Talk:Cajun English

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Nsowers, Pkweilbaecher. Peer reviewers: Savidinaz.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 16:32, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Some Possible Sources

Here are some possible new sources that I am thinking of using to help expand this article a bit, any thoughts? http://repositori.uji.es/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10234/76966/-serveis-scp-publ-jfi-xvii-filologia-1.pdf

https://www-cambridge-org.ezproxy4.library.arizona.edu/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/S0954394599113036

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED420881.pdf Nsowers (talk)

Untitled

Since there is CAJUN English, I'm curious as to whether or not there is ACADIAN English. Remember, Cajun French and Acadian French aren't the same dialect. Logically, the same would apply to English. Gringo300 02:55, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

What's your POINT?CharlesMartel 17:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)CharlesMartel

I made my point exactly. Now do you have anything positive to contribute? Gringo300 19:40, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

As a Louisiana native, I can tell you that there's no such thing as Acadian English that I'm aware of. I really don't think that Cajun English is an official term for the slang/dialect that some people speak in south Louisiana, but it is starting to become one. Basically Cajun English could be described as being similar to Frananglais, except that Cajun French itself is somewhat different from proper French, in that Cajun French is a older French. It's kind of like speaking Shakesperean English. Cajun English mainly Southern American English with all of its slang terms and accents mixed with this older French and its slang and French accent. Sf46 (talk) 04:29, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

If I understand correctly, Cajun English would be considered a dialect of American English, and from what I can tell, Cajuns tend to be Americans, so someone thought it would be redundant to use the term "Cajun AMERICAN English". But from what I can tell, Americans of Acadian descent would be referred to as "Acadian Americans", because Acadians as an ethnic group originated outside of America. So perhaps the term "Acadian American English" would make more sense than the term "Cajun American English". I feel like I left something out... Gringo300 (talk) 19:05, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

If Cajuns tend to be Americans for the most part, as you say, then the term "Cajun American English" would be redundant. It's kind of like saying "American baseball". "Cajun" is the term we use for descendants of Acadian exiles who live in Louisiana. I hope that clears everything up. Thegryseone (talk) 21:20, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

Google Translate

'Typing in "to do the grocery shopping" or "make groceries" into Google Translate and translating to French will output "faire l'épicerie" for each phrase.' This is not really encyclopaedic but I don't know how to cyhange it. Maybe just by saying a direct translation is ...? Novalia (talk) 14:37, 6 April 2015 (UTC)

New book

Perhaps interesting for some related cultural articles: Good God But You Smart! Language Prejudice and Upwardly Mobile Cajuns by Nichole E. Stanford, 2016, Utah State University Press Jodi.a.schneider (talk) 19:04, 2 October 2016 (UTC)

Blatantly wrong facts in History secton

Someone has vandalized the History section throughout and it needs to be repaired. I looked in the page history to see if it could be easily reversed, but I did not find a quick solution. Perhaps someone more versed in using Wikipedia and who has more time can address this issue. --Eric LeGros

Actual Cajun trying to clean this up a bit

Born and raised in South Louisiana/Acadiana, here are my edits.

Absolutspacegirl (talk) 05:57, 24 November 2020 (UTC)"Cajun French is considered by many to be an endangered language, mostly used by elderly generations.[2] However it is now frequently spoken by even the youngest Cajuns, and is seeing something of a cultural renaissance. In recent years, due to influence from tourism and a resurgence of pride in their cultural identity, a new era of linguistic innovation for Cajun English has begun. Dramatic differences are developing along both gender and generational lines as for how Cajun English is used and what it means to be Cajun."

- Edited because Cajun French is not now frequently spoken by even the youngest Cajuns. French immersion is being taught more in schools, however. I think this person is confusing Cajun English with Cajun (Louisiana) French. It also appears as though they attempted to plagiarize their source (badly), who also seems to have no firsthand knowledge of Cajun culture.

