Cajun French Quotes

There was French kissing, and then there was Cajun French kissing. Spicier, harder, wilder.

Mirepoix. She thought the word to herself, rolling it around in her mind. Mirepoix, mirepoix, mirepoix. Cajun "Holy Trinity"- onions, celery, and carrots, diced fine, heated to savory sweet, and left to bring magic to whatever dish they were added into. No doubt about it, this was going to be great. Almost holy. With a little bread and red wine- body and blood of Christ- she might make up for years of not going to mass. Either way, they'd go great with the meal.

We had little money but didn’t think of ourselves as poor. Our vision, if I can call it that, was not materialistic. If we had a concept about ourselves, it was egalitarian, although we would not have known what that word meant. We spoke French entirely. There was a bond between Cajuns and people of color. Cajuns didn’t travel, because they believed they lived in the best place on earth. But somehow the worst in us, or outside of us, asserted itself and prevailed and replaced everything that was good in our lives. We traded away our language, our customs, our stands of cypress, our sugarcane acreage, our identity, and our pride. Outsiders ridiculed us and thought us stupid; teachers forbade our children to speak French on the school grounds. Our barrier islands were dredged to extinction. Our coastline was cut with eight thousand miles of industrial channels, destroying the root systems of the sawgrass and the swamps. The bottom of the state continues to wash away in the flume of the Mississippi at a rate of sixteen square miles a year. Much of this we did to ourselves in the same way that a drunk like me will destroy a gift, one that is irreplaceable and extended by a divine hand. Our roadsides are littered with trash, our rain ditches layered with it, our waterways dumping grounds for automobile tires and couches and building material. While we trivialize the implications of our drive-through daiquiri windows and the seediness of our politicians and recite our self-congratulatory mantra, laissez les bons temps rouler, the southern rim of the state hovers on the edge of oblivion, a diminishing, heartbreaking strip of green lace that eventually will be available only in photographs.

He and his mama run swamp tours back in the bayou.” Roo flicked ashes into the trampled weeds. “Tourists really like that kind of thing, don’t ask me why. He works construction jobs, too. Mows lawns, cuts trees, takes fishermen out in his boat. Stuff like that.” “Quite a résumé.” “And not bad to look at either.” Roo arched an eyebrow. “Or haven’t you noticed?” “I don’t even know him.” “You don’t have to know him to notice.” Miranda hedged. “Well…sure. I guess he’s kind of cute.” “Cute? Kind of? I’d say that’s the understatement of the century.” “Does he have a girlfriend or something?” As Roo flicked her an inquisitive glance, she added quickly, “He keeps calling me Cher.” Clearly amused, Roo shook her head. “It’s not a name, it’s a…” She thought a minute. “It’s like a nickname…like what you call somebody when you like them. Like ‘hey, love’ or ‘hey, honey’ or ‘hey, darlin’. It’s sort of a Cajun thing.” Miranda felt like a total fool. No wonder Etienne had gotten that look on his face when she’d corrected him about her name. “His dad’s side is Cajun,” Roo explained. “That’s where Etienne gets that great accent.” Miranda’s curiosity was now bordering on fascination. She knew very little about Cajuns--only the few facts Aunt Teeta had given her. Something about the original Acadians being expelled from Novia Scotia in the eighteenth century, and how they’d finally ended up settling all over south Louisiana. And how they’d come to be so well known for their hardy French pioneer stock, tight family bonds, strong faith, and the best food this side of heaven. “Before?” Roo went on. “When he walked by? He was talking to you in French. Well…Cajun French, actually.” “He was?” Miranda wanted to let it go, but the temptation was just too great. “What’d he say?” “He said, ‘Let’s get to know each other.’” A hot flush crept up Miranda’s cheeks. It was the last thing she’d expected to hear, and she was totally flustered. Maybe Roo was making it up, just poking fun at her--after all, she didn’t quite know what to make of Roo. “Oh,” was the only response Miranda could think of.

Before?” Roo went on. “When he walked by? He was talking to you in French. Well…Cajun French, actually.” “He was?” Miranda wanted to let it go, but the temptation was just too great. “What’d he say?” “He said, ‘Let’s get to know each other.

