Where did Cajun come from?
Download this program (Right click and Save As…) Did you know that French was once the language of everyday life in Louisiana? Remember that it was French territory until we bought it from Napoleon in 1803, and Louisiana is still the place in the U.S. where French is spoken the most. According to the 2000 census, over a million people claim French ancestry there, with around 200,000 saying they speak some type of French at home. So how did all those French speakers get there? In some cases their ancestors came from France as early colonists or fled from Europe during the French revolution. In other cases they came from Africa, often by way of the Caribbean, and the French they spoke was a creole, similar to the French creole of Haiti. But the most widely-spoken variety, and the one we hear the most about — probably because of the food and music that made it famous — is Cajun. Oddly enough, it came from Canada. Here’s the story: Around 1600, emigrants from France settled along the c