"Cajun English is spoken throughout Louisiana and up through the gulf of Texas."

- There is no gulf of Texas.

"In 1803, however, the United States purchased Louisiana and, in 1812, declared English as the official language of the state."

- This is wrong. The Louisiana Purchase occurred when the United States purchased the territory of Louisiana from France. In 1812, the STATE of Louisiana declared English to be the official language of the state for promulgation and preservation of laws. Added citation.

Deleted some of the ridiculous stereotypes. Absolutspacegirl (talk) 05:57, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

pronunciation chart

I think the 2nd pronunciation chart in the phonology section should be deleted. Not only is it unsourced, it is just plain wrong on most of the Cajun pronunciations. I've never heard anyone in Acadiana pronounce pecan 'pecorn' or say 'fink' for think. The pronunciations that are correct are redundant, with "dat" and "dey" being explained immediately before the chart. It also doesn't make sense to include proper nouns like surnames as examples of alternate pronunciations, because most of these last names are not common in other regions of the US. A person unfamiliar with Cajun names would have no basis for a 'standard' pronunciation of Hebert (and will probably misread it as Herbert, anyway). At the very least, it would make more sense to use a last name like Richard, which has a distinct difference between the Cajun and Anglo pronunciations. Smerdyakov911 (talk) 13:36, 16 November 2021 (UTC)

I expect that "pecorn" was written by a non-rhotic dialect trying to demonstrate the "aw" sound (pee-KAHN) as opposed to the "ae" of "cat" (PEE-kan; I might be wrong on the stress). Also, would "think" be "tink" (and "thing" be "ting")? I've been reading Lackadaisy lately and the Cajun accent there replaces all the TH's with stops, but I've no idea how accurate it is (although the creator does an awful lot of research, so I tend to trust her work on the finer points). You're right about the surnames. Kilyle (talk) 21:32, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

Conflicting Pronunciation Info

One section says that "cher(e)" is pronounced as expected, with the "eh" sound (to rhyme with "there"); another section says that it should be pronounced with the "a" of "apple", which frankly I have trouble even manufacturing before an R (we shift that vowel in the Pacific Northwest dialect; compare "cat" and "car"), and I would like a source if that's actually the way it's meant to be pronounced.

Also, I don't see a consonant chart, and I think at minimum, for those not familiar with French, it should be mentioned that "ch" makes the "sh" sound like "chef" or "paper mache" (the least common version of that combo in English, after CH/TSH and K/KH); seems to me that that would be the more useful info on the pronunciation of "cher". Kilyle (talk) 21:32, 25 October 2023 (UTC)

It's pronounced with an "a" as in "apple" in English: [ʃæː]. In Louisiana French, "er" tends to sound like [ær], and the "r" sound is fairly subtle. The Dictionary of Louisiana French lists the French pronunciation as [ʃær]. In English, we drop the "r" completely, so IME the last name "Bergeron" sounds something like [ˈbæː.ʒɚɹ.ˌɑ̃]

I'd consider this particular thing to be WP:CK, personally, but maybe outside Louisiana it isn't? But my real opinion is that a word-to-word pronunciation guide (especially one without IPA) is probably not ideal without deeper descriptions of the phonology. It seems like this particular thing and probably some other rules aren't in the phonology section yet.

In any case, some of the phrases listed in the vocabulary section are just direct borrowings from French, while others really are loanwords. I think it should be limited to true loanwords, but teasing them apart would probably be difficult without sources. I can personally vouch for "lagniappe," "couillon," "caleçons," "bétaille," "cher," "mais," and "fais do-do" being used in English, the rest I haven't heard outside of code switching. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 05:50, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Authentic accents in the Popular Culture section

