The Cajun dialect (New Orleans, Galliano, Arcadia: home, live, price)

[EddieOlSkool]

I have stumbled upon some videos of Cajun people and it is fascinating to me how they sound. They sound decidedly un-Southern except maybe for a few words and of course mannerisms. It's a pretty cool sounding dialect.



From the comments it seems these White boys were just making fun of Acadiana and aren't actually Cajun yet it seems they sound quite close to this woman:



She reminds me of South Side Mexicans from Chicago a bit (I said a bit). Like if a Black person lived around Mexicans or the other way around. The Cajun sound is eerily Hispanic like especially in their vowels (but they still got the hillbilly long I sound like "ah").

Do people still talk like this in Acadiana or is it just regular Southern nowadays? Obviously the lady is a millennial so unless she is faking it it seems to still exist. It sounds super cool!

[hdwell]

Very much sound like this from down South Louisiana. If Cajun people have a regular style southern accent, they probably grew up around the outlying area such as SE Texas or Miss. I hope the Cajun accent stays around forever. Wish I could sound that way.

[EddieOlSkool]

Originally Posted by hdwell

Very much sound like this from down South Louisiana. If Cajun people have a regular style southern accent, they probably grew up around the outlying area such as SE Texas or Miss. I hope the Cajun accent stays around forever. Wish I could sound that way.

Wish I could too except I have no ties to Louisiana (I think maybe there is some French in me but not sure if from Arcadia). Of course me being not from Louisiana has something to do with it as well

[Bayou Queen]

I spoke French with my Grandmother until she passed shortly before my 5th birthday, then the language was pretty much lost in our family, my cousin and I are now the oldest in our family. I recently heard two ladies conversing in a doctors office in French and it was like a beautiful old warm hug but I understood very few words. The Cajun language is dying, it is not being passed on. I spoke with the older lady who was about my age and they were from Galliano Louisiana, very South Louisiana. She said it was frowned upon by the teachers in the 1950's if you spoke in French way down in the Bayous, you were reprimanded for speaking French. I grew up in New Orleans, but there were many towns in South Louisiana when I was a child where French was spoken exclusively. My husbands Grandmother lived just 45 minutes outside of New Orleans and never learned to speak English, many of our Grandparents spoke French. New Orleans is certainly multi cultural, my Grand Father came from the Canary Islands and both French and Spanish were spoken in my Mothers home as a child. Like many others here, I do have some Creole in me. There used to be a number of Cajun speaking radio stations here, there may be one left. If you check Arcadians, you will find a number of us are descendants of Nova Scotia in Canada.

[Innotech]

Some of my coworkers sound similar. They even get tags to catch alligators on their time off for extra money.

[selogic]

Acadia . No " r " .

[annie_himself]

The price of American assimilation.

[Bayou Queen]

Originally Posted by selogic

Acadia . No " r " .

Acadian, typo. Sorry.