Japanese dialects

Japanese
Geographic distribution:	Japan
Linguistic classification:	Japonic Japanese
Subdivisions:	Hachijō Eastern Japanese Western Japanese Kyūshū
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").

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 depopulation of countries. 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.

History of Japanese dialects

	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

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.

Eastern Japanese

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.

Tōhoku dialect

The Tōhoku dialect is 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.

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:

• Northern Tohoku
  • Tsugaru dialect (western Aomori Prefecture, around the former Tsugaru Domain)
  • Nambu dialect (eastern Aomori Prefecture and northern Iwate Prefecture, around the former Nanbu Domain)
    • Iwate dialect (northern Iwate Prefecture)
    • Morioka dialect (around Morioka city)
  • Shimokita dialect (Shimokita Peninsula, northeastern Aomori Prefecture)
  • Akita dialect (Akita Prefecture)
  • Shōnai dialect (northwestern Yamagata Prefecture, around the former Shonai Domain)
• Southern Tohoku
  • Sendai dialect (Miyagi Prefecture especially Sendai)
  • Iwate dialect (southern Iwate Prefecture)
    • Kesen dialect (Kesen district, southeastern Iwate Prefecture)
  • Yamagata dialect or Murayama dialect (central Yamagata Prefecture, around Yamagata city)
  • Yonezawa dialect or Okitama dialect (southern Yamagata Prefecture, around Yonezawa city)
  • Shinjō dialect or Mogami dialect (northeastern Yamagata Prefecture, around Shinjō city)
  • Fukushima dialect (central Fukushima Prefecture)
  • Aizu dialect (Aizu region in Fukushima Prefecture)

Kantō dialect

Dialects in Kantō region have been characterized by 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 the traditional dialects in these areas are almost replaced by the standard Japanese.

Types of Kanto dialect include:

• Western Kantō
  • Tokyo dialect (Tokyo)
    • Yamanote dialect (old upper-class dialect)
    • Shitamachi dialect or Edo dialect (old working-class dialect)
  • Tama dialect (Western Tokyo)
  • Saitama dialect (Saitama Prefecture)
    • Chichibu dialect (around Chichibu)
  • Gunma dialect or Jōshū dialect (Gunma Prefecture)
  • Kanagawa dialect (Kanagawa Prefecture)
  • Bōshū dialect (southern Chiba Prefecture)
• Eastern Kantō
  • Ibaraki dialect (Ibaraki Prefecture)
  • Tochigi dialect (Tochigi Prefecture)
  • Chiba dialect (Chiba Prefecture)

Tōkai–Tōsan dialect

The Tōkai–Tōsan dialect in Chūbu region is the buffer dialect between the Kanto dialect and the Kansai dialect and is separated into three groups: Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka, Echigo, and Gifu–Aichi.

Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka

• 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 around the Izu Peninsula)
• 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)

Echigo

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

Gifu–Aichi

• Mino dialect (southern Gifu Prefecture, formaly known as Mino Province)
• Hida dialect (northern Gifu Prefecture, formaly known as Hida Province)
• Owari dialect (western Aichi Prefecture, formaly known as Owari Province)
  • Chita dialect (along the Chita Peninsula)
  • Nagoya dialect (centered around Nagoya)
• Mikawa dialect (eastern Aichi Prefecture, formaly known as Mikawa Province)
  • West Mikawa
  • East Mikawa

Western Japanese

The dialects of 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.

Hokuriku dialect

Main article: Hokuriku dialect

Types of Hokuriku dialect:

• Kaga dialect (southern Ishikawa Prefecture, formerly known as Kaga Province)
  • Kanazawa dialect (Kanazawa, Ishikawa)
• Noto dialect (northern Ishikawa Prefecture, formerly known as Noto Province)
• Toyama dialect or Etchū dialect (Toyama Prefecture)
• Fukui dialect (northern Fukui Prefecture)
• Sado dialect (Sado Island, Niigata Prefecture)

Kinki (Kansai) dialect

Main article: Kansai dialect

Kansai region 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 as Kyoto-Osaka-type accent, strong vowel, copula ya, negative form -hen, etc.

• Kyoto dialect (southern Kyoto Prefecture, especially the city of Kyoto)
  • Gosho dialect (old Kyoto Gosho dialect)
  • Muromachi dialect (old merchant dialect in central area of the city of Kyoto)
  • Gion dialect (geiko dialect of Gion)
• Osaka dialect (Osaka Prefecture, especially the city of Osaka)
  • Semba dialect (old merchant dialect in the central area of the city of Osaka)
  • Kawachi dialect (eastern Osaka Prefecture, formerly known as Kawachi Province)
  • Senshū dialect (southern Osaka Prefecture, formerly known as Izumi Province)
• Kobe dialect (city of Kobe)
• Nara dialect or Yamato dialect (Nara Prefecture)
  • Oku-yoshino dialect or Totsukawa dialect (southernmost Nara Prefecture such as Totsukawa village)
• Tamba dialect (central of Kyoto Prefecture, and eastern Hyōgo Prefecture, formerly known as Tamba Province)
  • Maizuru dialect (city of Maizuru, Kyoto Prefecture)
• Banshū dialect (southwestern Hyōgo Prefecture, formerly known as Harima Province)
• Shiga dialect or Ōmi dialect (Shiga Prefecture)
• Wakayama dialect or Kishū dialect (Wakayama Prefecture and southern Mie Prefecture, formerly known as Kii Province)
• Mie dialect (mainly Mie Prefecture)
  • Ise dialect (mid-northern Mie Prefecture, formerly known as Ise Province)
  • Shima dialect (eastern Mie Prefecture, formerly known as Shima Province)
  • Iga dialect (western Mie Prefecture, formerly known as Iga Province)
• Wakasa dialect (southern Fukui Prefecture, formerly known as Wakasa Province)

Chūgoku dialect

Dialects in almost Chūgoku region are separated into two groups by copula.

