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[Opinions] Re: Ghislaine
Slightly prefer Ghyslaine, but love the name either way. I say "zsees-layhn" which I know isn't 100% correct (should be "len") but my American eyes want to say layn, so my mouth kind of compromises and softens the ayn sound. I love Ghislaine Rose, Ghislaine Maria/Marie is nice too but I find the commoness/stereotypical-French-ness of Marie kind of dulls Ghislaine.
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Yes, your pronounciation gets it about right.(I'm in a French-speaking community,and it's a name used now and then.)I actually know a woman named Ghislaine, however,she married an English-speaker who couldn't cope with the name, so she now goes by Jessie. (sad, is what I think!)
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What about Ghislain?I heard the name Ghislain pronounced like guy-lain (French pronunciation of guy- and -lain). It was an African man from a French-speaking country who had this name (don't remember from which country). Is that how you would pronounce Ghislain too? I guess the guy-part makes since, there is an H after the G, so it could (should?) be pronounced like a hard G but what happened to the S?
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My French is really limitted to the bit my Gram has taught me about, and what I have gathered from ballet training. I am going to try and answer anyway... the "H" in French is silent, which is why I was completely disregarding it and starting Ghislaine with the "zs" sound since that is how it works when the "G" comes before an "I". I know that "is" can be pronounced "ee" at the end of words (fleur de LIS), but I don't know/think it works the same in the middle. At least I haven't seen it, but like I said my French is there but a limited. Anyway, if he is saying it as in fleur de lis the "s" has gone silent and basically been dropped.
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