Japanese dialects

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Japanese
Geographic
distribution:		 Japan
Linguistic classification: Japonic
  • Japanese
Subdivisions:
Hachijō
Eastern Japanese
Western Japanese
Kyūshū
Japanese dialects-en.png
Map of Japanese dialects (north of the heavy grey line)
Map of copula "da" (blue), "ja" (red), "ya" (yellow).
Map of Japanese pitch-accent types.

The Japanese dialects (方言 hōgen?) comprise many regional variants. The lingua franca of Japan is called hyōjungo (標準語, lit. "standard language") or kyōtsūgo (共通語, lit. "common language"), and while it was based initially on the Tokyo dialect, the language of Japan's capital has since gone in its own direction to become one of Japan's many dialects. Dialects are commonly called -ben (弁, 辯, ex. "Osaka-ben", lit. "Osaka speech"), sometimes also called -kotoba (言葉, ことば, ex. "Edo-kotoba", lit. "Edo language") and -namari (訛り, なまり, ex. "Tōhoku-namari", lit. "Tōhoku accent").[1]

Contents

[edit] History

Regional variants of Japanese have been confirmed since the Old Japanese era. Man'yōshū, the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry includes poems written in eastern dialects (see also Old Japanese#Dialects). From the Nara period to the Edo period, the dialect of Kinai (now central Kansai) had been the de facto standard Japanese, and the one of Edo (now Tokyo) took over in the late Edo period.

With modernization in the late 19th century, the government and the intellectuals promoted establishment and spread of the standard language. The regional languages and dialects were slighted and suppressed, and so locals had an inferiority complex about their "bad" and "shameful" languages. The language of instruction was standard Japanese, and some teachers administered punishments for using non-standard languages particularly in Okinawa and Tohoku regions (See also Ryukyuan languages#Modern history). In the years of 1940s to 1960s, the period of Shōwa nationalism and post-war economic miracle, the push for the standardization of regional languages/dialects reached its peak.

Now the standard Japanese spread throughout the nation and traditional regional languages/dialects are declining because of education, popularization of television, expansion of traffic and urban concentration. However, regional languages/dialects are not completely replaced with the standard Japanese. The spread of standard Japanese brings the regional languages/dialects to the scarcity value and many locals gradually conquer the inferiority complex about their languages/dialects. The contact between regional languages/dialects and standard Japanese invents new regional speech by young people.[2]

History of Japanese dialects[3]
Before modern times Meiji to Showa Today (Future)
Use of dialects active decline more decline
Standardization start progress more progress
Social value of dialects low extremely low high
Activity over dialects extermination protection, promotion preservation as cultural property
Character of dialects system style
Function of dialects transmission of thinking confirmation of partner, expression of utterance attitude

[edit] Classification

The classification of Japanese dialects has various theories. Misao Tōjō classified mainland Japanese dialects into three groups: Eastern, Western and Kyushu dialects as you can see below paragraphs. Toshio Tsuzuku included dialects in Gifu and Aichi prefectures to Western Japanese. Mitsuo Okumura classified Kyushu dialects as a subclass of Western Japanese. These theories are mainly based on grammatical differences between east and west, but Haruhiko Kindaichi classified mainland Japanese into concentric circlar three groups: inside (orange areas in the right map), middle (deep blue, Hokuriku, Kumano and southern Ehime areas) and outside (light blue, white, Hachijō, part of Noto, Izumo and Kyushu areas) based on systems of accent, phoneme and conjugation.

[edit] Eastern Japanese

[edit] Hokkaidō dialect

The dialect in Hokkaido is separated into two groups, the first is spoken in coastal areas of Hokkaido especially in Oshima Peninsula and is close to the Tohoku dialect, and the second is spoken in other areas of Hokkaido and is not dramatically different from the standard Japanese. The difference between the two groups is caused by difference of the settlement history of Japanese. In the costral areas, Japanese fishing people had settled from the nothern Tohoku region since the Medieval Period, so the Tohoku dialect planted its roots deeply there. In the greater part of Hokkaido, Japanese had settled from all parts of Japan since Meiji period, so various Japanese dialects were mixed into an average dialect.

Ainu language is the language which used to be widely spoken by the native people of the region before Japanese settled there, but the influence of Ainu language to Hokkaido dialect is very little.

