Louisiana slang: regional words, sayings, and how locals talk.
This page collects regional vocabulary from Louisiana: slang you'll hear in conversation, sayings that travel through families, and pronunciations that mark a person as a local. Pick a city to narrow the list, or keep "All cities" to see the full Louisiana picture.
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To do the grocery shopping.
The median strip in the middle of a road.
A Cajun dance party.
How are you? (New Orleans Yat dialect greeting).
Cajun: how to eat a boiled crawfish.
New Orleans: greeting meaning 'how are you?'
Indirect left turn made by going straight, U-turning, then turning right.
Louisiana English is unlike any other state's, because two centuries of French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean influence run through it. South Louisiana gives English "lagniappe", "making groceries", "neutral ground" (the median of a road), and "who dat"; New Orleans adds "making dodo", po'boys, and a vocabulary of food and Carnival found nowhere else. The Cajun and Creole traditions keep French words in daily use even among English speakers, making Louisiana the most linguistically distinct state in the South.
Louisiana slang carries deep French, Creole, and Caribbean influence: "lagniappe" (a little extra), "neutral ground" (a road median), "make groceries" (go shopping), and "who dat". South Louisiana's Cajun and New Orleans varieties are especially distinctive.
In New Orleans and south Louisiana, the "neutral ground" is the grassy or paved median strip in the middle of a road or boulevard — what most of the country calls a median. The name dates to historic divisions of the city.
"Lagniappe" (LAN-yap) is a small bonus or extra given for free, like a little gift thrown in with a purchase. It entered Louisiana English through Louisiana French.
