Courtesy of David Cheramie.
Photo from Nouveau Dictionnaire de la Langue Francaise, circa 1841.
I’m ashamed to admit this: but I used to think the Cajun word for “embarrassed” was “haunt,” H-A-U-N-T. Charmin stuck to your shoe? Haunt. Skirt tucked into your underwear? Haunt. Pronouncing “trente” in high school French like “twat”? Quelle haunt.
The concept of being “haunted” by an embarrassing moment made perfect sense to me growing up in Southwest Louisiana. I’d close my eyes before bed, or lift my head under a hot shower as my most cringe memories emerged like restless spirits, moaning: “Ooohh, remember when you forgot how to play the flutophone at your 4th grade Christmas recital, cher? That was bad-bad.”
Spooky was kind of what being Cajun was all about. I mean, I had a man-eating Rougarou that lived in my backyard. My maw maw had a bloody crucifix nightlight. My nickname was "Boo". I thought “feeling haunt” just fit with the theme.
It wasn’t until I moved away that I realized I was technically wrong. But, also technically right.
I was working as a TV producer in New York City, making a paranormal series that documented the strange goings on in, of all things, a HAUNTed house, when I did the thing I hate: I slipped into my Cajun accent in a staff meeting.
It’s not that I think my Cajun accent is less professional than the American accent I learned to copy from The Hills. It’s that usually when I’ve used my Cajun accent with people from outside of Louisiana, they have either looked at me like they saw a ghost, or worse—cracked a Waterboy-Bobby Boucher joke. To avoid feeling “haunt” at work, I learned to switch the accent off until I was around my people again.
This time, however, I let my guard down in a conference room. I tripped over my own feet on my way to my chair, and when asked if I was ok, exclaimed: “Yes, I’m just haunt!”
The room stopped, partly because these are TV producers who take spiritual possessions seriously, and partly because I hit the word “haunt” so freaking hard. It wasn’t the closed-mouth, tight-lipped “haunt,” like you’d make to bite into a Kraft single, but more like a “haunt” that honks, pushing air out of my nose so violently both nostrils flared. I know I looked freaked out, and in turn, so did they—all except for my French-American executive producer who asked, “Oh! Do you mean ‘haunt’ as in ‘shame’?”
Wow. I couldn’t believe we were speaking the same language. She knew there was a second meaning for the word “haunt,” too?
That’s when she explained it was actually the French word spelled “h-o-n-t-e”. My cheeks turned bright red. I was “honte” all over again. And then she added:
“Oh, and the “h” sound is silent!”
Quelle honte.
How many other French words had I been using for the past thirty-something years without even knowing it? And how many of them have I been mispronouncing? I turned to my personal Cajun guru, Dr. David Cheramie, a Louisiana French scholar and writer who tutors me in the language every Tuesday.
I knew some, but not all, of what I learned in that conference room could be true. Our way of using “honte” in South Louisiana, or at least in my family, wasn’t quite the equivalent of shame. My grandparents spoke fluent Louisiana French and specifically used the English word “shame” and the French word “honte” for different situations. They also pronounced the “h” sound in the word. Hard. Why?
According to Dr. Cheramie, “The reason we pronounce ‘h’ in Louisiana is because that’s how it was pronounced when our ancestors left France. La haine, or ‘hate’, is also an aspirate ‘h’ in Louisiana French, as well as the verb to hate, ‘haïr’. We also have the adjective haïssable—‘detestable,’ with the aspirate ‘h’ as well. What is considered an aspirate ‘h’ today in France is just a hiatus—or guttural stop— between two vowels.”
He went on, “We say, ‘I was honte’ instead of ‘I was ashamed,’ because ‘shame’ in an Anglo-American protestant context is stronger than honte. It also has a nuance of embarrassment and shyness even that shame does not. . . Quelle honte just means ‘what a shame,’ but leaning more towards the scandalous and less towards the disappointing. In other words, it is stronger than saying ‘that’s too bad’ and more similar to ‘what an embarrassment.’”
I remember that embarrassment well as a kid, feeling honte at my own birthday party, for example, because I wanted attention but also didn’t want attention, but please look at me and also don’t you dare look at me and please pass the cake…why aren’t you looking at me?! The honte internal struggle of being five years old . . .
The idea of honte being connected to honor, or lack thereof, is something I’ve always felt but never had the words to describe. I let this sink in. There was something else I wondered about; I used the word honte not only when I felt embarrassed for myself, but also when I felt second-hand embarrassment for someone else. Like, when my cousin tripped down the aisle at confirmation. Could that be something?
Dr. Cheramie turned to his French dictionary of 1841, which defines honte as “confusion causée par la conscience d’une faute. Par l’idée d’un déshonneur reçu, ou qu’on craint de recevoir.” (“Confusion caused by the awareness of a fault, by the idea of a received dishonor or that one fears receiving.”) “So,” he concluded, “it doesn’t necessarily have to be honte for oneself, but it can be for another . . . You can say, 'J’avais honte pour lui,' to express that someone’s actions or deeds were an embarrassment for you because you find them to be an impingement upon their honor or reputation, but also with a tinge of sadness and embarrassment.”
Chilling, to think that all this time, from the age of I don’t even remember, I’ve been speaking perfect Louisiana French from the 1700s. Quelle spooky.