This is probably fairly subjective, but Louisiana accents (including Cajun English) are notoriously hard to replicate for actors, and somewhat enigmatic to people outside Louisiana and neighboring areas. Likewise, we get a whole range of media spanning native (Southern Comfort), convincing enough (Deadpool versus Wolverine), fairly wrong (True Blood), completely wrong (Jean-Claude van Damme in Hard Target), to not even trying (Waterboy). The bulk of them are either bad examples or some type of Southern American English instead. How exactly can we separate media that have a more-or-less authentic accent from media that doesn't? Should we note that the actor is a native or non-native speaker? Require sources (and what kind)? 67.254.248.131 (talk) 06:08, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

All good points. Generally credible sources (following WP:RSS) are a good start, followed by our weeding out for truly bad portrayals. Media portrayals are almost never authentic or native speakers. If anything, perhaps the whole section can begin with a kind of caveat that these are actor portrayals rather than authentic examples. Wolfdog (talk) 13:45, 15 August 2024 (UTC)

Probably gonna be hard to get sources for everything, especially since the accents can vary a lot by parish, age, etc. I'm thinking of splitting the whole section in two with a "Native and Credible Non-Native Accents" and another for the rest. Might count as WP:OR though. I can maybe get something started, but I obviously haven't seen everything listed here so some of them are going in an "idk" pile. I think it could be difficult to keep everything from being rated "credible" by non-native speakers though, especially since there's no shortage of online material to fuel confirmation bias. Case-in-point would be Waterboy's Farmer Fran character, it's literally gibberish, but articles like this claim it's Cajun. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 15:02, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, again, credible sources may be the best we can get, even while contention remains. A lot of dialect pages have a "Notable speakers" section that lists lifelong native speakers. I think we could additionally have a separate section for "Media portrayals" or the like and do our best to keep it to credible portrayals, (which seem to be rare anyhow -- I bet some sources will readily admit to something like a "bad Cajun accent" if we really want to highlight this or feel the portrayal has true cultural notability). Wolfdog (talk) 19:01, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm making a list here of what's been removed or kept and why so they don't come back to haunt us. I'm keeping anything that has or is supposed to have Cajun accents. However, I'm marking native accents by putting "native" in the description, and bad accents with scare words like "supposedly." Evidently some media (The Big Easy) has a mix of performances, so in that case I'd break it down by character.

• removed True Detective: None of the major characters have or are supposed to have Cajun accents, despite the setting.
• kept Waterboy: Terrible accents IMO, but they are supposed to be Cajun accents.

67.254.248.131 (talk) 21:28, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Don't know quite what to make of the Left 4 Dead 2 accent. On one hand, the voice actor uses /l/ -> [l ~ ɮ] the way an older speaker would, which is something most actors don't even notice. On the other hand, the non-rhoticity is very odd to my ears and sounds very Southern as opposed to Cajun. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 15:36, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Dubois & Horvath 2004

So I don't have easy access to this source, but some of the claims I'm seeing here don't ring completely true to me. One example is /l/-dropping so "cold" becomes "code." I actually have encountered that, but more commonly IME the /l/ is usually kept and emphasized while the /d/ is dropped, so here you would get "cole" instead. It could be a regional thing, but I'm a little sketched out by this source. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 20:11, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Hi, I've removed your unsourced addition. I'm afraid we will have to trust a source like Dubois & Horvath over our own personal impressions. It comes from a massive worldwide compilation of English-dialect research, The Handbook of Varieties of English, published by de Gruyter, a reputable academic publishing company. Most of the phonological research on this page comes from that source. Can you find a better one? Here's the revelant quote on page 412: it says about Cajuns that They also delete [l] in intervocalic and preconsonantal positions in words such as celery, jewelry and help. Wolfdog (talk) Wolfdog (talk) 21:10, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

Fair enough. As for the passage, you definitely would not delete [l] in celery, and you probably would delete [l] for the other two. I've never heard "serry" in my life lol. But those are probably better examples than "cold," IME anything ending in -ld, most people drop the [d] instead of the [l], and with -lt, you might get [lʔ], [wt], or [wʔ]. That would include cold, told, fold, bald, built, belt, etc. and maybe -ed endings like called, pulled, etc.