While Dixieland men may have struggled with a language inferiority complex, the opposite is true of Southern women. We’ve always known our accent is an asset, a special trait that makes us stand out from our Northern peers in all the best ways. For one thing, men can’t resist it. Our slow, musical speech drips with charm, and with the implied delights of a long, slow afternoon sipping home-brewed tea on the back porch. In educated circles, Southern speech is considered aristocratic, and for good reason: it is far closer linguistically to the Queen’s English than any other American accent. Scottish, Irish, and rural English formed the basis of our language years ago, and the accent has held strong ever since. In the poor hill country there haven’t been many other linguistic influences, and in Charleston you’d be hard pressed to tell a British tourist from a native. In the Delta of Mississippi and Louisiana, the mixture of French, West Indian, and Southern formed two dialects--Cajun and Creole--that in some places are far more like French than English.

He shivered under the big hands that manipulated him. They were doing more than just looking for a quick fuck—the touches were lingering, like burning hot ribbons along his skin. His cock ached as Tom touched him, fingers digging into his skin, like Tom wanted Prophet to remember him, remember this. And fuck, he would. Knew that already, because his body wanted more. He didn’t know why he needed this so badly. Tommy thrust against him, the piercings rolling inside him in just the right places, his hand on Prophet’s cock. Prophet’s climax was like a gathering storm, swirling furiously, thunderously fast and uncontrolled, part wrath, part beauty, mixed with a little pain, and oh fuck, yes. Tom kept up a steady stream of dirty talk. Maybe it was the drugs, but Prophet didn’t think so. It was a mix of English and Cajun French and Prophet’s orgasm was long and drawn out, left him wrecked, weakened, unable to stop shuddering. Tom

Saying goodbye, Joanna hugged Esmeralda and whispered, “Be prepared. Beau Landry is beautiful.” She pulled back and chuckled. “I thought you would like to know. No one warned me.” Esmeralda covered a giggle and said, “Okay.” “I am quite serious. He is unbelievably handsome.” Joanna’s brown eyes flashed as she pretended to fan herself. Esmeralda laughed, “I’ve only ever had eyes for one man.” “He is not a man. He is a French Cajun god.” —Lady Joanna ben Luke and Esmeralda ben Claude

I’m guessing we don’t got no gumbo with turtle eggs?” he said. Olivia smiled in that coquettish way she had. “What?” Disco said. “Wit turtle ag,” she said. “Don’t got none of them,” I said, doing my impersonation of his accent. “De alma-dillions, dey dug dem all up.” Olivia said, “That was pretty good.” Disco said, “Didn’t sound nothing like me.” “So what’s your accent?” she asked him. “French?” “Cajun,” he replied. “Sounds French to me.” “Sounds Cajun to me.

Cher,” he murmurs, pronouncing the word like sha. I looked it up on my phone after the encounter with his mother. Apparently, it means like sweetheart in Cajun French or something.

By now I was in the zone. I grabbed an acoustic guitar, tuned it to an open D, and sang for the guys my first draft of “Acadian Driftwood.” The song was inspired by a documentary I had seen in Montreal a while back called L’Acadie, l’Acadie, where for the first time I understood that the name “Cajun” was a southern country slurring of the word “Acadian.” The documentary told a very powerful story about the eighteenth-century expulsion by the British of the Acadians: French settlers in eastern Canada. Thousands of homeless Acadians moved to the area around Lafayette, Louisiana. When I finished playing the song through, Levon patted me on the back and said, “Now that’s some songwritin’ right there, son.” I was proud that he felt so strongly about it. “We’ve got to find the sound of Acadian-Canadian-Cajun gumbo on this one,” I told the guys. “We have to pass the vocal around like a story in an opera. There has to be the slightly out-of-tune quality of a French accordion and fiddle, the depth of a washtub bass—all blending around these open tuning chords on my guitar like a primitive symphony.” When we were recording the song, it felt as authentic as anything we’d ever done.

Bambara and other Mande languages, as well as most West African languages, are tonal. Rhythm as well as tonality not only determine the meaning of individual words but also play an important role in grammar. Functional tonality has been identified in a few creole languages. It is possible that the musicality of Louisiana Creole, which seduced generations of Louisianians and probably affected their own speech in Cajun and English as well as in French, is a nonfunctional survival of tonality in African languages....Patterns of rhythm and tonality in Louisiana Creole might be linked to patterns of musical expression, including syncopation and jazz. It is surprising that linguists have paid relatively little attention to the study of rhythm and intonation in creole languages.