Cajun French Language Tutorials
Jim Leger teaches the Cajun language
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- L’Équipage (Équip(e)ment) Du Cavalier
- Enfin, Ain? Et D’Autres Tites Picoch(e)ries*
- Quizlet Set To Previous Post “N’Importe De Quoi”
- N’Importe De Quoi…Et Cetera
- A Few Audios From The Past
- Soyez Sur Le Qui Vive Pour Les Accents Français Dans Mes Posts
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“La ramasserie”- “Elle n’est pu!”
Quoi-faire aujourd’hui qu’on voit pu cette action vers nos voisins, enfin, vers nos prochains aussi?
Le verbe “ramasser” apporte le sens de rentrer la récolte du cotton.
Quoi c’est que j’veux dire quand j’use le mot “ramasserie?” Ce mot “ramasserie” a une définition, pour le monde Cajun des années passés, d’aider leur voisins à rentrer leur récolte, en ce cas là , leur cotton.  Tel action sur le part des voisins dans la campagne été pris parcequ’ils voyaient que leur voisins avaient besoin d’l'aide dû, parcequ’ils etaient partie d’une communauté. Cette action aurait donné preuve à l’inquièt qu’ils avaient une pour l’autre dans ces jours-là . Si un membre de la famille été malade ou une calamité frapperait le besoin d’l'aide été aperçu sans de la demander.Â
Aujourd’hui quand même qu’une personne demande d’l'aide ça donne pas une garantie qu’elle sera reçu. Le sentiment sur la part de beaucoup est, “cette action est pas dans ma charge et ah bien j’dois que rien faire!” Quittez les autorités décharger ça qu’est mis sur eux, c’est un autre sentiment entretenu aujourd’hui!
On rest sur la même terre aujourd’hui que dans les années passé. Le monde a toujour besoin d’la main, il y’a des fois à cause de la calamité. Seulement, c’est les sentiments des voisins qu’ont tombé en ruine. Nos prochains sont toujour plusse que nos voisins. Il faut avoir l’oeil sur leur besoin et prendre d’l'action si c’est possible de faire tel chose.Â
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December 2006
- Author: Jim Leger | Category: Learn Cajun French | Comments(0)
le farre-dirty rice-fait pendant le temps de boucherie
As I promised under post #28 I would discuss with you the making of “le farre.”
“Le farre,” is made with rice and pork liver (le foie de cochon). You cooked down the liver until it is possible to pass it through a meat grinder. (un moulin de la viande). Most Cajun women would cook the liver until it was sort of “grainy” that made it not so moist when you blended it with rice.Â
Cook the short grain rice, add Cajun seasoning, like the one you would use to stuff a roast or with which to make “le boudin.”
Mix the liver and all the seasoning in with the cooked rice, simmer on very low flame until all the ingredients have blended together for taste.
“Le farre,” is not the same as “le jumbalaya.” For the latter, rice is used, but different meats are used and there are different ways to cook all the ingredients together. My wife had a recipe for “jumbalaya” that came from Gonzalez, La. It made a delicious dish. She got her recipe from the public library in Port Arthur, TX. So no doubt you could locate one in any good sized library.
“La boucherie,” of course is the butchering that is done, especially during the cooler part of the year. Hogs were slaughered then and “la viande,” “the meat” was distributed among the neighbors. Of course some of it in the years gone by was salted down, canned, made into sausages etc. Today cold storage is used. When I went to High School in Sunset there was “une halle et un abattoir,” a meat market and a slaughter house. This was done in association with the FFA. People could bring their animals and get them slaughtered as well as other things related to farming.
I remember the “smokehouse,” “la boucanière,” it would put out a wonderful smell. Sausages and slabs of meat were smoked for the farmers. “Les saucisses et le beguine produsaient une odeur qui faisait la bouche baver.” “The odor produced by the smoking of the sausages and bacon would make the mouth to slobber.”
Most Cajun farmers were expert “des abbateurs,” “animal slaughtermen.” My dad could take pigs, beef and other animals and slaughter and cut them up like a pro.Â
“C’est tous sur le suject du farre et la boucherie et toutes autres choses associé avec ça.” That will be all on the subject of dirty rice and butchering and all other things associated with that.
