Sweet story...

[TheRocketSurgeon]

That was sort of my point. I'm an American, only half-Cajun in the first place, but even my full-blooded relatives don't bother with accent marks except in places where the distinct sound difference makes a distinct difference in the meaning of two identically-spelled words. Our language was deliberately wiped out by the American Anglophones, and what remains is heavily bastardized in the first place-- we'll throw words from English, Spanish, and even some Native American phrases in the middle of a French sentence, if going at full speed, when speaking aloud.

Cajun culture has a lot of things that are "traditional", but language is just a tool, to us.

There's a big controversy in Montréal about some youth utilizing "Frenglish".

neither side likes it.

As a Francophile Anglo in Montréal, I will always encounter SOME Francos who don't like ANY Anglos
(even Francophile Anglos), but if you speak french fluently and willingly, it helps.

but worse, I encounter Anglos who treat me as a traitor,
because I try to speak French whilst in Montréal;

they feel that English is discriminated against in Montréal,
and they're right, it is,

but even though I am Anglo,
I think, given the history of  British assimilation of the city,
I don't much blame Québécois for wanting to insist on French being spoken.

They are the minority (despite being here before the British and establishing cities and exploring most of North America and striking various treaties with the Mi'kmaq and Iroquois)
...and are just trying to keep their language, heritage, and culture alive.

what Anglo Montrealers don't understand is that if the Francos were to be lenient about English being spoken,
it is like water dripping on a stone, it wears away over a long time;
in a few generations it erodes the use of French in Québec in younger generations;
their goodwill is basically taken for granted.

I actually admire the crusty, unapologetic nature of French Canada in Québec for refusing to be politically correct and telling Anglo Canada to go fuck themselves because the french are stubbornly insisting on their heritage in Québec being upheld and the language being used....lest it be lost.

but probably 98% of Anglo Canada doesn't agree with me on this,
and would even roll their eyes and consider it obnoxious, stupid, and traitorous for me to say so.

And I am even from mostly British/Celtic descent, myself...more than many "Anglo" Canadians are.

("Anglo" in Canada refers mainly to using English as your mother tongue.  It does NOT necessarily mean descended from Anglo-Saxon ancestry).

I don't think the Québecois had a treaty with the Mi'kmaq; but we Acadiens did. My ancestor, Alexandre Broussard dit Beausoleil, was actually put on trial for "consorting" with native women. He was relatively wealthy because of his cattle herds, and the father of a girl to whom he had been expected to wed filed the complaint, and withdrew the charges when he "agreed" to marry her after all. 

During the Seven Years War, he and his brother and their children fought alongside a band of Mi'kmaq to decimate British supply lines in the area, guerrilla style. Toward the end of the war, when surrender became a foregone conclusion, he surrendered along with a few hundred civilians they had been protecting in-hiding, in exchange for the promise that they would be cared for by the British (a promise they mostly kept). But the Acadiens were not allied with the Québecois French, and indeed, their refusal to join in combat on the French side originally is what led to our near-extermination when the British found that we would not fight for them, either. We maintained a peaceful and mainly-isolated colony for 150 years prior to the war, entirely without loyalty to one of the competing empires, and at friendly peace with our native neighbors.

I know the bitter struggle of the Québecois to maintain their culture and identity, and that it has led to a lot of bitterness and even violence on both sides, but that is not a part of Cajun history. From the very beginning, we have always been seen as "low-brow" French peasantry, even after being expelled from Acadie and coming to Louisiana, first by the Québecois and English before expulsion, then by the Creoles in southeast Louisiana (prior to becoming part of the USA) and later by the Americans who set about to "educate" us and eradicate our language like they did to Native Americans here, and so we just don't bother to maintain "fancy" traditions of any sort, even with language.