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Cajun music is evolved from its roots in the music of the French-speaking Catholics of Canada. In earlier years, the fiddle was the predominant instrument, but gradually the accordion has come to share the limelight. Cajun music gained national attention in 2007, when the Grammy Award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album category was created. [50]
Most can also speak English. The Louisiana Cajun descendants tend to speak English, including Cajun English or Louisiana French, a relative of Acadian French from Canada. Estimates of contemporary Acadian populations vary widely. The Canadian census of 2006 reported only 96,145 Acadians in Canada, based on self-declared ethnic identity. [14]
Modern flag of Acadia, adopted 1884. The Acadians (French: Acadiens) are the descendants of 17th and 18th century French settlers in parts of Acadia (French: Acadie) in the northeastern region of North America comprising what is now the Canadian Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, the Gaspé peninsula in eastern Québec, and the Kennebec River in southern ...
A new respect for Cajun culture developed in the 1990s. Among the most well-known Cajun bands outside of Louisiana is the multi-Grammy-winning BeauSoleil, who have joined several country music artists in the studio, and served as an inspiration to the Mary Chapin Carpenter hit, "Down at the Twist and Shout". [13]
The Acadians are descendants of 17th and 18th-century French settlers from southwestern France, primarily in the region historically known as Occitania. [1] They established communities in Acadia, a northeastern area of North America, encompassing present-day Canadian Maritime Provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island), parts of Québec, and southern Maine.
Acadiana (/ ɑː r ˈ k eɪ d i ə n ə /; French and Louisiana French: L'Acadiane or Acadiane), also known as Cajun Country (Louisiana French: Pays des Cadiens), is the official name given to the French Louisiana region that has historically contained much of the state's Francophone population.
Cajun English is traditionally non-rhotic and today variably non-rhotic. A comparison of rhoticity rules between Cajun English, New Orleans English, and Southern American English showed that all three dialects follow different rhoticity rules, and the origin of non-rhoticity in Cajun English, whether it originated from French, English, or an independent process, is uncertain.
The origins of "coonass" are obscure, and Cajuns have put forth several folk etymologies in an effort to explain the word's origin. Some of these hold that the word refers to the Cajuns' occasional habit of eating raccoons, or from the use of coonskin caps by the Cajuns' ancestors while fighting in the Battle of New Orleans or in the Revolutionary War under Spanish colonial Governor Bernardo ...