1444: acadia and cajun Nov 24, 2018

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In the US and Canada, many of the place names either come from native words, are named after places in the Old World, or were named as a description of the land; in at least one case however, it may be all of those. The name for the French colonies in North America (mostly modern-day Quebec and some surrounding areas) was called 'Acadia' ('Acadie'). It is not totally certain where this comes from though. Likely, this comes from the ancient Greek city Arkadía (Ἀρκαδία) described in pastoral poetry. However, it is also not unlikely that the word comes from the native Mi'kmaq word 'akadie' meaning 'fertile land'. In situations like this, one could have reinforced the other, depending upon the initial intentions, but no matter what, this is also where the word 'Cajun' comes from, as the Louisianan French mostly migrated from Canadian colonies, but kept the name.

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