In my version of Cajun English I would say /sɛɫəɹi/, /dʒuːlɹi/ or /dʒuːwɹi/, and /hɛʊp/. I would expect an older person to say /sɛɮɹɪ/, /dʒuːɮɹɪ/, and /hɛp/ or /hɛɮp/. My guess is that this source must have used very old, non-native English speakers. I think the modern accent has evolved a lot and standardized somewhat since then, maybe the research hasn't caught up yet, especially with L/R/W sound changes. If a source is out there, it might take more digging than I can commit to atm, but hopefully this info can point someone in the right direction. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 22:29, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the info also feels out of date to me in certain regards. Also, you're actually saying that an alveolar lateral fricative exists in some Cajun accents (in place of a standard /l/)? I'm shocked! Wolfdog (talk) 23:20, 16 August 2024 (UTC)

To my ears, yes. To me it sounds kind of old and outdated, and it was definitely interchangeable with standard [l]. I mostly hear [l] and [ɫ] in my area, and they aren't as interchangeable. Maybe it's something y'all missed when it was a thing. There's some other kinda crazy unattested stuff happening, like pharyngealization of b, p, d, t, and l in certain positions, and [t'] and [k'] as a substitute for aspirated equivalents. You can hear a lot of this on DJ Rhett's TikTok, his account is a linguistic goldmine. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 01:34, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm think these examples should also be reworked, if they aren't in the text:

Therefore, hand becomes [hæ̝̃], food becomes [fu], rent becomes [ɹɪ̃], New York becomes [nuˈjɔə]

These all seem odd to me for different reasons, the last one is especially implausible to me. My impression is that New York would never have the [k] dropped because it's a proper noun. I would expect /nuˈjɒɹk̚/, /nuˈjɒwɹk/ or something along those lines. /ɔə/ sounds very "Gone With the Wind" or maybe New Orleans-ish to me.

Anyway, I think the rules for how to drop consonants are probably more complex than they seem here, you can expect a lot of voiceless consonants becoming voiced, [t] -> [ʔ] substitutions, and other kinds of incomplete reductions.

I'd suggest hand /hæ̝̃n/, cold /kol/, cool /ku/, that's /dæs/ or /ðæs/, length /lɪ̃θ/, rent /ɹɪ̃/ or /ɹɪ̃ʔ/ and count /kãʊ̃ʔ/ as better examples. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 06:11, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Page 409 says We have noted the deletion of final [t] late, rent, [d] hand, food, wide, [θ] both, [r] together, [l] school, and both final [r] and [k] in New York (the absence of the whole cluster). This, at least, might support your /kol/ pronunciation of cold. Wolfdog (talk) 11:36, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Oh wow, yeah that's pretty far off-base. Together sounds okay, but I think that has more to do with non-rhoticity. It's reasonable to drop the [l] in school, but not that common. Otherwise, I'd generally expect unrealeased stops, glottal stops, voicing, nasal vowel + either /n/ or /d/ for /ænd/, /ɛnd/, and sometimes /ɪnd/, and other substitutions, even in the oldest speakers. I'd guess the listener probably didn't pick up on the subtleties and interpreted them as purely an issue of dropping consonants. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 13:41, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

...and the R-colored vowels are a mess too. If this is what was in the text, I have to wonder if they flat-out made everything up. As-is it sounds like pure Hollywood. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 20:15, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

Yeah, if you have the time, see if you can find any other research. I agree with a lot of your criticisms but the best we can do is replace this source with other credible ones. Wolfdog (talk) 22:46, 17 August 2024 (UTC)

The Reaser 2018 stuff I found has some pretty good info on rhoticity, I don't fully understand all the details though. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 02:18, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Just read it. Your interpretations seem solid enough. Wolfdog (talk) 14:04, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