December 2006
- Author: Jim Leger | Category: Learn Cajun French | Comments(0)
Goose problem (la problème avec l’oie)
As I said before since most Cajuns could not read the French language problems arose when connecting articles with their nouns if they began with a vowel.
E.g. The single for “the goose,” is “l’oie.” The noun is feminine therefore so is its article, “la.” When you want to speak of more than one goose, geese in English, you have to use the plural article, “les.” Now when you pronounce “les” the “s” takes on a “z” sound. To Cajuns who learned their language by ear and not by means of the printed page, they heard one word, “zoie.” So, where I grew up we referred to the goose as “le zoie” or “la zoie.” To us simply to say “l’oie,” would not be euphonically correct. Not pleasing to the ear (Il est pas agréable à l’oreille du Cajun pour entendre ou écouter dire “l’oie.” Le (la) zoie is more euphonically agreable to us.
Another case is that of “the bird.” The French is “l’oiseau.” The article “le” for “the” is employed since the noun is masculine. Remember we drop the “e” and write “l’oiseau.” Now the plural article for “the birds” is “les oiseaux.” The “s” in “les” has the “z” sound. So does the third letter “s” in “oiseaux.” I put an “x” at the end to emphasize the long “o” English sound. N’importe comment, anyhow, as children we would sound it out as “zozo.” “Les zozo vont faire leur perche sur le jouchoir (jouquoir”) de la volaille si elles (y) s’envoleraient.” (The birds will make their perch on the chicken roost if the chicken were to fly away.)Â
There are no doubt more, “d’autre,” words (mots) “qui nous présenté d’une problème,” when we were children and then grew to adults. However, the incorrect ways we learned to pronounce these make the Cajun language unique. Just as in English orthography, spelling, changes as years go by.
See “Dictionary of the Cajun Language” page 165 paragraph after the last entry for “z” French to English Section.
So if you hear “zoie” instead of”‘oie” and “zozo” instead of “les oiseaux” enjoy the flavor of the Cajun French.
Here is a word that our parents used when speaking about “egg” or “eggs.” I don’t see it in the Cajun dictionary, but again it could be a local word. That word is “coco” and “le coco” for the egg. “Les cocos” would be used for “the eggs.” Parents used it similarly to “de la nanan”* when speaking to children about their food.Â
The word for the egg is “l’oeuf” and for the eggs is “les oeufs.” However, for some reason we never did say “zoeuf” for the single egg (l’oeuf).
Here’s another word that Cajuns have added a prefix to due to not being able to read the French. The French word for” the hiccups” is “les hoquets.” Now we pronounced it  as one word “loquet.” In fact we went so far as to say “leloquet.” Remember that we elide letters. The hiccups became to us “des loquets,” rather than “des hoquets.”  Remember the “h” is silent in French. So it should sound sort of like “o.k.”Â
Now the verb “hoqueter” would really sound like a cacaphony to Cajuns. Je hoquette; tu hoquettes; il,elle et on hoquettte; nous hoquetons; vous hoquetez; ils, ells hoquettent.Â
So if you hear Cajuns saying “j’ai d’loquet” they are really saying “I have the hiccups.”Â
December 2006
- Author: Jim Leger | Category: Learn Cajun French | Comments(0)
Comments sent-from Le Tabloid Cadien
Thank you for your suggestion. I tried to email you such but some how I cannot reach you. I have used your suggestion in past articles, however, I am progressively introducing the Cajun French to awaken that language in the Cajun Speaking people. I do not use Creole words or expressions. My Cajun learned was from the Grand Prarie lands of La. E.g. “mon” was used for “moi’ in your email to me, Mr. McKeon.
