Sat drinking this afternoon under the hot Hawaiian sun with some French language "experts" (non native speakers)from California who kept calling European French "Parisian" and guffawed at my liking my Merlot chilled. I eventually blew my stack. I was born 53 years ago in a small southwest French village where the old folks sounded remarkably Cajun and hardly ever had any contacts with Paris.
I am NOT from Louisiana but I ain't from Paris either. My French has more in common with the former than the latter. Any thoughts from other non=Louisiana French native speakers?

JP

You were having a bad day! I mean getting "lured" into an argument about nothing :), really, with some ill informed people.
I can't call them ignorant,but what I can say is that , the French, love arguing, and a debate is never to far from them when confronted .
South west you said, Toulouse , perhaps ?, I know the area quite well,and at one time spend quite a bit there, but I can't recall a similarity of language sound with the way the Cajuns speak and sound, perhaps more "vers le Nord", like Vendee maybe.
So, detend toi" I'm sure they meant well, and so did you.

A Frenchman "tout court", period, well, "PARISIEN" .

Respectueusement,

Claude.

Wooofff wheeee! Tout a l'heure!

Cajun french is an interesting and beautiful variation on the french language and somewhat but not so different from the different regional accents of french here in Quebec, Canada and Acadia. I love it and hope it survives al ong time although it's future is uncertain. Bravo to all the cajuns resist the great pressures to stop using it, who sing it and and pass it on!

JP,

To be precise, Marmande is the locale, where "we" stayed .
As you may know, it's located in between Toulouse and Bordeaux, closer to Bordeaux, that is.

We could be related .

Claude.

JP,

It's me again .

Some of the New France settlers, bearing my name settled there in and around 1625, also some Luneaus made their ways from Acadia to Louisiana in the early days.
Luneau is an uncommun name.
My anscestors on my father's side came from Charente in France, on my mother's side from France: Bordeaux, Toulouse,Agen,the Gers,Paris.

Salut.

Euro Sophisticates Laugh at Prudish Americans

PARIS -- While the Lewinsky scandal continues to rage on the front of American newspapers, a different reaction has developed on this side of the Atlantic. To worldly-wise, sophisticated Europeans, the spectacle is a curious sideshow and another reason to mock and disdain the puritan morals of their American counterparts.

"You feelthy Americans, you make me seek," says sneering French graduate student Serge Tati, 47, expressing a common sentiment. Fashionably clad in a horizontal stripe t-shirt and skin-tight Speedo, he was recently relaxing on the Lido with his mistress Yvette LaFleur, 43. Like thousands of fellow French graduate students, he was enjoying his annual 28-week vacation.

"Beel Clinton, he is Euro, no? He eez moderne, he eez now. He has joie de vivre. He ravages zee young geerls. In my country, we geeve heem a medal, no?" asks Tati, deeply drawing on a clove cigarette.

"Oui, like Jerry Lewees," adds the topless LaFleur, carefully combing her leg hair. "And yet you treat heem like a common creeminal," noted Tati. "Ptui! You I speet on you, pheelistine American peegs! Wiss your 'amburgairs and tailfins and your soap! Ha-ha, we laugh at you!" he added, shaking his pinched fingers in a Euro-expression of disgust.

The interview abruptly ended when a nearby sunbather was angered after being slapped by one of Tati's errant hand gestures. Tati and the sunbather proceeded to engage in a furious kicking and slapping fight, before fleeing in terror after spotting a German tourist.

At EuroDisney, many visitors were likewise perplexed by Americans' scandal obsession. "Mitterand, he eez to having many affairs, no? We adore heem as a god," explains Jacqueline Robespierre, 28, an adverb specialist at the French Ministry of Language Purity.

"You puny insignificant Americans, you treat Beel Clinton as eef he were a mere mortal," Herve Souci agrees. Like thousands of other EuroDisney workers, Souci, 39, is on strike demanding government designation as an 'artiste,' which, if granted, will translate into a 47 week annual vacation.

"Zee American - how you say? - right-wingair, heeez blind. He cannot see zee simple beauty of Beel Clinton, of zee Jean-Luc Goddard feelm, of zee European football," says Souci, removing the head of his Mickey Mouse costume for a drink of wine. "*****! How I pity and despise you," he adds, pausing to kick two children attempting to cross the picket line.