It increasingly seems to me like there's some kind of echo chamber around Dubois' work from 1998-2004, a lot of papers just uncritically repeat the same claims and cite exactly the same papers. This is particularly egregious with Ramos (2012) to me, which seems very close to plagiarism IMO. It's even a bit funny, because the stuff about changing speech patterns was published in the late 1990s, but even the most recent work is still recycling it as if it were happening now. I don't really see why I shouldn't just chuck anything that cites Dubois' basic phonology (directly or indirectly) at this point. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 04:01, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Vowel Discussion

More vowel notes for myself, may not be 100% accurate... these are based on pronunciation around Lafayette and Vermilion parishes. I would guess the Houma area sounds similar. Lake Charles and westward gets Texas-y, and the river parishes are a really complicated mix of things, so YMMV. I would expect the river parishes near New Orleans to have much more complex rhoticity/non-rhoticity.

• /æ/ is [æ ~ a]
• /ɑː/ is [ɑ], and [ɑ ~ ä] before /p, t, k/, etc.
• /ɒ/ is usually [ɒ], occasionally [ɒ ~ ɔ]
• [ɒo] is crazy, that sounds like a thick Alabama accent
• /ɪ/ is [ɪ ~ ɪ̝]
• /ʊ/ can be [ʊ] or [ʊ ~ ɯ]

---

• /aɪ/ is complicated, maybe [äi ~ ɑː ~ ɒːɪ ~ ɒːi]
• /aʊ/ is either [aʊ ~ ɑʊ], or [aʊ] with [ä ~ ɑ] allowed before /p, t, k/, etc.
• /eɪ/ is [ɛ ~ eɪ ~ eː] with /eɪ/ most common
• /ɔɪ/ is [ɔɪ ~ ɒː], with [ɔː] allowed word-finally, e.g. "boy" [bɔː ~ bɒː], "oil" [ɒːl]
• /oʊ/ is [oʊ ~ oː], with [oː] more common

---

And now the fun part...

• /ɑːr/ is [ɑːɹ], or [ɑːɹ ~ ä] before /p, t, k/ etc and otherwise gets merged into /ɒr/
• /ɛər/ is [ɛəɹ ~ ɛə], or [ɛəɹ ~ æɹ ~ æː], which is in line with Louisiana French /ɛr/.
• /ɜːr/ is the same as /ər/ AFAIK, [ʌɹ ~ ʌə] might occur near New Orleans in St. Charles parish or something.
• /ər/ is [ə(ɹ) ~ ɶː]
• /ɪr/ and /ɪər/ are both [iər ~ iəː ~ ɪəː]
• /ɒr/ is [ɑːɹ ~ ɒːɹ ~ ɒwɹ], or rarely [ɑːɹ ~ ɒːɹ ~ ɔːɹ] i.e. either Lord and lard sound the same or [ɹ] gets enhanced
• /ɔːr/ is probably [ɔːɹ ~ ɒwɹ ~ ɒːɹ]
• /ʊər/ is merged into /ɔːr/ I think
• /jʊər/ is either [jəɹ ~ jʊəɹ ~ jʊː] or mutated into /jɔːr/

67.254.248.131 (talk) 22:49, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Dubois & Horvath say Although CajVE shows the PIN/PEN and THOUGHT/LOT mergers, upgliding forms of THOUGHT, BATH and DANCE occur irregularly. In my experience, Cajuns don't really have a THOUGHT/LOT merger (cot-caught merger), or if they do, the vowels in question are certainly realized with roundedness (which, alongside non-rhoticity, can possibly even be a LOT-THOUGHT-START merger), so I simply took a shot at trying to represent the upgliding forms of THOUGHT as [ɒo]. However, my own ears typically hear [ɒ~ɔə] and occasionally (but less frequently) the up-gliding [ɒo]. Unfortunately, I don't have sources that offer any of these verbatim.