[edit] Tōhoku dialect

The Tōhoku dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in Tōhoku Region, the northeastern region of Honshū. Toward the northern part of Honshū, the Tōhoku dialect can differ so dramatically from standard Japanese that it is sometimes rendered with subtitles in the nationwide media.

A notable linguistic feature of the Tōhoku dialect is its neutralization of the high vowels "i" and "u", so that the words sushi, susu (soot), and shishi (lion) are rendered homophonous, where they would have been distinct in other dialects. So Tōhoku dialect is sometimes referred to as Zūzū-ben.

In addition, all unvoiced stops become voiced intervocalically, rendering the pronunciation of the word "kato" (trained rabbit) as [kado]. However, unlike the high vowel neutralization, this does not result in new homophones, as all voiced stops are pre-nasalized, meaning that the word "kado" (corner) is roughly pronounced [kando]. This is particularly noticeable with the "g" sound, which is nasalized sufficiently that it sounds very much like the English "ng" as in "thing", with the stop of the hard "g" almost entirely lost, so that ichigo 'strawberry' is pronounced [ɨzɨŋo].

The types of Tōhoku dialect can be broken down geographically and former han domains:

[edit] Kantō dialect

Kantō dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in Kantō region. It has been characterized by a volitional and presumptive suffix -be or -ppe as well as the Tohoku dialect. The eastern Kantō dialect has more common features to the Tōhoku dialect. After the Pacific War, the southern Kanto region such as Kanagawa, Saitama and Chiba prefectures made rapid progress as satellite cities of Tokyo, and traditional dialects in these areas are almost replaced by the standard Japanese.

Types of Kanto dialect include:

[edit] Tōkai–Tōsan dialect

Chubu region is a graded area between Eastern and Western Japanese, so it is not simple to classify its dialects. Dialects spoken in the northwest of the region are classified as Hokuriku dialect, a sub-dialect of Western. Dialects spoken in the other are classified as Tokai–Tosan dialect, a sub-dialect of Eastern, and moreover classified into three groups: Echigo, Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka and Gifu–Aichi.

[edit] Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka

Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka dialect or Na–Ya–Shi dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in Nagano Prefecture, Yamanashi Prefecture and Shizuoka Prefecture. It is characterized by a volitional and presumptive suffix -zura or -ra.

  • Nagano dialect or Shinshū dialect (Nagano Prefecture)
    • Okushin dialect (northernmost area)
    • Hokushin dialect (northern area)
    • Tōshin dialect (eastern area)
    • Chūshin dialect (central area)
    • Nanshin dialect (southern area)
  • Izu dialect (eastern Shizuoka Prefecture, formaly known as Izu Province)
  • Shizuoka dialect (central Shizuoka Prefecture)
  • Enshū dialect (western Shizuoka Prefecture, formaly known as Tōtōmi Province)
  • Kōshū dialect or Yamanashi dialect (Yamanashi Prefecture especially western area)

[edit] Echigo

Echigo dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in mainly Niigata Prefecture, formaly known Echigo Province.

  • Niigata dialect (city of Niigata)
  • Nagaoka dialect (central Niigata Prefecture, centered Nagaoka)
  • Jōetsu dialect (western Niigata Prefecture, centered Jōetsu)
  • Uonuma dialect (southern Niigata Prefecture)

[edit] Gifu–Aichi

Gifu–Aichi dialect or Gi–A dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in Gifu Prefecture and Aichi Prefecture. It shares many grammar features with Western Japanese.

[edit] Western Japanese

The dialects spoken in western Japan have some common features that are markedly different from Eastern Japanese including the standard Tokyo dialect; for example, "exist [human/animals]" oru instead of iru, the copula ja or ya instead of da, and the negative form -n as in ikan ("don't go") instead of -nai as in ikanai. Western Japanese was the prestige dialect when Kyoto was the capital, so some features are used in literary language and archaic expressions of modern standard Japanese.

[edit] Hokuriku dialect

Main article: Hokuriku dialect

Hokuriku dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in the western Hokuriku region. Types of Hokuriku dialect:

[edit] Kinki (Kansai) dialect

Main article: Kansai dialect

Kinki dialect or Kansai dialect, generally called Kansai-ben, is a general term of dialects spoken in mainly Kansai region. Kansai is the second most populated region in Japan after Kanto and the center of Japanese comedy, making Kansai dialect, especially that of Osaka, the most widely known non-standard dialect of Japanese. Kansai dialect is characterized by Kyoto-Osaka-type accent, strong vowel, copula ya, negative form -hen, and etc.

