ng. But to the colonies these changes
were not carried, and such changes as occurred in the French and English
of America were, for the most part, separate and distinct (as exampled
by such Creole words as "banquette" for "sidewalk," in place of the
French word _trottoir_, and the word "baire," whence comes the American
term "mosquito bar.") The influence of colloquial French from Canada may
also be traced in New Orleans, and the language there was further
affected by the strange jargon spoken by the Creole negro--precisely as
the English dialect of negroes in other parts of the South may be said
to have affected the speech of all the Southern States.

Between the dialect of the Louisiana Cajan and that of the French
Canadian of Quebec and northern New York there is a strong resemblance;
but the Creole negro language is a thing entirely apart, being made up,
it is said, partly from French and partly from African word sounds, just
as the "gulla" of the South Carolina coast is made up from African and
English. The one is no more intelligible to a Frenchman than the other
to a Londoner. The ignorant Creole negro wishing to say "I do not
understand," would not say "moi je ne comprends pas," but "mo pas
connais"; similarly for "I am going away," he does not say, "je m'en
vais," but "ma pe couri"; while for "I have a horse," instead of "j'ai
un cheval," he will put the statement, "me ganye choue." It is a dialect
lacking mood, tense, and grammar.

To this day one may occasionally see in New Orleans and in other lower
river towns an old "mammy" wearing the bandanna headdress called a
_tignon_, which, toward the end of the eighteenth century, was made
compulsory for colored women in Louisiana. The need for some such
distinguishing racial badge was, it is said, twofold. Yellow sirens from
the French West Indies, flocking to New Orleans, were becoming
exceedingly conspicuous in dress and adornment; furthermore one hears
stories of wealthy white men, fathers of octoroon or quadroon girls, who
sent these illegitimate daughters abroad to be educated. The latter, one
learns from many sources, were very often beautiful in the extreme, as
were also the Domingan girls, and history is full of the tales of the
curious, wild, fashionably caparisoned, declasse circle of society,
which came to exist in New Orleans through the presence there of so many
alluring women of light color and equally light character. Some of these
women, it is said