However, I did find a 2009 source, "Vowel Phonology of African American and White Men in Rural Southern Louisiana", that at least admits: All of the speakers in this study, like other Southern speakers in this volume and elsewhere, show a clear differentiation between the low central/back vowels bot and bought... however, this finding contrasts with previous reports that white Cajun speakers from this part of Louisiana often appear to have the bot-bought merger (Dubois and Horvath 2004). Despite an unmerged bot-bought pattern, however, most African American speakers in this study have bar and ball nuclei overlapping with bought (see figures 3.2, 3.3, 3.4, and 3.6), a pattern that has also been described for white CVE speakers (Dubois and Horvath 2004). Sadly, no further IPA or discussion is provided. (Interestingly, Dubois is one of its three coauthors.)

[a] allowed before /p/? Haha, how often does /aʊp/ even occur?

To my ears, /ai/ may undergo the pre-voiced versus pre-voiceless split typical of coastal Southern accents that help determines it being more monophthongal versus diphthongal.

/ʌ/ seems fairly raised or fronted to me, like most other Southern accents, yet another feature Dubois and Horvath seem to overlook. Wolfdog (talk) 21:00, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Hah, I kind of threw /aʊp/ in for good measure. The oldest Cajuns were known to mix up /p, t, k/ though so you get stuff like "Walmark".

Interesting stuff. Yeah, THOUGHT/LOT weren't merged in my area among older speakers and they're even further away for Millenials. THOUGHT/START went the other way though and are merged in heavier Millenial accents. I could see [ɒɑ] being valid for THOUGHT but I'd usually use [ɒ].

I think the comparison to AAVE is valid, we share a lot of distinct sounds in the South, BALL/BOUGHT have the same vowel to me, BAR could also reasonable have the same vowel. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 22:52, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

It's not clear to me why the authors distinguish BALL and BOUGHT (both of which fall under Wells's lexical set of THOUGHT). Best I can figure is a distinction is possible in some accents (as in some British accents, but seemingly not the relevant Louisiana ones) with pre-/l/ THOUGHT versus all other types of THOUGHT. Wolfdog (talk) 22:58, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

Hmm, yeah /ʌ/ itself to me could be [ʌ] or moved somewhere around [ɞ ~ ə], which you can hear clearly in DJ Rhett's stuff. It definitely has a rounded quality to it though.

Fixing the A sounds a bit, it seems to me like the front vowels are more spread out in general, with /æ/ -> [a], /ɛər/ -> [æɹ], /ɪ/ -> [ɪ̝] 67.254.248.131 (talk) 23:36, 18 August 2024 (UTC)

I'm thinking about the upgliding stuff more, and while I don't understand it completely, I wonder if upgliding is being replaced with pharyngealization. Like with TAUGHT, I would expect [tʰˤɒt] or [tʰɒɑt], but not [tʰˤɒɑt]. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 01:03, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

New research links

New research links for modern speech patterns:

• Research into adoption of SAE fronting of /u o ʊ/ in Louisiana here [1]. Results show near-mainstream fronting of /u/, and fronting of /o/ where White speakers used this more often than Black speakers. Unclear where in Louisiana they were sampled from and how they might be affiliated with Cajun English.
• Nasalization study.[2] Supposedly nasalization is going down recently? Seems to contradict, or at least supercede the Dubois claim.
• Nice, up-to-date review article on phonetics and sociolinguistics: [3]

67.254.248.131 (talk) 04:37, 19 August 2024 (UTC)

Unfortunately I don't have access to JASA material. I'm always baffled by how their articles simultaneously say "Free" and "No PDF available". Wolfdog (talk) 14:48, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

The "old people" L

There's a distinct L-sound that old Cajuns would use, and occasionally you'll hear it in younger speakers with heavy accents. [4] It sounds sort of like [ɮ], but that's not quite it, I think. Can someone with a good ear take a listen and post what you think? 67.254.248.131 (talk) 04:10, 20 August 2024 (UTC)

