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2davidc8's avatar

French-speaking jellies: how do you pronounce the word "bransiller"?

Asked by 2davidc8 (10189points) September 21st, 2014

And what does it mean?
My (hardcopy) dictionary, Google Translate, and Babylon were no help.

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14 Answers

snowberry's avatar

Did you find it in a sentence? On a sign? When I search for it, it always comes up capitalized, so since there’s no definition and it’s capitalized, I’m guessing it’s a name.

From my memory of high school French, I’d pronounce it, “Bra’-see-ya” You sort of swallow the end of “Bra” and say that part through your nose.

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gailcalled's avatar

Bra (n..nasalized) see yay. ”...ller” would never be pronounced “see ya” and rarely “see lay.”

Here is a real word, ciller and how it is pronounced. (To blink)

French pronunciation of the double ‘L’

whitenoise's avatar

With @ragingloli on this:

With @gailcalled on this.

Stems from keeping ones balance on a branche. A kind of dance step.

gailcalled's avatar

@whitenoise: I have not been able to find “bransiller” anywhere, in any of the dictionaries, either my real ones or online. What kind of dance requires balancing on a branch? An acrobatic one, I suppose. Dancing on a tight rope? Fun to contemplate.( In English, it is “branch.”)

thorninmud's avatar

Looks like it’s a word from the dialect of the Berry region (which is why it isn’t showing up in standard dictionaries). As already mentioned, it means to balance.

@gailcalled has the pronunciation about right. They roll the R in this region, so it’s technically not the classic French R; the a is like the aw in “pawn”; the n is nasalized, the double “l” makes a “y” sound, and the -er is like the a in face. The stress is on the last syllable.

susanc's avatar

b(gargle)aw(hum in throat)(hesitation)see-yay.

dappled_leaves's avatar

I am dismayed to think that this is a real French word if it is not in my trusted Harrap’s Unabridged.

I would give the pronunciation as: brah (ending with that nasal hint of “N”)-see-yyay.

2davidc8's avatar

A big “thank you” to all who responded and tried to help. Among all of us and with the strength of community, I think we’re onto something. The term “bransiller” is found in the document that @ragingloli referenced, and I gather that it is supposed to describe a kind of step in a folk dance. Being familiar with the dance, I am going with the suggestion (made above) that it refers to balance or balancing. Might it mean that the dance step suggests “balancing on a branch”?
As to the pronunciation, the doubt that I had in my mind was whether the word is pronounced bron-see-LAY or bron-see-YAY, since the double L in French can go either way. (Since I do not have access to IPA symbols at the moment, these are my attempts at approximating the pronunciation.). The above-referenced document says that the word is pronounced the first way, but I thought I’d verify that with the Fluther community, because I find that surprising and would think that the second way is the correct one. @thorninmud‘s observation that the word may be dialectical is very interesting. If so, the pronunciation given in the document may be correct after all.

dappled_leaves's avatar

@2davidc8 “As to the pronunciation, the doubt that I had in my mind was whether the word is pronounced bron-see-LAY or bron-see-YAY, since the double L in French can go either way. ”

Of the two options that you present, it would certainly be the latter. But also, you would not fully pronounce the “N” as you would in English (per the above suggestions). I couldn’t open the link @ragingloli posted, but from your description, it sounds like they are offering an English pronunciation, not a French pronunciation, much as there are separate English pronunciations for French words that we commonly use, like protégée or canard.

2davidc8's avatar

@dappled_leaves Thank you for your post. I knew about the “N” and nasal issue with French pronunciation, but I was trying to approximate the sound without the use of IPA symbols, and leaving out the N seemed to sound worse.
The folk dance document gives the pronunciation of the double L as “L”. I had some doubts because those descriptions are prepared by a committee of observers and are not always 100% correct. However, based on the examples in the reference that @gailcalled provided, I am now inclined to think that the folk dance document is correct. Here are the examples wherein the double L is pronounced like an “L”:
distiller
osciller
million, and I found another one: vaciller
These make me now go with the “L” sound rather than the “Y” sound.

dappled_leaves's avatar

@2davidc8 Actually, I agree with @gailcalled on this one; her link supports “YAY” rather than “LAY”, as you seem to imply. I realize the examples you cite would pronounce the “L”, but you will equally find lots of examples of words which do not pronounce the “L”, like scintiller or oreiller, etc.

2davidc8's avatar

@dappled_leaves I don’t think so. I think @gailcalled‘s link supports the L sound. Take a look at the second half of that article. It would seem that the Y sound occurs after when the letter “i” is in a diphthong; otherwise, it is an L sound. Hence, oreiller is with a Y sound, but I would think scintiller would be like distiller, with the L sound. What does Harrap’s say about scintiller?

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