Cajun English

Cajun English is spoken throughout Louisiana and up through the gulf of Texas. Its speakers are often descendants of Acadians from Nova Scotia, Canada, who in 1765 migrated to French-owned Louisiana when the British took control of Nova Scotia. In 1803, however, the United States purchased Louisiana and, in 1812, declared English as the official language of the state. 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, but the Cajun communities still resisted the change, using French at home and in their communities. The combination of being native French speakers and the incomplete English Cajun children were learning during their inconsistent public education led to the advent of Cajun English, a fusion of both languages.[2]

After World War II, however, Cajun English saw a severe decline in use, as young people entered the military and were consequently using English more and more in their daily lives. Meanwhile, Cajun children were beginning to receive better and more consistent education, which allowed them to become wealthier than the generation before them.[2] At this time, there was still a lot of stigma associated with Cajun English and in order to achieve and maintain the new social status many young Cajuns now enjoyed, they abandoned French and Cajun English entirely in favor of more American cultural lifestyles and dialects. This shift caused Cajun English to become an endangered dialect. Many decades later, the new Cajun generation perceived a loss of cultural identity and their efforts to recover it began the Cajun Renaissance.[2] The corresponding upsurge of Cajun food, music, and festivities have been well received by tourists and are now supported by the local 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.[3]

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.[4]
• 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]. [4]
• 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.[3]
• 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)).

These are a few other examples.

• Lagniappe : Gratuity provided by a shop owner to a customer at the time of purchase
• 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 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 (a is pronounced like a in apple) : Dear or darling - also used as "buddy" or "pal"
• Mais non, cher ! : Of course not, dear!

There are several phrases used by Cajuns that are completely unknown to non-Cajun speakers. When outside of Acadiana, Cajuns tend to be made fun of for using these phrases. Young Cajuns are often jokingly discouraged from marrying non-Cajuns for this simple fact. Some common phrases are listed below:

• PBS American Accent series - Cajun

• 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.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)
• Valdman, Albert (2009). Dictionary of Louisiana French. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781604734034.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link)

• 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