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.

Interesting. No, I've never heard of the expression "tataille" over here.

Hey Maz, if you would, send me an email.

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.

Gus

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.

If I remember right, I think Rockin' Sydney had a song called "There's a betaille in my room"

Like a Loup'Garou?

Someone I know from the internet told stories about a Poul'Garou down there.

In fact, I wrote a bad song about it.

Well, let's see it!! That poule garou sounds fearesome.

Someone famous said "If you want to see true horror, look into the eye of a chicken".