Across the English Channel and long accustomed to their own lurid sex scandals, Britons appear to find the Lewinsky affair somewhat boring. At the Dog and Queen, a picturesque pub in London's Mayfair section, a group of locals discusses the scandal over a traditional lunch of boiled sheep pancreas, bitter spleen pie, rancid chocolate and warm beer. "We do have a 'special relationship' with you Yanks, but I must say you have gone a bit starkers over this Lewinsky business," laughs Nigel Ealing, 32, a quality reduction engineer at Jaguar." It positively reminds one of your obsession with plumbing, dentistry and shampoo."

Colin Framinghampton-Smythe, an unemployed soccer hooligan for Manchester United, agreed. "Bloody 'ell, you 'aven' go' a single snapsho' of 'eh knickehs."

"Shu' youh bloody gob, ye wee bahstid," added his friend Niall MacEwing, playfully smashing a pint glass into Framinghampton-Smythe's face, dislodging four of his remaining teeth before vomiting on the snooker table.

In Amsterdam, perhaps Europe's most cosmopolitan city, the locals openly laugh at the perceived Puritanism of their American cousins. "Americans, they must have hangups, many, many hangups, not like we open-minded Dutch," says leather-hooded, whip-wielding Mistress Dominique, 67, a performer at Amsterdam's Elderslutz, a government-operated live sex show featuring senior citizens. The show was created by the Dutch government to provide jobs for unemployed elderly prostitutes.

Bart TenBoek, 42, a government-employed heroin addict, agrees. "Bill Clinton is a hero. He is a model of Eurostyle for the backward Americans. No. Wait a minute. He is a tree. A big glowing, pink tree. Flying across the sky making a beautiful, beautiful rainbow," notes TenBoek, laughing uncontrollably as he collapses into a fetal position.

In Milan, where 'amore' is way of life, the citizenry is solidly behind President Clinton. "Si, Beel Clinton is multi bello," say Giancarlo Leone, 32, an unemployed movie extra and father of twelve. "He is -- how you say -- my-a hero." "Ciao, bella! Bellisima, bellisima," he compliments a passing girl, pausing to make smooching sounds as he pinches her hindquarters. "Ow!" he adds painfully, fleeing on his rusting Vespa to avoid another flowerpot from his wife, who is screaming from a nearby balcony.

In faraway Barcelona, Miguel Ortega has similar sentiments. "Si, I tink de Americans, dey not like Meester Cleenton too good enough," says Ortega, who had a Coke concession at the 1992 Olympics, but has since been unemployed. "Dey should love heem, like we love paella or Generalissimo Franco."

Helga Ericksson, 54, an official with the Swedish Ministry of Furniture and Suicide in Stockholm, agrees. "Yah, Americans are fascists. They moost embrace Clinton. Like ve Svedes embrace depression and death."

Germans Dieter Schaden, 28, and Igo Reinholdt, 34, have a message for scandal obsessed Americans. "Ja, get mitten der twentiest century," says the couple, between acts of their bondage and discipline show at a dark Berlin discotheque.

Jane Kirschner, style editor at Europhile, feels embarrassment over American scandalmania. "All across the continent, they are laughing at our backward, prudish, puritan morals. I almost feel too ashamed to go there anymore," she says, sipping a cup of black espresso.

Kirschner thinks the continentals are on to something. "We have a lot to learn from them. Americans need to become more open-minded and jaded. We need to adopt sophisticated European attitude, and move on to more important things. Like our next vacation!"

Bonjour Jean-Pierre,
This site has a few sound clips that could help you convince them that they are wrong and that there are other ways of speaking French. And since they are talking about European French, we could also add the Belgian and Swiss ways.
(By the way, don't all the American people speak like in the Western movies ?)

Christian

Ah, Christian always with the wise perspective.

I was talking to my mom in Cajun on my phone while at work once (in Dallas, Tx.) and a coworker (somewhat educated for a fireman) who overheard me told me later, "I dont know what you were speaking, but it wasnt French". I asked how he knew and he told me it didnt sound like what he had studied in school.

