There is no z sound in the original French pronunciation of Louisiana…only in the American pronunciation And there’s definitely no Looz sound in it at all.
Louisiana was named for King Louis (pronounced Loo-ee) XIII and Queen Anne of France.
If you are suggesting that the French pronunciation is like [lui’iana] (loo-ee-ee-a-na), then I believe that’s not correct. The s is pronounced in French.
Indeed. “Louisiane” = “lweezeean” (sort of, the i’s are not really like ‘ee’ in English, but shorter).
Indeed-- a terminal s in French coming before a word starting with a vowel is pronounced like a z. Les filles ont ici. Lay feez awnt eecee. An s in the middle of the word before a vowel does the same thing, at least for the words I could think of: Parisian = pareezeeayan.
The girls on ice? (My French isn’t great)
I note that, whenever the DJ on XM Jazz refers to him, it’s always pronounced “Lewis.”
Here’s my theory that I’ve developed after reading this thread: In New Orleans (where if you throw a brick you’re 99% likely to hit something or someone with a French name) and amongst New Orleans musicians, he was “Louie.” Outside of New Orleans (the greater part of his career was spent in Chicago & New York, from what I’ve read), he was “Lewis.” In his personal life, he was “Satchmo,” “Dippermouth,” or “Pops.”
I think it is pronounced “Satchmo”.
Edit: Man Homie, I can’t read, apparently! :smack:
“The girls have here”, which of course isn’t a complete sentence, “to have” (“avoir” in French) being transitive. Actually, I’m not sure I’d pronounce the liaison in this sentence: in my mouth it would probably sound rather like [lɛfijõtisi]. Now that I think about it, the reason is probably that the last sound in “filles”, the [j], isn’t really a vowel. For a better example, consider “les éléphants” (“the elephants”), pronounced [lɛzelefã].
Also, I’ve usually heard “Louis Armstrong” pronounced as “Lewis”, or rather “Loo-iss”. I guess HeyHomie’s theory is probably correct though.
On second thought, there is a liaison in this phrase, but it is the [j] sound of “filles” that liaises with the [õ] of “ont” (and my transcription is basically correct). No [s] or [z] is pronounced. In French, a ‘s’ between two vowels is pronounced as [z], even if these vowels are part of two different words, but the ‘s’ here isn’t actually between two vowels, and remains silent.
Yes, this makes more sense. Sorry, I was tired when I posted that.
Wikipedia gives evidence for both answers
Thanks, anyway. In the run-up to Christmas, Classic FM were advertising a Jazz FM album featuring “Lewis” Armstrong and it was annoying the hell out of me. Turns out they were probably pronouncing it right after all.
Not sure what distinction you’re making here. Could you put it in IPA?
I had always assumed that formally it was pronounced Lewis. Sometimes it would be shortened to Lou. And then sometimes affectionately lengthened to Loo-ey.
Sorta like James, Jim and Jimmy.
Maybe Hypnagogic Jerk pronounces the “w” in “Lewis”?
Sort of. I’m not very fluent in the use of the IPA, but to me, “Louis” (in English, not in French where it is simply [lwi]) is [lʊɪs] – there might be a consonant in the middle; I haven’t been able to find it on Wikipedia but I know it’s not [w] – while “Lewis” is [lœwɪs] – the [œ] might not be exact but it’s close enough.
As for “Louie”, I pronounce it [lʊi], or something similar.