In Louisiana, "la betaille" means "animal", I havent heard it used in the masculine, may have to ask dad about that. There is a very old song that has been recorded by Harrison Fontenot and by Isom Fontenot called La Betaille, "ils ont une betaille, alle a monté dans la tite arbe". Not sure what kind of critter that is refering to, but it had red hair and blue eyes. I asked Harrison if he knew what it was and he just gave me a puzzled look.
One little side about betaille, Maz maybe you know. We used a word "tataille", which apparently is only used in some areas of Louisiana, but I was wondering if in Canada too. It is used for kind of a monster, or mean person. May be one of those kid words, but I always assumed it originated from betaille.
Bryan, the Fontenot song made me think about it. So,
if it is La betaille (female/cow= La), could be pronounced like LáBéTaiéé,
Les Haricots also became Zydeco, so I'm puzzled.
I remember Alan Lomax saying that yippietaye (or something like that had a acadian/canadian origen.
I never thought about that, and I dont know the ins and outs of French grammar, but the ending has more of what I would consider a masculine sound. We pronounce it "la bétai".
Alan Lomax made a few speculations on his documentary that probably cant be proven either way, that's one of them. Still about my favorite documentary though.