So I began to list all the strange accents just right here in the US- New England, Georgia, and closer to home, right here in east Texas where I live and where I have trouble understanding some people sometimes. And I asked him to compare the country english spoken in some areas with what would be taught in British schools. Wouldnt they both be english? But if someone who spoke Korean learned basic English in Britain, then went on a field trip in the Appalachians, he would probably assume they were speaking another language besides english. Not sure if I convinced him, but he quit arguing.

Now the english I grew up with in Louisiana, now that may qualify as a language all its own....

Jean-Pierre, the so-called experts were in fact somewhat ignorant. That is my take. There is no such thing as @real@ French, as there is no such thing as @real@ English. The French that is spoken in North America (Quebec, Canadian Atlantic provinces-Acadie, other parts of Canada like Northen Ontario or Saskatchewan, and Louisiana is closer to the old French spoken 200+ years ago. The French spoken in Paris is a result of l'Academie française created by the aristocraty to streamline a large variety of accents and dialects. They view themselves as the centre of the universe, and anything else is below-grade. In France only, there are gazillion accents and dialects, above and beyond the rest of the Francophonie in Belgium, Switzerland, several African countries. Interestingly enough, my observation was that the quality of french spoken by the average Joe Bleau in the street in Paris today (I've been there a few times) is mediocre at best, and the french contains more english words than the French spoken in Queebec as an example (stuff like shopping, email, etc.). Bottom line: BE PROUD OF YOUR HERITAGE, YOUR ACCENT and the sometimes UNIQUES WORDS that are part of your COMMUNITY, where ever you're from, and wherever you live. This is what makes a language RICH! A la prochaine...:-) Maz

The only thing I could add to your well said post, Maz, is none of us have any business judging or looking down on another's culture, language, or accent. Kind of like the music, its all in a constant state of change anyway.

Maz my friend, I like the way you think.
And yes, I agree there's more French spoken in Canada than on the streets of Paris or in the pages of the French press. Thanks all for the feedback. You're probably right Claude, it must have been a bad day, though the Merlot tasted pretty good. As to where my southwest lies, north Gironde at the border with Charente.
Salut a tous/toutes
Jean-Pierre

Christian and anyone else in France...
In your opinion, which accent from the site you referenced sounds most like Cajun? Have you noticed any patterns in France that parallel Cajun pronunciation pattern or vocabulary?

Chris,

Gerard Dole, it seems to me,would of many French peole, be one of the ones to be eminently qualified to be able , hopefully to answer your important question.
His close, loving association over the years to the Cajun Culture, its People, their Music and everyday life makes him, a good knowledgable Ambassadeur in France.

Claude.

Salut.

Chris,
On this site, and to my ears, the speaker that sounds most like Cajun is the speaker from Burgundy (Bourgogne). Don't know whether "Cajun ears" would agree.
But some people around Poitiers still sound much more Cajun than this. I remember talking with a friend's grandfather who lived in that area and who, besides the rolled r's and the intonation, still used the words "asteur" , "mouiller" and a few others I have forgotten. But that's just a personal memory. I don't know whether recordings and accurate studies have been made in that region.
One thing you must have noticed is the rolled r's. Not Parisian at all

Christian

All true,

Unforunately, it's in the French nature to put down accents. It happens everywhere, too. You get it in Paris, in rural France (somewhate less), in Quebec, in the rest of Canada, etc. It never ends. They're all guilty.

I suffered years of Texan French teachers trying to explain to me why I didn't speak the "real" French. Hell, I've even had Cajuns poke fun at the way I pronounce "arriere" in "La Porte d'en Arriere".

Some French refer to American English as "Americain", implying that we don't speak "real English". So there you go....you can never win.

The way I see it -- if we can communicate, what's the problem?

Nick B.

Yes, communicating being what languages are for in the first place, as long as it works…
As far as I'm concerned when I hear somebody speak French with a regional accent it’s like a new rendition of a song that I know. It adds something pleasant to the person’s speech.

What kind of French do you speak for always finding someone to criticize your accent wherever you go ?

Christian

Hi Christian,

I'm a French-Canadian who grew up in the South (Texas). I sound Canadian to most Francophones and probably a little American to the Quebecois.

But you're right, accents add a little character.