Merci Monsieur McKeon Je te salue!Â
December 2006
- Author: Jim Leger | Category: Learn Cajun French | Comments(0)
Look me up-Cajun words
le vilebrequin (sometimes by children “vieuxbrequin”) (hand drill)
à la désamain (not handy)
ternir (to tarnish)
à la portée (more than one meaning) (at a hearing distance; the litter of kittens etc.(la portée)
la taur (the heifer)
détamer (to remove coating; to tarnish)
la dentelle (the ribbon)
les étincelles (the sparkles)
 une alliance (more than one meaning) (an agreement; acovenant; a wedding band)
la pousinière (the milky way)
le tatou (Cajuns not too familiar with this noun) ( the armadillo)
la taupe (mole) (la taupinère; the mole hill)
ici (what other way do Cajuns pronounce this adverb?) (ici and icit)
chamonder (ch pronounced like ch in chair) (to beg hobo style)
la chabraque ( the lean-to; poorly constructed building; huge poorly constructed) (also; la barraque)
 la chasse-mouche (the fly swatter)
la pallette à mouche (the fly swatter)
tâtonner (to beat around with a stick)
chagriner (to grieve or sadden)
maigrir (to thin out or lose weight)
 les meubles (the furniture; the household goods;the movable furniture)
 la chaintre (the turn row or head)
 le butin (the household belongs and furniture)
malhonnêtte (dishonest)
le carcan (the triangle yoke to prevent animals from reaching over a fence to graze)
 un cap-cap (the click beetle; insignificant person)
la gachette (the trigger on a weapon)
le chien (more than one meaning) (the male dog; female = la chienne: the gun hammer)
carguer (to lean backward on two legs of a chair)
le casse-noix (the nut cracker)
la causerie (the speech; conversation; chat)
 une échafaud (a scaffold)
charer (to chat)
chacoter (to chip; whittle; chop)
le capon (the coward)
le capeau (the cape; coat) (note; Cajuns prefer capeau, they have retained the old cape-like coat word.)Â un manteau (a coat)
du fois-blanc ( some pork lungs; these were fried and eaten as a delicacy)
faire fritche (accomplish nothing; e.g. like a car going dead etc.)
chamailler (to squabble; bicker; wrangle)
entretenir (to keep up;like a house)
la chasse-femme ( the midwife)
l’accoucheuse (the midwife) (we always called ours La Vieille Pant) (I was born at home-the midwife did not send in a birth certificate; I had to get a delayed one when I went to work at an oil refinery in order to get my exact date of birth for retirement purposses.)
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December 2006
- Author: Jim Leger | Category: Learn Cajun French | Comments(0)
Nutmeg-And Other Cajun Favorite Spices ET Courtepaille Et Courtepointe
What would we do without that little “noix” known as the “nutmeg?”
Every Cajun home had a “une muscade” nut to use in their baking and other forms of cooking. My grandmother had her’s on top of the kitchen cabinet. It was kept in a “un caine” along with a hand made “la râpe” so she could “raper” “de la muscade” when she needed it in her cooking.
“Muscade” was used in ginger cakes, “gâteau au sirop” “des croquesignole”, when making oatmeal “farine d’avoine” or a quick eggnog drink.
Another spice that my mother had on hand was “clou de girofle.”* She used it in baking hams and such, but another use of it was to freshen your breath before you went somewhere. My mother kept some in her handkerchief and put it away in her purse and she would pass it out to us from time to time. The clove oil was also used to deaded the gums when we had a toothache.
Note the word “le clou” stands for a “nail.” If you look at the whole clove you will see that it resembles a small nail. So when we speak of “le clou d’girofle” we mean the whole clove. “Le girofle moudu” would be the clove in powdered form. The past tense of “moudre” (moudu) means that it has been milled.
Mother also kept something else in her purse and in her “ses armoires.” We called it “la rose ananas” or pineapple rose. It was a little yellow pod with lapped over growth that reminded you of a pineapple. It didn’t smell like a pineapple, it smelled like a banana! Had it anything to do with some form of Magnolia?
To illustrate what we Cajun kids had to put up with, since we were not taught to read or write French. We would pick up on a word or saying from our elders but it was like playing “post-office.” By the time we got the word it had been changed a bit. Take for instance the French word for “bat.” I didn’t know exactly what I was calling them. All I feared was that if they got into your hair look out!
