Louisiana's Connection to the Classical World

[NewsCopy]

I define “Cajun” as a descendant of the Acadians, a French-speaking, Roman Catholic people from Acadia, a historical region comprised of modern-day New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia (itself a Latin term meaning “New Scotland”). But there’s more to it than this: starting in 1764 about 3,000 Acadians, brutally exiled from Acadia by British redcoats, began to arrive in south Louisiana. There they intermarried on the semitropical frontier with other ethnic groups, and it was this intermarriage that created a new ethnic group, the Cajuns — very much a one-from-many people.(7)

How does this relate to the classical world? The word Cajun derived from Acadian (Acadien in French), the demonym for someone from Acadia (Acadie). While some researchers have suggested a Native American origin, others assert Acadia hails from Arcadia, a word of Greek origin (Arkadia) frequently used in poetry and other literature to evoke a rustic ideal.(7) It is, or was, a real place — a region in the central Peloponnese of Ancient Greece that reached its political apex around 370 B.C.

Bayou Teche Dispatches
Shane K. Bernard

[ChanceEncounter]

If the word Cajun has roots in ancient Greece it seems like Greek Life on campus should be promoted more.