Modern Japanese dialects

Some audio/video examples

Kansai dialects

• "Kansai Japanese Guide", from U. Tübingen: Textbook and videos

Kyushu dialects

• Fukuoka (Hakata) dialect
  • Transform a standard Japanese dialogue into Fukuoka dialect [YouTube]
  • Dialogue, with audio and grammar notes

• Various examples of Kagoshima dialect (far southern Kyushu)

Tohoku ('northeastern') dialects (broad area! where are these from, exactly?)

• The poem Ame ni mo makezu read with Tohoku phonology
  • FYI: Text of the poem (by Miyazawa Kenji, 1896-1933)

• A vending machine that does 'Tohoku-ben'

Lexical differences

Many dialects differ in lexical items -- which morphemes are used to express which meaning

• Lexical morphemes (nouns, verbs, adjectives; derivational affixes)
• Grammatical morphemes (inflectional affixes, postpositions, complementizers)

Dialect maps: Phonology

Graphics shown in class will be available on Sakai (linked from this page) shortly.

• Map of the modern outcomes of older */zi di zu du/ (Mase 1977)

• Listen to the Tohoku examples (above); what phonological differences from standard Japanese can you identify?

• Pitch accent in Japanese dialects (Shibatani 1990, ch 9)
  • Examples of pitch accent classes for 2-mora nouns in various parts of Japan
  • Comparison across pitch accent classes for five major dialect areas
  • Map showing distribution of types of pitch-accent systems

Dialect maps: Morphosyntax

• Most links here are from the web site for the Hoogen bunpoo zenkoku tizu ("Grammar atlas of Japanese dialects"), compiled by Kokken (the National Institute for Japanese Language)
  • List of atlas pages with PDF versions

Case markers and "particles"

• Nominative case marker (SJ: ga)
  • With inanimate subject [PDF]
  • With SSS animate subject [PDF]
  • For marking structural object of a stative Experiencer-subject verb [PDF]
• Accusative case marker (SJ: o) [PDF]
• 'because' (SJ: kara) [PDF]

Verb inflection

• Nonpast form of 'to open' (SJ: ake-ru) - polysyllabic vowel-root verb [PDF]
• Negative form of 'to see' (SJ: mi-na-i) - monosyllabic vowel-root verb [PDF]
• Negative form of 'to borrow' (SJ: kari-na-i) - polysyllabic vowel-root verb [PDF]

• The Tokyo/SJ -te+i-ru form : Do any dialects distinguish the progressive and resultative forms?
  • Progressive form of 'to fall' (of flower petals, leaves) (SJ: tit-te i-ru) [PDF]
  • Resultative form of 'to fall' (of flower petals, leaves) (SJ: tit-te i-ru) [PDF]

• Some past-tense forms of consonant verbs
  • /kaw-/ 'buy' [PDF]
  • /kas-/ 'lend' [PDF]
  • /tob-/ 'fly' [PDF]

• Attempting to investigate the copula (there's no Kokken map for this specifically)
  • Look at the dialect map for 'it's probably rain/it must be rain' (SJ: ame daroo) [PDF]
  • The blue symbols are cases where the copula is used; look for regional differences within the blue category

The Western/Eastern dialect divide

• Map from Shibatani (1990), available on Blackboard under Course Documents > Graphics for class discussions > Graphics for "Dialects" class
  • Shows a "bundle" of morphosyntactic isoglosses at the boundary between Western and Eastern dialect areas

• For comparison: A topographic map of Japan