• copula ja group (San'yō region)
  • Aki dialect or Hiroshima dialect (western Hiroshima Prefecture, formerly known as Aki Province)
  • Bingo dialect (eastern Hiroshima Prefecture, formerly known as Bingo Province)
    • Fukuyama dialect (Fukuyama, Hiroshima)
  • Okayama dialect (Okayama Prefecture)
  • Yamaguchi dialect (Yamaguchi Prefecture)
• copula da group (eastern and western San'in region)
  • Iwami dialect (western Shimane Prefecture, formerly known as Iwami Province)
  • Inshū dialect or Tottori dialect (eastern Tottori Prefecture, formerly known as Inaba Province)
  • Tajima dialect (northern Hyōgo Prefecture, formaly known as Tajima Province)
  • Tango dialect (northernmost of Kyoto Prefecture, formerly known as Tango Province except Maizuru)

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.

Umpaku dialect

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

Types of Umpaku dialect include:

• Izumo dialect (eastern Shimane Prefecture, formaly known as Izumo Province)
• Yonago dialect (western Tottori Prefecture, formaly known as Hōki Province)
• Oki dialect (Oki islands of Shimane Prefecture)

Umpaku dialect, unique from other dialects of Chugoku region, is superficially resembles Tohoku dialects and is thus also called "Zuu zuu 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)".

Shikoku dialect

Types of Shikoku dialect:

• Awa dialect or Tokushima dialect (Tokushima Prefecture)
• Sanuki dialect (Kagawa Prefecture)
• Iyo dialect (Ehime Prefecture)
• Tosa dialect or Kōchi dialect (Kōchi Prefecture)
  • Hata Dialect (Hata district, westernmost of Kochi)

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, -yoo or -yuu instead of -yoru, and -choo or -chuu instead of -toru or -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.

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 particle batten meaning "but", a nominalization and question particle to instead of standard no, emphasis 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.

Hōnichi dialect

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 in eastern Kyushu.

Sub-dialects of Hōnichi dialect include:

• Kitakyūshū dialect (Kitakyūshū, Fukuoka Prefecture)
• Ōita dialect (Ōita Prefecture except Hita)
• Miyazaki dialect (Miyazaki Prefecture)

Miyazaki dialect is most noted for its monotony intonation, which is very different from that of Standard Japanese and other Hōnichi dialect. Miyazaki dialect shares with Hichiku and Satsugū dialects similarities such as to particle.

Hichiku dialect

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 western Kyushu.

Types of Hichiku dialect include:

• Hakata dialect (western Fukuoka Prefecture, formaly known as Chikuzen Province, especially Hakatain Fukuoka City)
• Chikugo dialect (southern Fukuoka Prefecture, formaly known as Chikugo Province)
  • Ōmuta dialect (Ōmuta city)
  • Yanagawa dialect (Yanagawa city)
• Chikuhō dialect (central Fukuoka Prefecture such as Iizuka)
• Saga dialect (Saga Prefecture)
• Nagasaki dialect (Nagasaki Prefecture)
  • Sasebo dialect (northern Nagasaki Prefecture around Sasebo)
  • Hirado dialect (Hirado Island, west of Nagasaki Prefecture)
• Kumamoto dialect (Kumamoto Prefecture)
• Hita dialect (Hita, southwestern Oita Prefecture)
• Iki dialect (Iki Island of Nagasaki Prefecture)
• Tsushima dialect (Tsushima Island of Nagasaki Prefecture)

Hakata-ben is the dialect of the Hakata of Fukuoka City. Throughout Japan, Hakata-ben is famous, amongst many other idiosyncrasies, for its use of "-to?" as a question, e.g., "What are you doing?", realized in Standard Japanese as "nani o shite iru no?", is "nan ba shiyotto?" or "nan shitōtō?" 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

Satsugū dialect

Main article: Kagoshima dialect

The name Satsugū (薩隅) is constructed by extracting a representative kanji from Satsuma (薩摩) and Ōsumi (大隅), names of old provinces in southern Kyushu.

Types of Satsugū dialect include:

• Satsuma dialect
• Osumi dialect
• Morokata dialect (Southwesternmost of Miyazaki)

Satsuma-ben, the dialect of Satsuma area of Kagoshima prefecture, 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.

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.

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.

See also

• Yotsugana, the differing pronunciation of the ジ, ヂ, ズ, and ヅ kana in different regions of Japan.

External links

• 日本語情報資料館 (The Japanese information library) (Japanese)
  • 日本言語地図 (The linguistic maps of Japan)
  • 全国方言談話データベース (The conversation database of dialects in all Japan)
  • 方言談話資料 (The conversation data of dialects)
  • 方言録音資料シリーズ (The recording data series of dialects)
• Dialectological Circle of Japan (English)
• Daniel Long's Japanese Linguistics Research Site (English)
• 方言研究の部屋 (The room of dialect) (Japanese)
• ふるさとの方言 (The dialects of Hometown) (Japanese)
• 全国方言WEB　ほべりぐ (All Japan Dialects WEB HOBERIGU) (Japanese)
• Kansai Dialect Self-study Site for Japanese Language Learner (English)
• Japanese Dialects (English)
• 日本全国方言プロジェクト (All Japan Dialect Project) (Japanese)