[edit] Chūgoku dialect

Chūgoku dialect is a gerenal term of dialects spoken in almost Chūgoku region and northwestern Kansai region. It is separated into two groups by copula.

Although Kansai dialect uses copula ya, Chūgoku dialect mainly uses ja or da. Chūgoku dialect uses ken or kee instead of kara meaning "because". ken is also used in Umpaku dialect, Shikoku dialect and some Kyūshū dialect. In addition, Chūgoku dialect uses -yoru in progressive aspect and -toru or -choru in perfect. For example, Tarō wa benkyō shiyoru (太郎は勉強しよる) means "Taro is studying", and Tarō wa benkyō shitoru (太郎は勉強しとる) means "Taro has studied" while standard Japanese speakers say Tarō wa benkyō shiteiru (太郎は勉強している) in both situations. -Choru is used mostly in Yamaguchi dialect.

[edit] Umpaku dialect

Umpaku dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in central San'in region. The name Umpaku (雲伯) is constructed by extracting a representative kanji from Izumo (出雲) and Hōki (伯耆), names of old provinces there.

Types of Umpaku dialect include:

Umpaku dialect, unique from other dialects in Chūgoku region, is superficially resembles Tōhoku dialects in pronunciation and is thus also called Zūzū-ben. It has neutralization of the high vowels "i" and "u".

The most representative expressions from Izumo-ben include dandan to mean "thank you", chonboshi or chokkoshi in place of sukoshi "a little", banjimashite as a evening greeting and gosu in place of kureru "give (from someone)".

[edit] Shikoku dialect

Shikoku dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in Shikoku.

Types of Shikoku dialect:

Shikoku dialect has many similarities to Chūgoku dialect in grammar. Shikoku dialect uses ken for "because", and -yoru in progressive aspect and -toru or -choru in the perfect. Some people in Kōchi Prefecture uses kin, kini, or ki instead of ken, -yō or -yū instead of -yoru, and -chō or -chū instead of -choru.

The largest difference between Shikoku dialect and Chūgoku dialect is in pitch accent. Many dialects in Shikoku uses Kyoto-Osaka-type accent or its variation and similar to Kansai dialect, but Chūgoku dialect uses Tokyo-type accent.

[edit] Kyūshū

Dialects spoken in Kyushu are sometimes lumped together as Kyushu-ben, but Kyushu dialect has three groups: Hichiku, Honichi, Satsugu. Kyushu dialect, especially Hichiku dialect, is well-known as a concessive particle/conjunction batten meaning "but", a nominalization and question particle to instead of standard no, emphasizing sentence-final particles tai and bai, ka-adjectives instead of standard i-adjectives, and etc. Kyushu dialect is generally viewed as a virile dialect due to a stereotype of the sons of Kyushu (九州男児 Kyūshū danji?) as strong.

[edit] Hōnichi dialect

Hōnichi dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in the eastern Kyushu. The name Hōnichi (豊日) is constructed by extracting a representative kanji from Buzen (豊前), Bungo (豊後) and Hyūga (日向), names of old provinces there.

Sub-dialects of Hōnichi dialect include:

Honichi dialect does not share some features peculiar to other Kyushu dialect such as ka-adjective and batten particle. Buzen and Oita dialects do not use to particle. An emphasizing particle cha is used in Honichi dialect and Yamaguchi dialect.

In the pitch accent, Miyazaki dialect and other Hōnichi dialect are very different. Buzen and Oita dialects use Tokyo-type accent as well as Chugoku dialect, but Miyazaki dialect is noted for its monotony accent as well as some dialects classified the Hichiku dialect.

[edit] Hichiku dialect

Hichiku dialect is a general term of dialects spoken in the western Kyushu. The name Hichiku (肥筑) is constructed by extracting a representative kanji from Hizen (肥前), Higo (肥後), Chikuzen (筑前) and Chikugo (筑後), names of old provinces in there.

Types of Hichiku dialect include:

Hakata-ben is a dialect spoken in Hakata of Fukuoka. Throughout Japan, Hakata-ben is famous, amongst many other idiosyncrasies, for its use of to or tto as a question, e.g., "What are you doing?", realized in Standard Japanese as nani o shiteiru no?, is nan ba shiyo tto? or nan shitō tō? in Hakata. Hakata-ben is also being used more often in Fukuoka in television interviews, where previously standard Japanese was expected.

