address book helped him reconstruct Turner’s connections with Black doctors and educators.
Only a few thousand native speakers remain, all elderly and living in rural Louisiana. Younger people are learning Kouri-Vini, as they call the language, and producing lessons online. The recordings can now be heard in full through Indiana University’s online archive.
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