The of Japanese

Japanese language

is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 is spoken by people from Ehime Prefecture

Ehime Prefecture

is a prefecture in northwestern Shikoku, Japan. The capital is Matsuyama.-History:Until the Meiji Restoration, Ehime prefecture was known as Iyo Province...

 in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. The name is a remnant of the Ehime area's historical name, Iyo Province

Iyo Province

was an old province of Japan in the area that is today Ehime Prefecture on Shikoku. Iyo bordered on Awa, Sanuki, and Tosa Provinces. It was sometimes called ....

.

Accents vary somewhat by geography within the prefecture. The southern area is particularly influenced by the Kyūshū dialect, while the central and eastern districts have accents similar to Kansai dialect.

Characteristics

The Iyo dialect is an old one with many rustic characteristics and modifications of standard Japanese grammar.

• ya (や) replaces da (だ) as the casual copula
• ken (けん) replaces kara (から) as in "because"
• yaken (やけん) is used instead of dakara (だから)
• oru (おる) replaces iru (いる) as the verb "to be" for animate objects

This leads to two alternate conjugations of the continuative form (～ている -te iru):

• -toru (～とる) is a contraction of -te oru
• V-stem + -yoru (～よる) is a slurring of oru

Example: "What are you doing?" (何してるの？ nani shiteru no? in standard Japanese) becomes either

• nani shitoru no? (何しとるの？) or
• nani shiyoru no? (何しよるの？)
• n (ん) as a contraction of sentence-final no (の)

Example: The second "What are you doing?" above, nani shiyoru no? is often contracted to nani shiyon? (何しよん？) or nani shon? (何しょん？)

• ya and wai (わい) can be emphatic sentence-final particles, like yo (よ)
• Negative potential forms ("can't X") are sometimes expressed as yō + V-neg. (yō is an onbin of 良く yoku, so literally, "not well Xed")

Example: "Can't do" (できない dekinai in standard Japanese) becomes yō sen (ようせん）

"Can't go" (行けない ikenai in standard Japanese) becomes yō ikan （よう行かん)

• Especially among the elderly, kogai (こがい), sogai (そがい), and dogai (どがい) are used for "this (kind of~)", "that (kind of~)", and "which (kind of~)", respectively (konna こんな, sonna そんな, donna　どんな in standard Japanese).
• zonamoshi (ぞなもし) is the most famous sentence-final particle of Iyo dialect because of used in Botchan
  Botchan
  Botchan is a novel written by Natsume Sōseki in 1906. It is considered to be one of the most popular novels in Japan, read by most Japanese during their childhood. The central theme of the story is morality.-Narrative:...
  
  , a famous novel by Natsume Sōseki
  Natsume Soseki
  , born ', is widely considered to be the foremost Japanese novelist of the Meiji period . He is best known for his novels Kokoro, Botchan, I Am a Cat and his unfinished work Light and Darkness. He was also a scholar of British literature and composer of haiku, Chinese-style poetry, and fairy tales...
  
  , but zonamoshi is an obsolete characteristic now.

Regional variations

These patterns are found mostly in the Nanyo (southern) region:

• ga (が) replaces no (の) in some contexts:
• "Explanatory/inquisitive no" — "What are you doing?" (何してるの？ nani shiteru no? in standard Japanese) becomes nani shiteru ga? (何してるが？)

In combination with the alternate form of the continuative mentioned above, this is usually rendered as nani shiyoru ga? (何しよるが？)

• "Although -noni" (～のに) — "But that's what you said!" (そう言ったのに！ sō itta noni! in standard Japanese) becomes sō itta gani! (そう言ったがに！)
• Especially in Yawatahama
  Yawatahama, Ehime
  is a city located in the southwestern part of Ehime, Japan and has the largest fish market on Shikoku. The Mikan is the featured agricultural product....
  
  , -teya (てや) is an emphatic suffix, usually seen in sōteya (そうてや), which is equivalent to sōdayo (そうだよ)

This is thought to be a contraction along the lines of sō ya to itta ya → sō yatte ya → sōteya

Vocabulary

Some of the vocabulary in the dialect is readily understandable by speakers of standard Japanese, but many items are so different as to cause significant confusion. An example often proffered by locals is kaku かく, "to move/carry". For instance, it might be used in the context of a classroom—"Move your desk" (机をかいて tsukue o kaite). This would be incomprehensible to a non-local; a speaker of standard Japanese would interpret this as either "draw a desk" or "scratch your desk".

Iyo dialect vocabulary

Iyo dialect	Standard Japanese	English
いぬ	去る	to go away
かく	担ぐ	to carry/to shoulder
おらぶ	叫ぶ	to shout
行きし	行く途中	currently going/en route
帰りし	帰る途中	currently returning
帰ってこーわい	帰ります	to go back/go home
行ってこーわい	行ってきます	"I'm leaving"
かまん	良い/構わない	good
もげる	はずれる	to be disconnected
つい	同じ/いっしょ	the same
たいぎぃ	しんどい/面倒くさい	tiring/bothersome
ぬくい	あたたかい	warm, mild
むぐ	むく	to peel, to skin

External links

• IkataWiki: Iyo dialect - Analysis of Iyo dialect grammar
• Iyo dialect dictionary (Japanese)
• Vocabulary list (Japanese)