Melungeon-L Archives

From: friend9 <>
Subject: [Melungeon] from Curtis: Melungeon & French
Date: Sun, 05 Nov 2000 01:34:13 -0800

I thing that's it too. All that fancy "Arabic" and (of course) Portuguese!
French was also VERY familiar to colonials -- many landed English spoke it,
PLUS there were plenty of French trappers and others of French descent --
Cajuns, those kicked out of Canada who went to the Louisiana area -- I mean
have you heard of the "Louisiana Purchase"? Who owned it before Monroe
closed the deal? The French! Look at a web site that can show the early
borders of the French claim we took over! Look what it included (besides
Louisiana, proper). The Louisiana Purchase bordered on (among other states)
Kentucky and Tennessee. Isn't it likely that the French were moving around
as if there were no borders -- since there were not! From the point-of-view
of those who lived in the areas under or near the control of the French
before 1804, how did they know where the French land stopped and the
American land began? They didn't. [See the section called "Boundaries of
the Territory" in the website below.]
See: http://www.inlink.com/~terryl/LPTerritory.html#anchor2382793
Note that France had controlled the area but lost it to Spain 1762, then
negotiated control back from Spain in 1800. So for almost 40 years Spain
had it. But when Spain took the area from France, what had happened to the
French who lived there? Think they would have stuck around to deal with the
Spanish? Or would they have headed for the hills? And Likewise some of the
Spanish when the French took it back over! Lots of displaced people in the
area -- ready to meet and receive new displaced people arriving all the time
into the remote areas .

And since many Frenchmen trapped and hunted, they would have been all over
the Appalachians -- using their language, giving names to the groups of
people they met. Think "KAY-JYEN" (Cajun) and "MELAN-JYEN" (Melungeon).
OF COURSE the word derives from Melange and the phonetic "-goen" or "-jun"
and NOT from some exotic Arabic or Portuguese obscurity!

Curtis


-----Original Message-----
From: <>
To: <>
Date: Saturday, November 04, 2000 4:58 AM
Subject: [Melungeon] Melungeon & French


>Hi List,
> I find this fascinating. It could very well be a twist of the
>French word Melange. Giving that there was alot of French in the area. With
a
>accent it could easily be sounded out as Melungeon. When people ask me
"What
>are you", I always smile first and say "Well I'm mixed."
>I do have French decent also. One point is how holler and hollow are
>pronounced would be the best example of how a word could be turned around.
>
>Cynthia
>
>
>==== Melungeon Mailing List ====
>For more information on Melungeon Health Issues:
>http://www.melungeonhealth.org
>-------
>Search the Melungeon List archives (1996-1999)
>Go to:
>http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl
>And key in:
>Melungeon
>

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