Sunday, December 2, 2012

Cajun French--is it "proper"?

Also, supposedly Cajun French is more like the old French from the Poitou region of France (where our ancestors were from before they moved to Acadie), whereas standard French is more modernized and has undergone many changes. Acadian French is not a "bad" French or ungrammatical. It is an older version of French that was indigenous to Poitou. Obviously, Native American words were incorporated, and for Cajun French, Spanish, African, and words from other countries were also incorporated. Language is ever-evolving. What constitutes a "proper" language?

From the same website as below:
"'Real' French speakers will claim that words like asteur used by Cajuns for maintenant or "now" were made up and aren't 'French.' But my friend, Amanda LaFleur, who is professor of Cajun French at LSU, found the word (it's a contraction of a cette heure or "at this hour") in a French book from the 17th century."

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