(Well the word for ”bald” in Cajun is “chauve” and the word for “mouse” is “la souris.” Well I didn’t associate the two words together. I thought it was a “souris chaude.” Anyway it is a “chauve souris.” Literally a bald mouse. )
“D’la cannelle” or cinnamon was another favorite spice when making “sirop” cakes etc. We could put it in a hot cup of coffee and some heavy cream and that was a treat. Capochino-Café frappé?
Now let me tell you what real “le café au lait” is! It really didn’t contain coffee at all, however, during the depression it was used to strengthen the coffee flavor. Chicory or “d’la chicorée” was also used and still is around some parts of Louisiana. Anyway, back to the “café au lait.”
Sugar was sort of carmelized and added to hot milk. This was our “café au lait!” What a treat! Grown ups did add coffee to it at times.
Do you know what a “un pousse-café” is? Well, when my father would have a little too much to drink, “d’la boisson” the night before he would have a “pousse-café” in the morning, at times. “Un Pousse-cafe” was coffee with some liquor added to it. With my father it was generally “whiskey.” Somehow I think of Irish coffee when I think of “pousse-café.” Now since the French word “la pousse” (the “pousse.”) means a growth, and the infinitive “pousser” means to push or grow, I am trying to get the sense of “pousse-café.” We do not want to confuse the word “la pousse” with “un pouce,” which is an inch. However, it would make sense to put an inch of whiskey in a cup of coffee!
Now in Cajun if you drew straws it was called “tirer à la courtepaille.” Literally means to draw the shortest straw then you lose. My dad would tell me that perhaps that is how the people, responsible for assasinating a famous Louisiana Governor, determined who the assasinator would be.
 Now the bed spread that was found on your “lit” or bed is called “la courtepointe.” I remember my mother bought a beautiful gold colored one from a house-to-house salesman. I was about 5 years old then and we had that spread for many years after I moved out of the house.
Another word that always sounded neat for me was the term used for “carpet grass.” The French word is “le gazon.” I believe that the rascalian grass that we hated was called “le chien dent,” or “nut grass.” I may be mistaken about that, but we hated to see that grass take over a field.Â
You know that high fallooting phrase “au gratin?” Well to us that was a very common phrase. “Tu connais quoi c’est qu’est du gratin? Oui c’est le fond de la cas(t)erole de riz qu’a brulé.” Yes it is nothing but the bottom of a rice pot (or “patato au gratin”) that burned some.  ”Du gratin de riz” made a nice cereal for breakfast. You added a little sugar and heated up the mixture and voilà  some cereal.
Now a famous Cajun sandwich for us was one made with “des pomme de terre étoufée.” That literally means “smothered potatoes.” We would take two slices of home made bread and add ”d’la moutard” to it and then smear that “pomme de terre étoufée”, putting it very thick. If we had “des gratons” or “cracklings” we would add the softer part of the “les gratons” to the “pomme de terre étoufée.” Â
By the way, the phrase “pomme de terre” literally means “apple of the earth.” An Irish potato I believe was called “une patate Anglais.” (The red potato was the “la pomme de terre.” We made “des grillade de pomme de terre” with those.) The potato was cut in thin rounds and deep fried. My mother would stuff them with garlic and green onions and spices and deep fry them, and once they were very brown, pour the oil out and steam the potatoes until soft. Délicieux!
“La patate douce” was a sweet potato. We made “des grillades” with those also. Deep fried the slivers and added a little brown sugar once “les grillades été tiré de l’huille brûlante.” On les cuisais en fourneau et les mangeais avec des graton. Quel bon treat pour les enfants quand ils arrivairent de l’école!” Les patates douces des temps passées étaient plus douce que les patates d’aujourd’hui. Enfin, y’s’avait du sirop sous les épluches. Aujourd’hui les patates douces sont même chesses (sec) quand on les cuit en fourneau (oven).
“Un passe-partout” now that is a term that can stifle you. It is a logging saw or tree saw. The ones we had, had two handles. Two men could cut the logs.  The phrase literally means “pass everwhere.” Mais gardez donc ça oui!
Well I’ll bring some more or “tit brin plus tard.” That is a “little bit later.”
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December 2006
- Author: Jim Leger | Category: Learn Cajun French | Comments(0)