I imagine that almost any French speaker outside of France would encounter frequently.

Best,

Nick B

Someone asked the question as to where there was the most similarities in accents in France with Cajun.... That's an interesting one. If you start with the focal point that the majority of Cajuns trace their ancestries to the Acadians who were deported from Nova Scotia in 1755-1758, you can't ask that question without tracing where the Acadians were from at the first place. The very first pioneer "families" who came to the new world came from the area of Poitou-Charentes in France around 1632. They possessed the skills on how to build **** systems (Aboiteaux)which were later used along the shor of the Baie of Fundy in Nova Scotia. The village were they were from is called "La Chaussé". Later on, other families and lineages joined them from other regions of France. Today, both Cajuns (Acadiens du Sud) and Acadians in Canada (Acadiens du Nord) have lots of similarities in their accents, but also in certain words that they use. Some have told me that there's lots of common ground with the rural areas of Poitou, but also in Bretagne which is more in the northern part of France. I haven't been there myself, therefore can't validate. Just observations. Maz

The whole accent, dialect thing turned out to be extremely complicated as I learned when I started studying it.

You are right, the Acadians made up the largest group of French speakers. But in some predominately French speaking areas they had little to no immediate influence. The Evangeline (where I am from) and Avoyelles parishes had very few or no (in some communities) Acadian settlers, but what is strange to me is the accent across Acadiana is pretty much the same regardless of influence or dialect differences. It may not have always been that way, and now the whole conglomeration, including all the other influences have all melded together like a good gumbo.

This seemed to happen with the music and culture also also. Everyone makes gumbo, jambalaya, and etouffee, maybe a little different, but pretty much all of Acadiana does. This strikes me as peculiar considering the isolation of communities prior to the turn of the century, and after, and the diffence in family origins.

There is this interesting site about the French origins of the families in the Avoyelles.

Christian

Maz, a few aboiteaux can still be seen and still work in Poitou. I was shown one when I visited the Marais Poitevin. They still use them there (they also call them "portes à flot"). Very simple and shrewd technique dating back to the Middle Ages !

Christian

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Replying to:

Someone asked the question as to where there was the most similarities in accents in France with Cajun.... That's an interesting one. If you start with the focal point that the majority of Cajuns trace their ancestries to the Acadians who were deported from Nova Scotia in 1755-1758, you can't ask that question without tracing where the Acadians were from at the first place. The very first pioneer "families" who came to the new world came from the area of Poitou-Charentes in France around 1632. They possessed the skills on how to build **** systems (Aboiteaux)which were later used along the shor of the Baie of Fundy in Nova Scotia. The village were they were from is called "La Chaussé". Later on, other families and lineages joined them from other regions of France. Today, both Cajuns (Acadiens du Sud) and Acadians in Canada (Acadiens du Nord) have lots of similarities in their accents, but also in certain words that they use. Some have told me that there's lots of common ground with the rural areas of Poitou, but also in Bretagne which is more in the northern part of France. I haven't been there myself, therefore can't validate. Just observations. Maz

I have had this discussion with by freind who teaches French vs the French spoken on Canada.

I remind her that it is like debating how many Angles can dance on the head of a pin.

RPr

Those people are displaying a silly attitude, but sadly a common one, and not just limited to proponents of Parisien French as the one true French.

Even in Louisiana there is a lot of silliness on the part of CODOFIL, who ought to know better. I applaud them for trying to keep French viable in Louisiana, but they went off the tracks when they attempted to steer Louisiana French in the direction of Standard French.

I like Father Daigle's take on the put downs of the various forms of Louisiana French as being "bad" French. He insisted that the all the different forms of Louisiana French are legitimate and valid. I don't remember how he said it exactly, but one of his points was that if Louisiana French is "bad" French, then you might as well say that Standard French is nothing more than "bad" Latin. To me, that says it all. If you see those people again, tell them to put that in their pipe and smoke it!

-David

Daigle considered "Cajun" a language all its own. On one hand I agree, but on the other hand people from France and Canada can converse with fluent Cajun speakers with a little effort.

Another thing to consider is all the differences just in Acadiana from area to area, even family to family in the same area as I see with my mom and dad every now and then. I think its all pretty fascinating.

