An introduction to Cajun English. Cajun English, not Cajun French.

Some of the elements are awfully familiar to me. I’ve always said “get down” to mean “get out of a car.” (Much to the amusement of people riding in the car with me. “Do you want to get down?” is not typically an invitation to dance.) It’s “a” coffee, not “some” coffee. And my grandmother used to always say “zink” instead of “sink.” Throw in some “was” leveling and “-ed” absence, and throw in some loss of interdental fricatives, double subject construction, and extra definite articles and you’re getting there. (“Dem, dey was so tired uh dat ol’ dam dog they kill da ting”)

An LSU prof who’s studied it calls Cajun English an ethnolect: “varieties of a language in which the expression of ethnic identity is maintained in an adopted language after loss of the ethnic language.” A la AAVE, or as the Oakland school board would call it, ebonics.

The author advances an interesting theory: That as Cajun French dies out, the ability to speak Cajun English — with its passel of linguistic holdovers from the mother tongue — is the key social indicator of ethnic identity. “Why would a dialect which was considered a mark of ignorance until very recently be heard on the lips of Cajuns young and old?…To be a Cajun these days, the necessary and sufficient condition seems to be that you must speak Cajun English.”

That would be an interesting twist on the view, advanced by Zachary Richard and others, that Cajun culture can only survive if “the language” survives. They mean Cajun French as “the language,” but maybe the accent of Boudreaux jokes is enough.

Finally, a bonus quote on anti-Cajun discrimination in the early 20th century.

17 August 2005

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