Hello, fellow inebriated waterfowl.

I have a character slated to appear soon in my comic. He is a New Orleans Blues Musician and I want to script him with a very clearly defined Cajun accent. I was going to go into my brother's Ultimate X-Men books and use Gambit as reference material, but I was wondering if any other users had a more informative knowledge of the accent as it would appear in text.

Me and Hakoshen are both Louisiana folk. You could message him and tell him I sent ya to ask after the accent. He might have some more direct advice than mine.

I think dialect is very tricky if you don't have personal experience with it. It can come off very offensive at times- think of the way African American characters were made to speak in early American cinema, for example. Awful!

The thing is, since there aren't that many Cajuns out there, you could probably cheat and use Gambit; there's a stereotypical "Cajun" dialect that people instantly recognize as such (which usually includes peppering your sentences with arbitrary French words, mostly when addressing women). It wouldn't necessarily be authentic, but people would get your drift.

But because I'm a stickler for authenticity and details, I'd suggest to watch documentaries about Cajun culture. I don't know of any off the top of my head, but I'm sure a quick google search will turn 'em up. Watch them repeatedly and try to transcribe the way the people onscreen are speaking. If you listen to it enough, you're going to start recognizing phonetic and syntax patterns, and you'll be able to "guess" how words or phrases might be spoken without actually having to here someone say it. That way you're using your own experience and interpretation of the dialect, and no one's gonna say, "Hmmm, that blues fella sure does sound a lot like Gambit!"

Sorry if that ain't much. But if you need help on accurate New Orleans places/history/ways of speaking/etc. that he might say or reference, that's where I can help.

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Agora/5949/Help/cajun1.html

I'd be careful with this site (they spelled the word "definitely" wrong at the top) but it seems to have some interesting slang words I've never heard before.
Also I'd only use slang some of the time...


hah, my first reaction was, 'hyena hell would know!'

Thanks guys. This is really helpful.

HAVIN' THE EXACT SAME PROBLEM!!

Read some Louisiana books!