I am not a fluent speaker of Cajun French by any means, but on another board where I transcribed and translated Columbus Fruge's version of Saute Crapaud, a man from France told me I knew some French words even he didn't know! Of course, but he knows a lot more that I don't!

JP, MAZ, Bryan, Neal, etc,

Some excellent observations on the language and attitudes. For the most part, you get more guff from those who know the least. When I have traveled in France, or Canada I never had problems with my Cajun dialect except for the times I spoke French to someone who was anti-French, like in Belgium.

We have seen the language change from one generation to the next. My Grandmother spoke a beautiful, proper, well developed form of French, although she could not read or write. As this older generation passed and the American influence became stronger, the language is going by the way-side. It's all we can do to learn it and speak it to our kids.

JP - one last thing about the wine! When I was at USL in Lafayette (many years ago) I became friends with a professor of French who was from France. We would meet for drinks most afternoons and one day he asked if I would like some red wine. The next thing I knew he was pulling a bottle out of the refrigerator! When I told him I thought one was supposed to serve it at room temperature, he said, "Yes, but room temperature in France is about 65 degrees, not 95 like in Louisiana"!

Chill it down and drink it up!!!

On t'espère toujours au Blue Bayou !

Christian

hi christian....it's roger from new york.....lost your email and want to send you a note.......send me a note at faisdodo2@hvc.rr.com

bon soir!
roger

Hi Roger,
When I try I get a message saying that there is something wrong in your address.

Christian

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Replying to:

hi christian....it's roger from new york.....lost your email and want to send you a note.......send me a note at faisdodo2@hvc.rr.com

bon soir!
roger

"Standard" French was once a dialect of French... and it still is just a dialect of French. I remember reading that only 7% of French-speaking people in the world speak Parisian French, simply because Paris is just one city within the entire French-speaking world.

To learn a little more about how a dialect becomes the national standard, check out Website Link #3.

When I was in Belgium, we visited one of my friends' aunts, an old lady who was probably 80-somehting years old, and she spoke with a rolled "r." Also, a lady from France told me that in the northern French countryside it's common to hear "Mon, j'connais" and "Mon, j'connais pas" rather than the "standard" "Moi, je sais" and "Moi, je ne sais pas." Also, in Vendée (the west of France) they use "être après + infinitive" to form the present progressive verb tense (the English present -ing tense).

So, yeah, Parisian French ain't all that. In my opinion, it seems unnatural. Cajun French is easier and it just rolls off my tongue like rain falling out of the sky to nourish a garden. Without Cajun French in Louisiana, the Cajun garden will surely dry up and never grow back. We must speak it for our garden to grow. We must BE the change that we want to see in the world.

---Roy---

First time I came in Quebec, I heard my canadian buisness partner say: "C'est vrai bien de même, je suis bien aise"(I cannot write the accent)
it seemed to me I was some years before listening to gallo which is the french like dialect spoken in the eastern part of brittany. This language I learned from my O'ma and spoke with other boys back in the fifties.
As a "monsieur docteur" I would not dare and speak this gallo with well to do people in France.
France is full of Franglais, IE english words: email, shopping, best sellers; our french speaking cousins in Qc say: courriel, magasinage, meilleurs vendeurs.
Ils sauveront le français! amis acadiens aidez nous aussi!
Have you read the book of claude Duneton, "La mort du français", it is about all we are just writing about
The french speaking Homo sapiens is an endangered specy and should be protected as such!
Hervé
(breton living in Rheims)

"a small southwest French village where the old folks sounded remarkably Cajun and hardly ever had any contacts with Paris"....

Ton Merlot te monte à la caboche, mon pauv' vieux !

Babarotte de mes deux!
chu pas ton "pauv' vieux" eh! du con.

Thank you, Jean-Pierre, for your most dignified words :

You wrote back:

++++Babarotte de mes deux!++++

+++++ chu pas ton "pauv' vieux" eh! du con.++++

which I'll roughly translate for my dear friends on this forum. Your words are:

"Fancy, my balls !
I'm not your 'poor ole chum', hey you c.u.n.t !"

Thanks again.

My reply to your most elegant words is simply this:

Asinus asinum fricat !

But I suppose you don't understand latin, do you ?

Gerard Dole