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.

http://www.folkdancecamp.org/07syllabus/Bourree%20Droite%20Du%20Pays%20Fort%20%282007SFDC%29%20E.pdf

brahn-cee-LAY

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’

With @ragingloli on this:

With @gailcalled on this.

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

@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.”)

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.

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

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.

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.

@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.

@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.

@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.

@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?