Question to the fine people of this board, how is the T handled? Pronounced or silent? I was under the impression it’s silent, and yet when I looked online tonight about half the sources, many French, pronounced the T.
John it’s a good question. I looked for sites that provided an audible pronunciation, such as the one linked below. When I listen to it I hear the T pronounced, in a French accent. Most other sites that had an audible pronunciation were the same way, which surprised me, because I was under the impression that the T was silent.
I worked harvest in Burgundy, and picked Montrachet, and it was pronounced by everyone, from the picker next to me to the team leader to the winemaker, Moan Rah Shay. “Mont” is hill/mountain in French, and it’s pronounced Moan (with a flat nasal “n” at the end that kind of diminishes the letter’s usual sound).
I cringe with every “-shay” written here. Pronouncing it that way you’re going to pronounce everything with that typical English “-hey” ending that really doesn’t exist in French (oh well, there might be some words that end up with some kind of -ey or -ay but you get the point).
Getting it right without IPA letters is bloody difficult, but I’d say it’s closer to “MON-rah-sheh” - and the “n” in “Mont” gets swallowed a bit, it being somewhere between a “mon” and “mong” (without saying the final g out loud).
I suspect they simply don’t know the origins of the compound and proper name. They are pronouncing it as if it were “Mon Trachet,” where the first T would be pronounced, rather than “Mont Rachet,” where it is not. Consonants at the beginnings of words (e.g., “trachet”) are not silent!