Christopher Livingston

4/11/17

My Home Dialect: (Cajun)

Les bon temps roulez! Let the good times roll! Where are my good times now? You

may not know that I am not from around here (Tennessee). I was born and raised for eight years

in Lake Charles Louisiana, home of some of the most Cajun speaking people. Living so long

outside of the state I have lost my Cajun dialect. Being from southern Louisiana I remember

what it was like to hear my brothers and cousins still speak in natural conversation, but I have

forgotten how truly unique it was until I revisited last year. The language there is almost so thick

you could cut it with a knife. Some things you wouldnt even understand if it was not for the fact

they were, really, speaking the same language as you. So, in this paper I will discuss what makes

Cajun dialect so special, to me, and what sets it apart from anything else in our English-speaking

country.

To begin we need to understand that Louisiana, including a lot of other states, were

controlled by the French early in our American history. From this sprouts many euphemisms,

tone, and pronunciations differences that lasted until to today. The Cajuns spoke French almost

exclusively until the 20th century. (Daigle 1-II) The main reason for the change to a more of an

American version of speaking was due to the face of the Red Scare and the United States

gathering around to become a more unified nation. Anyone that sounded different or, looked

remotely communist were thrown away. Even in 1912 some schools banned French to teach the

purer form of American English. Even with all these troubles Cajuns kept their heritage and

formed what we now know as their form of Cajun dialect.

When you listen to a Cajun speak you can hear resemblances to many other dialects

including; French (most prominently behind English) Appalachian, Deep Southern, French, and

even (surprisingly) Jamaican! Some rules you need to know when pronouncing certain words are
 Christopher Livingston
4/11/17

shown in the chart below. (Taken from A Cajun French-English Glossary in the LSU

Department of French Studies)

Though things most sounds are still the same as ours, many are also reversed and used in place

of another. From this, many books, made for outside audiences that do not live in Louisiana, will

spell out every word the way a Cajun would speak it. One of my favorite books my mother

would read me every year was The Cajun Night Before Christmas. When I was a child I could

read it with no problem, but now when I get to certain spots I do not even understand what they

are talking about. Take for example the line Like Tante Flo's cat T'ru de treetop he fly W'en de
 Christopher Livingston
4/11/17

big ole houn' dorg Come a run hisse'f by (Trosclair 9) Reading is hard enough to understand,

but when adding in a voice, with the inflections they add, it is even harder.

One thing I have never heard, is a Cajun with a monotone voice. Cajuns, unlike many,

like to over-exaggerate their pitch when speaking. When thinking of someone from around the

Appalachian area and how they speak, they do almost the same thing. To some this comes as a

surprise. Trying to understand a man who drops their t, p, and d (s) they might as well be

speaking French. (Which some do!) French, as I mentioned earlier is a huge part of Cajun

culture. Many things said in daily speech is French. Take for example what I used earlier, Les

bon temps roulez! We use this whenever something good is going on, or even at parties. We

want to let the good times roll. There are many other examples, but too many to give.

In conclusion, Cajun is a mess of everything French and English has to offer. From the

way a Cajun pronounces things, to the way they drop their consonants, and even the way they

mix French with their everyday English are only a few reasons why it is so unique to our

country. I hope I gave you a little bit of a taste of something that I could write pages and pages

over. So let us all Les bon temps roulez!

Word Count: 714

Work Cited:
 Christopher Livingston
4/11/17

1. Daigle, Jules O. Dictionary of the Cajun Language. Vol. 1. N.p.: Swallow Publications,

Incorporated, 1984.
2. Hebert, Tim. "History of the Cajuns: Encyclopedia of Cajun Life: LANGUAGE."

ACADIAN-CAJUN Genealogy & History: Cajun French Language. N.p., n.d. Web. 10

Apr. 2017.
3. Trosclair, James Rice, and Howard Jacobs. Cajun night before Christmas. Gretna, LA:

Pelican Pub. Co., 2007. Print.

4. "A Cajun French-English Glossary." Louisiana State University. Ed. (LSU). N.p., n.d.

Web. 10 Apr. 2017.

5. Valdman, Albert. French and Creole in Louisiana. N.p.: Springer Science & Business

Media, 2013. Web. 10 Apr. 2017.

6. Dubois, Sylvie, and Barbara M. Horvath. "From Accent to Marker in Cajun English: A

Study of Dialect Formation in Progress." English World-Wide English World-Wide A

Journal of Varieties of English 19.2 (1998): n. pag. Web.

7. Dubois, S. "Sounding Cajun: The Rhetorical Use Of Dialect In Speech And Writing."

American Speech 77.3 (2002): n. pag. Web.