cajun: [19] Cajun, denoting a French-speaking culture of Louisiana, USA, is an alteration of Acadian. Acadia was the name of a French colony in Canada (now Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island) whose inhabitants were driven out by the British in the 18th century and migrated to the southern states of the USA (the source of the original French Acadie is not known). The word became much more widely known in the 1980s following a sudden fashion for Cajun food and dance music.
1868, Cagian, dialectic pronunciation of Acadian, from Acadia, former French colony in what is now Canadian Maritimes. Its French setters were dispersed and exiled by the English and thousands made their way to New Orleans in the period 1764-1788.
