Cajun English, or Cajun Vernacular English, is a dialect of American English spoken by Cajuns living in Southern Louisiana. Cajun English is significantly influenced by Louisiana French, the historical language of the Cajun people, a subset of Louisiana Creoles — although many today prefer not to identify as such — who descend largely from the Acadian people expelled from the Maritime provinces during Le Grand Dérangement (among many others).
Acadiana, the traditional Cajun homeland and the stronghold of both the Louisiana French and Cajun English dialects.
English is now spoken by the vast majority of the Cajun population, but French influence remains strong in terms of inflection and vocabulary. Their accent is considerably distinct from General American accents.[1]Cajun French is considered by many to be an endangered language, mostly used by elderly generations.[2] However, French in Louisiana is now seeing something of a cultural renaissance.[3]
Cajun English is spoken throughout Acadiana. Its speakers are often descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia, Canada, who in 1755 migrated to French-owned Louisiana after the British took control of Nova Scotia and expelled them from their land.[4] In 1803 however, the United States purchased the territory of Louisiana and, in 1812, when Louisiana drafted their first state Constitution in order to be granted statehood, the English language received official sanction as the language of promulgation and preservation of laws.[5] Despite this change, many Cajuns at the time who lived in small towns and were poorly educated, continued to use French exclusively.[2] This isolated them, subjecting them to ridicule and treatment as second-class citizens. In the 1930s, English was the only language taught in schools and students who spoke French were punished and humiliated in front of their class. The Cajuns still continued to use Cajun French at home and in their communities, but this led to a stigma being associated with the language, and, as a result, parents stopped teaching it to their children.[6] The combination of being native French speakers, and the incomplete English that the Cajun children were learning during their inconsistent public education, led to the advent of Cajun English, a fusion of both languages.[2]
Many decades later, new generations of Cajuns perceived a loss of cultural identity, and their efforts to recover it started the Cajun Renaissance.[2] The corresponding popularity of Cajun food, music, and festivities have been well received by tourists and some programs are now supported by the state government. Although Cajun English has made a comeback, the bilingualism that originally created it, a knowledge of both French and English, has not. Cajun English speakers today typically do not speak French, and experts believe that it is unlikely that this part of the culture will be recovered.[2] This shift away from bilingualism has changed the source of many of the phonological differences between Cajun English and Standard American English from interference caused by being a native French speaker to markers of Cajun identity.[7]
Cajun English is distinguished by some of the following phonological features:
The deletion of any word's final consonant (or consonant cluster), and nasal vowels, are common, both features being found in French. Therefore, hand becomes [hæ̃], food becomes [fu], rent becomes [ɹɪ̃], New York becomes [nuˈjɔə], and so on.[8]
As a consequence of the removal of a word's final consonant the third person singular (-S) and the past tense morpheme (-ED) tend to be dropped. So, He give me six and She go with it rather than gives and goes. And I stay two months and She wash my face rather than stayed and washed.[2]
Cajun English also has the tendency to drop the auxiliary verb to be in the third person singular (IS) and the second person singular and plurals. For example, She pretty and What we doing.
The typical American gliding vowels [oʊ] (as in boat), [eɪ] (as in bait), [ʊu] (as in boot), [aʊ~æʊ] (as in bout), [äɪ] (as in bite), and [ɔɪ] (as in boy) have reduced glides or none at all: respectively, [oː], [eː], [uː], [aː~æː], [äː], and [ɔː]. [8]
Many vowels which are distinct in General American English are pronounced the same way due to a merger; for example, the words hill and heel are homophones, both being pronounced /hɪɹl/[citation needed].
H-dropping, wherein words that begin with the letter /h/ are pronounced without it, so that hair sounds like air, and so on.[2]
Non-rhoticity, unlike most of the American south, cajun accents tend to drop r after vowel sounds.
Stress is generally placed on the second or last syllable of a word, a feature inherited directly from French.
The voiceless and voiced alveolar stops /t/ and /d/ often replace dental fricatives, a feature used by both Cajun English speakers and speakers of Louisiana Creole French (Standard French speakers generally produce alveolar fricatives in the place of dental fricatives). Examples include bath being pronounced as bat and they as day. This feature leads to a common Louisianian paradigm dis, dat, dese, dose rather than this, that, these, those as a method of describing how Cajuns speak.[2]
Cajun English speakers generally do not aspirate the consonants /p/, /t/, or /k/. As a result, the words par and bar can sound very similar to speakers of other English varieties. It is notable that after the Cajun Renaissance, this feature became more common in men than women, with women largely or entirely dropping this phonological feature.[7]
The inclusion of many loanwords, calques, and phrases from French, such as nonc ('uncle', from Louisiana French noncle, and Standard French oncle), cher/chère ('dear', pronounced /ʃɛr/, from the French cher), and making groceries ('to shop for groceries', a calque of the Cajun French faire des groceries (épicerie)).
