There are differing pronunciations because English speakers, particularly American English speakers, rarely use the proper French vowel phoneme in the first syllable, and the r in the first syllable often gets either totally dropped, or pronounced too strongly, as compared to the French pronunciation.
In French, ‘ou’ makes a vowel sound roughly in between ‘o’ and ‘u’, and the best my American brain and tongue can approximate it is basically ‘boo’, the sound a ghost makes, but in UK English, the ‘o’ is already closer to French’s ‘ou’… but not entirely.
A similar Americanization happened to Bourbon.
Bourbon is originally a French word, with the ‘ou’, but Americans usually just pronounce it bur - bun.
… The reason there is no consistent pronunciation is because bourgeoise is a loan word from French to English… and/or English itself is bastard mutt pidgin of a language, that has a ton of different dialects with different pronunciations of vowels.
EDIT: It seems most people responding with pronunciations are missing the difference between the ‘zh’ and the ‘sh’.
Its zh, or in IPA, ʒ
As in ‘vision’ or ‘decision’.
It is not sh, or in IPA, ʃ
As in ‘sheep’ or ‘shoulder’.
Zhang and Shang, Zhou and Shou are not pronounced the same, I’m using zh for ʒ because that is often done when in attempting to transliterate Chinese names and words into English.
Edit: thank you for kind people providing info, unfortunately I got 2 different answers 🤣
Bush - wa - zee
Except the sh in bush should sound more zh but you arent far off with it anyway.
Boorsh instead of Bush
Bower-geo-icy
At least you know how to spell it. Unlike me trying to type whore derves and shark cutery.
I made that meme and posted it, then checked the spelling and remade it and edited the comment
“be our G, or ice” - its a threat statement in a single word.
Lmao love this one
There are differing pronunciations because English speakers, particularly American English speakers, rarely use the proper French vowel phoneme in the first syllable, and the r in the first syllable often gets either totally dropped, or pronounced too strongly, as compared to the French pronunciation.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/pronunciation/english/bourgeoisie
Roughly:
UK English: bozh - wah - zee / bo - zhwah - zee
US English: burzh - wah - zee / bur - zhwah -zee
https://www.howtopronounce.com/french/bourgeoisie
In French, ‘ou’ makes a vowel sound roughly in between ‘o’ and ‘u’, and the best my American brain and tongue can approximate it is basically ‘boo’, the sound a ghost makes, but in UK English, the ‘o’ is already closer to French’s ‘ou’… but not entirely.
A similar Americanization happened to Bourbon.
Bourbon is originally a French word, with the ‘ou’, but Americans usually just pronounce it bur - bun.
… The reason there is no consistent pronunciation is because bourgeoise is a loan word from French to English… and/or English itself is bastard mutt pidgin of a language, that has a ton of different dialects with different pronunciations of vowels.
EDIT: It seems most people responding with pronunciations are missing the difference between the ‘zh’ and the ‘sh’.
Its zh, or in IPA, ʒ
As in ‘vision’ or ‘decision’.
It is not sh, or in IPA, ʃ
As in ‘sheep’ or ‘shoulder’.
Zhang and Shang, Zhou and Shou are not pronounced the same, I’m using zh for ʒ because that is often done when in attempting to transliterate Chinese names and words into English.
🤓
Also thanks for the explanation, that’s a lot of info to digest!
Bore-zhwah-zee