Since we've been talking about French (or, do I hear an accordion?)

This happens to be one of the languages of my own heritage, since I'm part
Cajun. (Those are the Francophones who left France for Acadia, Canada, then
were kicked out by the British and ended up in the swamps of southern
Louisiana.) I studied French pour deux âns au lycée, et je reconnais un peu,
but have always been interested in Louisiana French, and how it is different
than Standard French.

I've done some internet research, and some people claim Cajun is a dialect
of French while others (like the Ethnologue) say it's a separate language. I
would imagine the main differences are vocabulary, style of pronunciation,
and probably phonological conservatism (it probably still has /A/ and /9~/).
No more different than, say, Australian English is from the Queen's English.

Some good resources are at the LSU website, but I'll ask this list if
anyone's familiar. I did notice one feature of Cajun French also found in
other local vernaculars -- schwa elision, or what I've called "compression"
on this list more than a few times (example: /pti fi/ for _petit fille_
"little girl").