Acadiana, the traditional Cajun homeland and the stronghold of both the Louisiana French and Cajun English dialects.

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).

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]

History

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]

Phonology

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/.
• 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"
• Mais non, cher ! : Of course not, dear!

Some variations from Standard English

There are several phrases used by Cajuns that are not used by non-Cajun speakers. Some common phrases are listed below:

In popular culture

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
• 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 English

Resources

• PBS American Accent series - Cajun

References

Bibliography

• 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. ISBN 9781604734034.