French-influenced Cajun vocabulary
Lagniappe : Gratuity provided by a shop owner to a customer at the time of purchase; something extra
Allons ! : Let's go!
Alors pas : Of course not
Fais do-do : Refers to a dance party, a Cajun version of a square dance. In French, this means to go to sleep.
Dis-moi la vérité ! : Tell me the truth!
Quoi faire ? : Why?
Un magasin : A store
Être en colère : To be angry
Mo chagren : I'm sorry
Une sucette : A pacifier
Une piastre : A dollar
Un caleçon : Boxers
cher (e is pronounced like a in apple) : Dear or darling - also used as "buddy" or "pal"
There are several phrases used by Cajuns that are not used by non-Cajun speakers. Some common phrases are listed below:
Come see
"Come see" is the equivalent of saying "come here" regardless of whether or not there is something to "see." The French "viens voir," or "venez voir," meaning "come" or "please come," is often used in Cajun French to ask people to come.[9] This phrasing may have its roots in "viens voir ici" (IPA: [isi]), the French word for "here."[citation needed]
When you went?
Instead of "When did you go?"
Save the dishes
To "save the dishes" means to "put away the dishes into cupboards where they belong after being washed". While dishes are the most common subject, it is not uncommon to save other things. For example: Save up the clothes, saving the tools, save your toys.
Get/Run down at the store
"Getting/Running down at the store" involves stepping out of a car to enter the store. Most commonly, the driver will ask the passenger, "Are you getting/running down (also)?" One can get down at any place, not just the store. The phrase "get down" may come from the act of "getting down from a horse" as many areas of Acadiana were only accessible by horse well into the 20th century. It also may originate from the French language descendre meaning to get down, much as some English-Spanish bilingual speakers say "get down," from the Spanish bajar.
Makin' (the) groceries
"Makin' groceries" refers to the act of buying groceries, rather than that of manufacturing them. The confusion originates from the direct translation of the American French phrase "faire l'épicerie" which is understood by speakers to mean "to do the grocery shopping." "Faire" as used in the French language can mean either "to do" or "to make." This is a term frequently used in New Orleans, but it's not used very much elsewhere in the Acadiana area.[10]
Make water
"Making water" is using the bathroom, specifically with reference to urination.[clarification needed] One would say, "I need to go make water." It's mostly used in New Orleans.
"for" instead of "at"
Cajun English speakers can exhibit a tendency to use "for" instead of "at" when referring to time. For example, "I'll be there for 2 o'clock." means "I'll be there at 2 o'clock." Given the connection between Cajun English and Acadia, this is also seen among Canadian English speakers.
In popular culture
Television
In the television series Treme, Cajun English is often used by most of the characters.
In the television series True Blood, the character René Lernier has a Cajun accent.
In X-Men : The Animated Series, the character Gambit was introduced as from Louisiana and is known to speak in a thick "Cajun" accent.
In the television miniseries Band of Brothers, the company's medic Eugene Roe is half-Cajun and speaks with a distinct accent.
Likewise, Merriell "Snafu" Shelton from a companion miniseries The Pacific.
In the Heat of the Night: Season 2, Episode 12; "A.K.A. Kelly Kay"; Jude Thibodeaux ( Kevin Conway ) comes to Sparta in search of a former prostitute he controlled in New Orleans. Cajun accent is prominent.[11]
Adam Ruins Everything features a recurring bit-character who speaks in a Cajun dialect, with subtitles.
King of the Hill, has one of Hank Hill's friends Bill Dauterive and his cousin Gilbert, both speaking in Cajun accents, through the latter speaks more stereotypically, than Bill.
In the film The Waterboy, Cajun English is spoken throughout.
In Joe Dirt, in one scene while looking for his parents in Louisiana, David Spade's character interacts with a Cajun man (Farmer Fran) played by Blake Clark who uses a thick Cajun accent.
Video games
Several characters of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, particularly the narrator, have Cajun accents. Some characters even use Cajun French phrases.
Virgil from Left 4 Dead 2, speaking with a Cajun-accent and using few Cajun English wording, during the Swamp Fever finale to The Parish beginning campaigns.
