Saga dialect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article contains Japanese text.
Without proper rendering support,
you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of kanji or kana.

The Saga dialect (佐賀弁 Saga-ben?) is a dialect of the Japanese language widely spoken in Saga prefecture and some other areas, such as Isahaya. It is influenced by Kyushu dialect and Hichiku dialect. Saga-ben is further derived into dialects that encompass individual towns.

Contents

[edit] Characteristics

Many of Saga's dialectical properties are variants, in particles or conjugations, of regular Japanese.

  • Words are often repeated three times.
  • The sentence-ending particle "よ" becomes "ばい" or "たい".
  • The contrastive conjunction "ばってん" (somewhat equivalent to English's "however") replaces standard Japanese equivalents.
  • The operative particle "を" is replaced with "ば".

Ex.:手紙ば書いた=Wrote [a] letter.

  • The particle "が", when referring to other people, is replaced with "の".

Ex.:黒君の書いた=Kuro-kun wrote [it].

  • Traditional masu-form keigo is replaced by the suffix "~しんさっ", "~しんさる", "~しよんさっ", or "~しよんさる".

Ex.:手紙をかきよんさった=Wrote [polite] [a] letter.

  • The direction particles "に" and "へ" are replaced with "さい".

Ex.:学校さい行く=Go to school.

  • The explanatory "の" it replaced by "と".

Ex.:手紙を書いたと?= Wrote [a] letter [explanation request].

  • The continuative conjugation "~ている" becomes "とっ".

Ex.:書いとっ=[Someone is] writing.

  • In the passive conjugation of a verb, "れ" is taken out and "る" becomes a long vowel, or doubles the next consonant.

Ex.:書かれる (writing; passive voice) becomes replaced with 書かるう or 書かるっ.

Ex.: cold (寒い?) becomes 寒か.

  • Na-adjectives sometimes have a か added on, reminicent of the above characteristic. This seems to happen more in the south.

Ex.: じょうず becomes じょうずか.

  • Pronunciation is similar to Hakata ben in the following: "sa, shi, su, se, so" become "sha, shii, shu, she, sho". In addition, Saga-ben also has the unique pronunciations of "za, zu, ze, da, ga," and "na" rendered as "jya, jyu, jye, jya, gya," and "nya", respectively. "Nya" sounds particularly cat-like.
  • "~ない" conjugations become "ん" (the "ない" adjective itself becomes "なか"). This refects the negative rude/casual conjugation in normal Japanese. For example, where as 食べん would be rude in most of Japan, in Saga-ben it is standard.

Ex.:分からない becomes 分からん

  • I-adjectives' "い"s become "さ" in when the speaker wants to add strong emphasis.
  • I-adjectives' continuative form's "く" becomes a modifying "う" that elongates and possibly changes the vowel of the character before it.

Ex.:interesting (continuative) (おもしろく?) becomes "おもしろう"fun (continuative) (楽しく?) becomes 楽しゅう.

[edit] これ, それ, あれ, どれ Series

The Demonstrative series is uniquely pronounced in Saga-dialect.

  • The normal これ, それ, あれ, どれ series in Japanese (this, that, yon, and which respectively) has it's れ sounds replaced with い. 俺 also follows this pattern, and becomes おい. Indeed, many words follow this pattern; even 誰 becomes だい.
  • The related words どう, こう, and そう become どうがん, そうがん, and こうがん, respectively. An even more rustic conjugation set of these words is どうぎゃん, そうぎゃん, and こうぎゃん.

[edit] Vocabulary

Saga-ben contains lots of characteristic vocabulary. Examples are included (with standard Japanese, where applicable) in the following table:

Saga-ben vocabulary
Saga-ben Standard Japanese English gloss
おばっちゃん おばちゃん granny
いわじいにゃ 言わないのよ I'm not saying
おねぇさま お姉さま big sister/miss (honorative)
きんしゃ 来る Come
あばかん / Too small, and cannot be fit into
がばい すごく Terribly; extremely
~ごた のようだ It's that way
うーか 多い Many
うすか 怖い Scary
くさい だ!;だよ! (copula; affirmative particle)
こまか 小さい small
しぎーのする しびれる Fall asleep (of a limb)
じゃーた 出した came out
すらごと ぞらごと Falsehood
とっとっと 取っているの taken/reserved (w/explanation particle)
~とけ なのに despite~
~のごと みたいに (do/look) like
ふうけもん バカ idiot
みたんなか みっともない shameful; extremely
きゃーないた 疲れた tired
ぎゃーけした 風邪をひった caught a cold
~やろー 〜なんでしょう;〜だろ I guess; probably (rhetorical)
~やん 〜じゃん ain't it (affirmative).
えいくろった 酔っ払った inebriated
ひやがいーめし 昼食 lunch
いっちょん 全く completely
やぐらしい うるさい annoying
あちゃこちゃ あちこち here and there

[edit] Trivia

  • Saga-ben was heavily spoken in the 2006 film, and now television series, "Gabai bā-chan" (lit. fantastic grandma). The title itself is in Saga-ben.
  • A popular urban legend has it that two Saga-ben speakers met up in Tokyo and bystanders mistook their dialect for Chinese.

[edit] See also

Japanese dialects