Entry · catalog no. 0709
zydeco
/ /ˈzaɪdəkoʊ/ /ZY-duh-koh
noun · Southwest Louisiana · 1950s
✓ Verified
1.
The accordion-and-rubboard dance music of Black Creole southwest Louisiana — blues and R&B run through La La house-dance tradition — and the dances where it is played.
“They two-stepped through the whole zydeco, church clothes and all.”
Origin & Attribution
From Louisiana Creole French: 'les haricots,' the beans, out of the old song line 'les haricots sont pas salés' — the beans aren't salted, meaning times too hard to afford salt meat. In Creole speech the words ran together into something like 'zydeco,' and the hardship phrase became the name of the music itself. Black Creole families called the older house music 'la la'; Clifton Chenier's recordings from the 1950s and 60s fixed the modern sound and spelling.
pre-1950
La La house dances across Black Creole southwest Louisiana
1950s–60s
Clifton Chenier records and standardizes the zydeco sound
1980s
Chenier, Queen Ida, and Buckwheat Zydeco carry it national
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The South
Southwest Louisiana · 1950s
Spoken by
Black Creoles of southwest Louisiana and east Texas
$ZYDECOThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady76 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
75/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1950
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@nolakid
New Orleans, LA
@htxdri
Houston, TX
Contribute your pronunciation
Citations & Sources
■
Clifton Chenier, Arhoolie recordings — 1960s
recordings · verified
■
+ Cite a source'Les haricots sont pas salés,' documented Creole song line
oral tradition · documented
See also