Dubiousness

@67.254.248.131: I'm a bit concerned about your claims of dubiousness now littering the page. Just because you don't agree with the claims (and, remember, I certainly have my qualms too) doesn't make the source dubious. The Dubious template page says it is most commonly used for uncertainty regarding the veracity or accuracy of the given source, or of an editor's interpretation of that source. Neither of these apply; the Dubois and Horvath source is credible, even if potentially outdated, simplistic, or a bit baffling to the two of us. Also, some of your own citations (which are not fully cited and/or lack important page numbers, which is another criticism but also a separate matter) are what's actually dubious. For example, Vaux & Golder's 2004 nationwide survey provides information about a sampling throughout Louisiana but nothing about Cajuns specifically. So even if we take the highest estimate of the Cajun population, they're still only something like 13% of Louisianans and therefore we can't use Vaux & Golder's findings on LA to say anything definitively about Cajun English. Let's be careful please. Wolfdog (talk) 22:36, 21 August 2024 (UTC)

Okay, well, what would you suggest instead? Maybe I misinterpreted what the Dubious tag is for; would it be better to tag with better source needed? I'm really not trying to just force my own ideas here. My concern is really just that I know my own culture, and I know that the vowel phonology as it was when I started these updates (and mostly still is) is very far from any accents I've heard, even accounting for age, geography, and other factors.

Fair enough on the citations, I was trying to just get everything in so I could come back later. I get what you mean about the Vaux & Goldman survey, it certainly isn't an ideal source, and I'm still trying to find good (non-Dubois) sources for even the basics. With Vaux & Goldman, I actually want to reference these maps, where you can see that Mary-merry merger is predominant in South Louisiana: [5]. A nicer map, but I haven't found the exact source yet: [6]

I will say though that usage of the "Cajun" moniker is pretty complex, and a lot of the surveys I've seen either massively undercount the number of Louisiana French (somehow the "Cajun" population plummeted by 90% between the 1990 and 2010 Censuses) or get stuck with definitions that exclude a lot of us (some us don't have any ethnic French background, but are still part of the culture... are they Cajun?). "Cajun" and "Creole" are more like panethnicities a lot of times. My own estimation is that the core population of "white" Louisiana French is somewhere around 25-35% of the state, and 67.254.248.131 (talk) 18:26, 22 August 2024 (UTC)

Sadly, some dialects are simply underresearched. I fully empathize with that feeling on Cajun English in particular. Not to put too fine a point on it, but we can either use what sources we have or we can say nothing. However, I personally am fine with you (in addition to keeping the Dubois and Horvath info) including any second possible transcriptions that feel credible, though keep in mind that any other editor is at liberty to tag them with "citation needed". That would at least allow you to feel better in taking down the Dubious tags.

Both maps you linked come from Vaux and Golding; Katz simply ripped off the former's data to make a more attention-grabby dialect book of heat maps. (WP:NORUSH and many other related WP essays, despite many of my own editing frustrations, have often reminded me that progress has no deadline here on WP. Sometimes all we can do is keep looking for research and tediously wait in the hopes that more gets published.) Wolfdog (talk) 00:32, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Sounds like we're mostly on the same page then. I personally would prefer to leave some of the tags in the phonology section up for now, if only to signal that we did actually find some inconsistencies in the literature.

Yep, that's what I saw. Katz's map is a better visualization though IMO, you can see the proportions rather than trying to imagine it from the individual maps. I just can't find where he posted them originally. The main survey site is kind of inaccessible, so they might make a good supplement. 67.254.248.131 (talk) 03:21, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

That's all basically fine with me. Thanks for the collegial chats. Wolfdog (talk) 12:23, 23 August 2024 (UTC)

Bare links

@67.254.248.131: If you could turn the bare links into full citations, that would be great. (Also, I reverted some of your unsourced edits.) Thanks. Wolfdog (talk) 23:44, 27 August 2024 (UTC)