Tsushima-ben is a Kyūshū dialect spoken within the Tsushima Island of Nagasaki Prefecture. Tsushima dialect includes several words unintelligible to speakers from the other parts of Japan because Tsushima-ben has borrowed several words from Korean due to historical international exchanges and the geographical proximity of Korea. However Tsushima-ben shares most of its basic words with those of other Kyushu dialects.

Korean loanwords in Tsushima dialect
Tsushima dialect Korean derivation Standard Japanese English gloss
ヤンバン
yanban		 양반(兩班)
yangban		 金持ち
kanemochi		 Rich person
(Note that in Korean yangban is a Korean elite class)
チング, チングィ
chingu, chingui		 친구(親舊)
chingu		 友達
tomodachi		 Friend
トーマンカッタ
tōmankatta		 도망(逃亡)갔다
tomang gatta		 夜逃げ
yonige		 Escaping at night (or running from debt)
(Note that the Korean source, tomang gatta, is actually a verbal phrase meaning "ran away; escaped")
ハンガチ
hangachi		 한가지
hangaji		 ひとつ
hitotsu		 One (item)
(Note that the Korean word actually means "one kind, one type, a sort (of)")
チョコマン
chokoman		 조그만
jogeuman		 小さい
chiisai		 Small
バッチ
batchi		 바지
baji		 ズボン
zubon		 Pants

[edit] Satsugū dialect

Main article: Kagoshima dialect

Satsugū dialect, generally called Kagoshima-ben, is a general term of dialects spoken in the southern Kyushu. The name Satsugū (薩隅) is constructed by extracting a representative kanji from Satsuma (薩摩) and Ōsumi (大隅), names of old provinces there.

Types of Satsugū dialect include:

Satsuma-ben is often called "unintelligible" because of distinct conjugations of words, significantly different vocabulary and pronunciation. As the farthest place from Kyoto, it is likely that divergences in dialect were accumulated in Satsuma making it sound relatively distinct. For example, the yotsugana, which are pronounced as 2 different phonemes in most dialects, are 4 separate phonemes in the Kagoshima dialect. There are several different dialect regions within Kagoshima prefecture. In the Pacific War, Satsuma dialect was once used as a cipher code between the MOFA and the Japanese Diplomatic mission in Germany.

[edit] Hachijō Island

Main article: Hachijo dialects

A small group of dialects are spoken in Hachijōjima and Aogashima, islands south of Tokyo, as well as the Daitō Islands east of Okinawa.

Usually Hachijō Dialect is regarded as an independent "root branch" itself for its unique characteristics, especially the abundance of inherited ancient Eastern Japanese features, in spite of its small population.

[edit] Ryūkyū

Main article: Okinawan Japanese

There has developed in the Ryukyu Islands a dialect called Okinawan Japanese, which is close to standard Japanese but has been influenced by Ryukyuan languages. For example, deeji may be said sometimes instead of taihen, or haisai instead of konnichiwa.

There is general agreement among linguists that the Ryukyuan languages of Okinawa Prefecture and some of the islands of Kagoshima Prefecture form a separate branch of the Japonic family, and are not Japanese dialects.

[edit] See also

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The Wikibook Japanese has a page on the topic of
  • Yotsugana, the differing pronunciation of the ジ, ヂ, ズ, and ヅ kana in different regions of Japan.


[edit] References

  1. ^ Johnston, Eric, "Dialect-rife Japan can be tongue-twisting", FYI, The Japan Times, 13 November 2007, p. 3, retrieved 24 December 2010.
  2. ^ Satoh Kazuyuki (佐藤和之); Yoneda Masato (米田正人) (1999) (in Japanese). Dōnaru Nihon no Kotoba, Hōgen to Kyōtsūgo no Yukue. Tōkyō: The Taishūkan Shoten (大修館書店). ISBN 978-4469212440. 
  3. ^ Takashi Kobayashi (小林隆); Kōichi Shinozaki (篠崎晃一), Takuichirō Ōnishi (大西拓一郎) (1996) (in Japanese). Hōgen no Genzai. Tōkyō: The Meiji Shoin (明治書院). ISBN 978-4625420979. 
  4. ^ granded area between Western Kanto and Eastern Kanto

[edit] External links

Look up Category:Regional Japanese in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
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