See also
Acadia, former home of the Cajuns, located in what is now eastern Canada
Acadiana, A 22-parish region in southern Louisiana
Acadian French, the dialect of French from which Cajun French derives
^Do You Speak American . Sea to Shining Sea. American Varieties: Cajun | PBS
^ abcdefghRamos, Raúl Pérez (2012). "Cajun Vernacular English A Study Over A Reborn Dialect" (PDF). Fòrum de Recerca. 17: 623–632.
^"United States: In Louisiana, Cajuns are keen to preserve their identity - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Archived from the original on 2021-12-13. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
^"Acadian Expulsion (the Great Upheaval) | The Canadian Encyclopedia". www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
^"The French Language in Louisiana Law and Legal Education: A Requiem".
^"Cajun French Efforting Comeback in Louisiana". wafb.com. Retrieved 2020-11-24.
^ abDubois, Sylvie (2000). "When the music change, you change too: Gender and language change in Cajun English". Language Variation and Change. 11 (3): 287–313. doi:10.1017/S0954394599113036. S2CID 145419227.
Dubois, Sylvia; Horvath, Barbara (2004). Kortmann, Bernd; Schneider, Edgar W. (eds.). "Cajun Vernacular English: phonology". A Handbook of Varieties of English: A Multimedia Reference Tool. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Valdman, Albert (2009). Dictionary of Louisiana French. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN9781604734034.
May 05, 2023
cajun, english, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, improve, this, article, adding, citations, reliable, sources, unsourced, material, challenged, removed, find, sources, news, newspapers, books, scholar, jstor, february, 2. This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Cajun English news newspapers books scholar JSTOR February 2011 Learn how and when to remove this template message Cajun English or Cajun Vernacular English is a dialect of American English spoken by Cajuns living in Southern Louisiana Cajun English is significantly influenced by Louisiana French the historical language of the Cajun people a subset of Louisiana Creoles although many today prefer not to identify as such who descend largely from the Acadian people expelled from the Maritime provinces during Le Grand Derangement among many others Acadiana the traditional Cajun homeland and the stronghold of both the Louisiana French and Cajun English dialects English is now spoken by the vast majority of the Cajun population but French influence remains strong in terms of inflection and vocabulary Their accent is considerably distinct from General American accents 1 Cajun French is considered by many to be an endangered language mostly used by elderly generations 2 However French in Louisiana is now seeing something of a cultural renaissance 3 Contents 1 History 2 Phonology 3 French influenced Cajun vocabulary 4 Some variations from Standard English 4 1 Come see 4 2 When you went 4 3 Save the dishes 4 4 Get Run down at the store 4 5 Makin the groceries 4 6 Make water 4 7 for instead of at 5 In popular culture 5 1 Television 5 2 Film 5 3 Video games 6 See also 7 Resources 8 References 9 BibliographyHistory EditCajun English is spoken throughout Acadiana Its speakers are often descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia Canada who in 1755 migrated to French owned Louisiana after the British took control of Nova Scotia and expelled them from their land 4 In 1803 however the United States purchased the territory of Louisiana and in 1812 when Louisiana drafted their first state Constitution in order to be granted statehood the English language received official sanction as the language of promulgation and preservation of laws 5 Despite this change many Cajuns at the time who lived in small towns and were poorly educated continued to use French exclusively 2 This isolated them subjecting them to ridicule and treatment as second class citizens In the 1930s English was the only language taught in schools and students who spoke French were punished and humiliated in front of their class The Cajuns still continued to use Cajun French at home and in their communities but this led to a stigma being associated with the language and as a result parents stopped teaching it to their children 6 The combination of being native French speakers and the incomplete English that the Cajun children were learning during their inconsistent public education led to the advent of Cajun English a fusion of both languages 2 Many decades later new generations of Cajuns perceived a loss of cultural identity and their efforts to recover it started the Cajun Renaissance 2 The corresponding popularity of Cajun food music and festivities have been well received by tourists and some programs are now supported by the state government Although Cajun English has made a comeback the bilingualism that originally created it a knowledge of both French and English has not Cajun English speakers today typically do not speak French and experts believe that it is unlikely that this part of the culture will be recovered 2 This shift away from bilingualism has changed the source of many of the phonological differences between Cajun English and Standard American English from interference caused by being a native French speaker to markers of Cajun identity 7 Phonology EditThis section contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet IPA For an introductory guide on IPA symbols see Help IPA For the distinction between and see IPA Brackets and transcription delimiters All vowels of Cajun English citation needed English diaphoneme Cajun phoneme Example wordsPure vowels Monophthongs ae ae act pal trap ham pass ɑː ɑ blah bother father lot top wasp ɒ a all dog bought loss saw taught ɔː ɛ ɛ ae dress met bread ɪ hem pen i length e e about syrup arena ɪ ɪ hit skim tip iː i beam chic fleet i ɪ i happy very ʌ ʌ bus flood what ʊ ʊ book put should uː u food glue newDiphthongs aɪ ɑɪ aː ride shine try bright dice pike aʊ aʊ aː now ouch scout eɪ eː lake paid rein ɔɪ ɔɪ boy choice moist oʊ oː goat oh showR colored vowels ɑːr ɑ a barn car park ɛer ɛ ae bare bear there ɜːr ʌe ʌɹ burn first herd er eɹ doctor martyr pervade ɪr i ɪ fear peer tier ɪer ɔːr ɔe ɔɹ hoarse horse war ɒr ɑ ɔ orange tomorrow ʊer ue ʊe poor score tour j ʊer cure Europe pureCajun English is distinguished by some of the following phonological features The deletion of any word s final consonant or consonant cluster and nasal vowels are common both features being found in French Therefore hand becomes hae food becomes fu rent becomes ɹɪ New York becomes nuˈjɔe and so on 8 As a consequence of the removal of a word s final consonant the third person singular S and the past tense morpheme ED tend to be dropped So He give me six and She go with it rather than gives and goes And I stay two months and She wash my face rather than stayed and washed 2 Cajun English also has the tendency to drop the auxiliary verb to be in the third person singular IS and the second person singular and plurals For example She pretty and What we doing The typical American gliding vowels oʊ as in boat eɪ as in bait ʊu as in boot aʊ aeʊ as in bout aɪ as in bite and ɔɪ as in boy have reduced glides or none at all respectively oː eː uː aː aeː aː and ɔː 8 Many vowels which are distinct in General American English are pronounced the same way due to a merger for example the words hill and heel are homophones both being pronounced hɪɹl citation needed H dropping wherein words that begin with the letter h are pronounced without it so that hair sounds like air and so on 2 Non rhoticity unlike most of the American south cajun accents tend to drop r after vowel sounds Stress is generally placed on the second or last syllable of a word a feature inherited directly from French The voiceless and voiced alveolar stops t and d often replace dental fricatives a feature used by both Cajun English speakers and speakers of Louisiana Creole French Standard French speakers generally produce alveolar fricatives in the place of dental fricatives Examples include bath being pronounced as bat and they as day This feature leads to a common Louisianian paradigm dis dat dese dose rather than this that these those as a method of describing how Cajuns speak 2 Cajun English speakers generally do not aspirate the consonants p t or k As a result the words par and bar can sound very similar to speakers of other English varieties It is notable that after the Cajun Renaissance this feature became more common in men than women with women largely or entirely dropping this phonological feature 7 The inclusion of many loanwords calques and phrases from French such as nonc uncle from Louisiana French noncle and Standard French oncle cher chere dear pronounced ʃɛr from the French cher and making groceries to shop for groceries a calque of the Cajun French faire des groceries epicerie French influenced Cajun vocabulary EditLagniappe Gratuity provided by a shop owner to a customer at the time of purchase something extra Allons Let s go Alors pas Of course not Fais do do Refers to a dance party a Cajun version of a square dance In French this means to go to sleep Dis moi la verite Tell me the truth Quoi faire Why Un magasin A store Etre en colere To be angry Mo chagren I m sorry Une sucette A pacifier Une piastre A dollar Un calecon Boxers cher e is pronounced like a in apple Dear or darling also used as buddy or pal Mais non cher Of course not dear Some variations from Standard English EditThis section does not cite any sources Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed June 2015 Learn how and when to remove this template message There are several phrases used by Cajuns that are not used by non Cajun speakers Some common phrases are listed below Come see Edit Come see is the equivalent of saying come here regardless of whether or not there is something to see The French viens voir or venez voir meaning come or please come is often used in Cajun French to ask people to come 9 This phrasing may have its roots in viens voir ici IPA isi the French word for here citation needed When you went Edit Instead of When did you go Save the dishes Edit To save the dishes means to put away the dishes into cupboards where they belong after being washed While dishes are the most common subject it is not uncommon to save other things For example Save up the clothes saving the tools save your toys Get Run down at the store Edit Getting Running down at the store involves stepping out of a car to enter the store Most commonly the driver will ask the passenger Are you getting running down also One can get down at any place not just the store The phrase get down may come from the act of getting down from a horse as many areas of Acadiana