Dialect card

A dialect card (Japanese: 方言札, Hepburn: hōgen fuda) was a system of punishment used in Japanese regional schools in post-Meiji Era to promote standard speech. It was modelled after similar policy in Europe but particularly of French Vergonha.

Before the Meiji Restoration, Japan followed the Chinese classical system where written scripts and grammar was based on classical Japanese from 8th century. All educated classes could write in classical style while speech could be varied. Meiji government, in emulation to European nation state, created standard Japanese speech based on Kansai/Tokyo dialect and instituted various policy to suppress regional/feudal difference.

Use of Hogen fuda was most prominent in Tohoku and Kyushu region (in which Okinawa is a province) as they are geographically and linguistically most distant from Tokyo dialect. It had effect of making many regional Japanese tongues into somewhat of accent though certain noticeably feature still remains. The issue is most prominent in regard to Ryukyuan language as there is a group which advocate Ryukyuan to be officially recognised by Japanese government as a language (and Okinawa as a nation). While many mainland regional "dialects" in Japanese are also unintelligible and at least Tsugaru "dialect" in north is considered just as distinct as Ryukyuan, there is no movement in the mainland Japan for regional dialect to be recognised as language.

In Okinawa, the card was initially voluntarily adopted by Okinawan students at the start of the 20th century, but became mandatory as assimilation policies increased following 1917. A student who spoke Okinawan would be forced to wear the card, until another student also spoke in Okinawan, and then it would pass to the new transgressor, with the student wearing it at the end of the school day punished by the teachers.^[1][2]

See also

• Welsh Not, a similar punishment for Welsh-speaking students
• Vergonha
• Symbole, a similar punishment for Breton-speaking students

References