Call to All Cajuns: Please build up Wikipedia’s Cajun English Article
I know..I know I always start blog entries out by saying I’ll update more but I’m going to school full time now and working full time as well. Once I graduate in December 07, I’m going to rebuild all of RealCajunRecipes.com and make it a lot easier for Maw-Maw to update everything. Till then, here’s a sporadic post:
The Cajun English article at Wikipedia is looking right! What’s there now is so accurate, it had to have been written by a Cajun. I’m going to talk to my mom to see what she can add.. I wanted to add a few but didn’t know the pronunciation or spelling. If you do and can help, here are a few that I’ve got in mind:
goudmon: greedy
Poo Yaille/Oh Yaille/Mais Yaille: “Oh lord”
Tee: Friend, Jr.
get down: Don’t know how to word the literal translation but I know the phrase is derived from French.
Picon: picker
Masscro ne pas. “I don’t know” I’m sure I butchered that one.
Save the dishes/laundry: From French
Poil: pubic hair (pronounced pwell)
The only example on the page I’m thinking isn’t accurate is “My eye”. I think that might be “Mais Yaille” though maybe they just don’t use it around Kaplan. I remember the last time someone exclaimed that to me. It was great.. I was talking to an old Cajun, Mr. Frederick about his experience in the Korean War. I asked if anyone he knew got VD out there and he said “VD? What’s dat, sha” and I said “Mr. Frederick, VD means venereal disease” and he said “Aw Yaille! I don’t know, it’s been too long.”
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Just thought I would leave a little help.
“I don’t know” - Moi (pronounced “mo”) J’connais pas.
“my eye” - mes yeaux
Well, it’s good to see you back. I cleaned out he blogroll a week ago, but I left you in here because 1) you do good stuff and 2) I figured you’d be back anyway.
“Tee” is from “petite”, as in “‘tee garcon”: little boy.
MC
Hey, bonjour, what’s up? I’m not an expert and I know I got some of these wrong but I think it’s close.
mais, mon je connais pas (but me I don’t know) the je sounds like “shi” (monshiconApaw) I had problems with that but Rocky McKeon sent me an email – I think I wrote it right what he had sent– I lost his email)
www.tabloidcadien.com
ya’ll get down, get down! (saying to company when they drive up telling them to get down from their car or truck. I think I read somewhere because back in the day people rode horses)
Bruh I’m gonna cook a sauce, drink some beer, and watch that game yeah.
Mais that’s cuckoo that.
Cher pitie, she must not be eating she’s so tiny. Mais yeah, I believe so too, she used to be big big. (dear pity)
Cher ‘tite neg, go tell your mom and them Maw Maw wants to come visit.
Oh mais, ca c’est bete that T.V. show.
Mais go clean your room and stop making boudin. (stop pouting – derived from bouder= French for pouting)
Hi Chrissie, I thumbed through the present list on Wikipedia and off the top of my head counldn’t think of any additions, but will think about more.
Anyway, glad to see you’ll still in operation and hopes all’s well out in California.
Jacques
Well, I think the way the article is structured at the moment is inefficient and it could really benefit from a little work. It’s important to note that any Cajun French word can be used in Cajun English and the amount of Cajun French words that a person uses in his speech depends on his English proficiency. However, there are specific speech patterns attributed to younger, non-francophone Cajuns that should be added into a different section of the article. There should also be a Cajun English grammar section that could explain how French words become Cajun English words such as “rôder-ing” and “cassé’d” rather than having these explanations in parentheses. I once had an article on Wikipedia that explained Cajun French in Terrebonne Parish, but Charles Martel (the guy who started this Cajun English article) edited out most of the article because he didn’t like it, so instead of arguing with him, I had it removed. It’s still available in the standard French version on the French Wikipedia under the title Français Cadien de la Paroisse de Terrebonne. I’ll stop here. I’m starting to ramble.
Neat site. Like you, I moved away from what I still consider home and am finding any source to hold on to ties to the culture I appreciate much more now than when I lived there. That’s my dad’s site listed above, come get down for a tite veillée on his forum.
Lache pas,
Bryan
Thank you all for your responses!
Bryan, yeah.. I had no idea how different it was when I first moved here. I even went to Circle K to ask for boudin and thought they were pullin my leg when they said “i dont even know what that means”. It all worked out though.. I moved out here & learned how to program and my mom finally got that cookbook she always wanted to make her kids
I’m gonna go to the forums! I have a conference this week that’s keeping me super busy and next week a midterm but I’ll be there after.
Thanks for visiting!
Moi, je connais pas (mosh koe nay pah) - Me, I don’t know.
Hey Chrissy,
How’s this one - catch the door.
Having been gone from Kaplan for 17 years now, people here in Lake Charles still ask me where I come from because I have an accent. I proudly tell them KAPLAN.
okay, the cajun english article at least has a foundation and examples. but some jerk went onto the cajun french article and edited out all the things that explained the differences between it and parisian french.
can someone expand on that?
mais yaille is something like oh boy that is crazy. and Oh yaille means oh it hurts. my eye is mon oeil Cajun is an interesting dialect but, you can’t use a Standard French Dictionary for every word because in Cajun some words are not the same as standard French, Like raccoon in France is Raton Laveur and in cajun we say Un chaoui which is the choctaw word for Raccoon, cocodril meaning which comes from the standard french word for croc means alligator. J’apres manger means I’m in the process of eating but, in France one would say Je suis en train de manger. Just some differences but, they are not too many