How do you pronounce "Boise" (Idaho) in English?

Question

"BOYS" or "BWAZ"?

In french, we pronounce this name like "bwasey" (Boisé)...

:-)

Answer 1

BOY-zee (accent on the first syllable). It rhymes perfectly with "noisy".

I can see why you might expect English speakers to pronounce it "boys" (It looks like "noise" after all). But we don't necessarily completely ignore original pronunciations when we anglicize a word.

What happens with this and MANY names is that the part of the original French that's easy to say in English is kept -- a final long e sound is common in English and easy to pronounce. But "bwa" for something spelled "boi" is not an English type of sound pattern, so it ends up being pronounced in a more common English way.

Answer 2

How Do You Pronounce Boise

Answer 3

It's pronounced Boy-see not Boy-zee (IPA [ˈbɔɪ.si]). But it does come from the French word boisé meaning "wooded".

Answer 4

People on here don't seem to venture much to western US. That can't pronounce anything correctly in my state of Montana either. Although commonly mispronouced as Boy-zee, the people there say it as Boy-see or [ˈbɔɪ.si]

Answer 5

In English, we pronounce it like boy-see.

Answer 6

DS has the best answer. People from who've never been there tend to say "BOY-zee" but the people I've met who actually come from there always call it "BOY-see".

Answer 7

Boy-zee.

Answer 8

RE:
How do you pronounce "Boise" (Idaho) in English?
"BOYS" or "BWAZ"?

In french, we pronounce this name like "bwasey" (Boisé)...

:-)

Answer 9

boys zee

Answer 10

Say it like : Boys + ee (le son i )