Date:  Wed, 1 Jun 1994 10:52:12 CDT

From:  Mike Picone <MPICONE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]UA1VM.BITNET>

Subject: Cajun say-so



Thanks, Clayton Gillespie, for the input on say-so:



>My grandparents are Tippidot Cajun, and so I have had the opportunity

>to misapprehend the patois on many occasions. For example, to me,

>"Mon cher" sounds like "Moe shah" when spoken in the patois. Perhaps

>the above usage is a bad transcription of "soupc,on"?

>- Clayton Gillespie



Something like this had crossed my mind, and it may in the end pan out as

well as anything else. But the problem is that the Cajun speakers whom I

have talked with and who are aware of it seem to think of say-so as being of

English origin. Perhaps I should mention that single lexical items of English

origin are pandemic in contemporary Cajun French discourse generally.

Usually, due to of generalized bilingualism,

they are unassimilated at the phonological and morphological levels, except

for some frequently found terms used by the oldest speakers.



Clayton, is Tippidot a variant of Thibodaux? I know of the latter as a town

on the Bayou Lafourche and as a common family name (sometimes spelled

Thibodeaux).



Mike Picone

University of Alabama