were only accessible by horse well into the 20th century It also may originate from the French language descendre meaning to get down much as some English Spanish bilingual speakers say get down from the Spanish bajar Makin the groceries Edit Makin groceries refers to the act of buying groceries rather than that of manufacturing them The confusion originates from the direct translation of the American French phrase faire l epicerie which is understood by speakers to mean to do the grocery shopping Faire as used in the French language can mean either to do or to make This is a term frequently used in New Orleans but it s not used very much elsewhere in the Acadiana area 10 Make water Edit Making water is using the bathroom specifically with reference to urination clarification needed One would say I need to go make water It s mostly used in New Orleans for instead of at Edit Cajun English speakers can exhibit a tendency to use for instead of at when referring to time For example I ll be there for 2 o clock means I ll be there at 2 o clock Given the connection between Cajun English and Acadia this is also seen among Canadian English speakers In popular culture EditTelevision Edit In the television series Treme Cajun English is often used by most of the characters In the television series True Blood the character Rene Lernier has a Cajun accent In X Men The Animated Series the character Gambit was introduced as from Louisiana and is known to speak in a thick Cajun accent In the television miniseries Band of Brothers the company s medic Eugene Roe is half Cajun and speaks with a distinct accent Likewise Merriell Snafu Shelton from a companion miniseries The Pacific In the television series Swamp People Troy Landry speaks with a strong accent In the Heat of the Night Season 2 Episode 12 A K A Kelly Kay Jude Thibodeaux Kevin Conway comes to Sparta in search of a former prostitute he controlled in New Orleans Cajun accent is prominent 11 Adam Ruins Everything features a recurring bit character who speaks in a Cajun dialect with subtitles King of the Hill has one of Hank Hill s friends Bill Dauterive and his cousin Gilbert both speaking in Cajun accents through the latter speaks more stereotypically than Bill In the 1987 television adaption of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles an alligator character named Leatherhead has Cajun accent Film Edit In the movie The Big Easy Cajun English is used by most of the characters In the movie The Green Mile Eduard Delacroix played by Michael Jeter speaks Cajun English In the animated film The Princess and the Frog Ray the Firefly voiced by Jim Cummings speaks Cajun English In the film Deepwater Horizon Donald Vidrine played by John Malkovich speaks Cajun English In The Blind Side Ed Orgeron a Cajun who coached the film and book s subject Michael Oher during the latter s college career plays himself and uses his native dialect In the film The Waterboy Cajun English is spoken throughout In Joe Dirt in one scene while looking for his parents in Louisiana David Spade s character interacts with a Cajun man Farmer Fran played by Blake Clark who uses a thick Cajun accent Video games Edit Several characters of Gabriel Knight Sins of the Fathers particularly the narrator have Cajun accents Some characters even use Cajun French phrases Virgil from Left 4 Dead 2 speaking with a Cajun accent and using few Cajun English wording during the Swamp Fever finale to The Parish beginning campaigns See also EditAcadia former home of the Cajuns located in what is now eastern Canada Acadiana A 22 parish region in southern Louisiana Acadian French the dialect of French from which Cajun French derives American English Cajun Cajun French Dialects of the English Language Franglais a term sometimes used to describe a mixed vernacular of French and English Louisiana Creole French a French based creole which has had some influence on Cajun French and English Yat another Louisiana dialect of EnglishResources EditPBS American Accent series CajunReferences Edit Do You Speak American Sea to Shining Sea American Varieties Cajun PBS a b c d e f g h Ramos Raul Perez 2012 Cajun Vernacular English A Study Over A Reborn Dialect PDF Forum de Recerca 17 623 632 United States In Louisiana Cajuns are keen to preserve their identity YouTube www youtube com Archived from the original on 2021 12 13 Retrieved 2020 11 24 Acadian Expulsion the Great Upheaval The Canadian Encyclopedia www thecanadianencyclopedia ca Retrieved 2020 11 24 The French Language in Louisiana Law and Legal Education A Requiem Cajun French Efforting Comeback in Louisiana wafb com Retrieved 2020 11 24 a b Dubois Sylvie 2000 When the music change you change too Gender and language change in Cajun English Language Variation and Change 11 3 287 313 doi 10 1017 S0954394599113036 S2CID 145419227 a b Dubois amp Horvath 2004 pp 409 410 Valdman 2009 p 655 How to Say to do in French A K A Kelly Kay IMDb Bibliography EditDubois Sylvia Horvath Barbara 2004 Kortmann Bernd Schneider Edgar W eds Cajun Vernacular English phonology A Handbook of Varieties of English A Multimedia Reference Tool New York Mouton de Gruyter Valdman Albert 2009 Dictionary of Louisiana French University Press of Mississippi ISBN 9781604734034 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Cajun English amp oldid 1148533837, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,
