Asian DramaWiki Forum

chamcham wrote: But still, it'd be nice to hear shows from Osaka, Fukuoka, Hiroshima(or dare I say Kagoshima or Aomori).

Yanez wrote: ↑Jun 26th, '19, 09:18 Could anybody please suggest me more doramas with Tohoku dialect? I remember Itoh Misaki in "Yama Onna, Kabe Onna" (though I didn't remember that she was speaking in dialect also in "Tiger&Dragon", my bad) and there was some also in the more recent "Koi no Sanriku Ressha Kon de Iko!"...it's my favorite dialect by far! TIA!

Prince of Moles wrote: ↑Dec 29th, '06, 02:01 There are many dialects in Japan and recently you do see more of them in various places.

Take for example Nodame Canterbile.

Nodame when she is stressed or back home with her parents speaks with a light Kyushu dialect.
Her later teacher Eto speaks with an exaggerated Osaka dialect.
Most characters speak in the standard dialect which emerged from a fusion of Samurai dialect and Edo/Tokyo dialect.

Few dramas are entirely done in a particular dialect (since it won't sell to those who won't understand it) and thus they are hard to find (and groink has named 2 decent ones).

If you pay attention you will see characters with various dialects pop up. Some famous dialects you might encounter aside from the standard Japanese and the ones I mentioned above, are:


Osaka = there are at least 2 versions, one more working class which is what the manzai comedians tend to use, and another more refined dialect. Telling the difference between the 2 is really hard as it tends to be about the words used rather than the intonation.

Kyoto = this is the dialect that used to be considered the official dialect until around 400 years ago (well some would say 150 years). You can hear the Kyoto maiko and geishas, court aristocrats and members of the imperial family use this in any historical drama.

Note: Kansai ben can refer to Osaka dialect, Kyoto dialect, Kobe dialect, or sometimes even Nara dialect. It's best to think of Kansai ben as a dialect group.

Nagoya = this is the dialect that Hideyoshi spoke and you can hear him using it in the 2006 Taiga drama when he talks with his family.

Tosa = this dialect was made famous by Sakamoto Ryoma and other mid-nineteenth century revolutionaries that came out of Tosa. Intonations tend to follow the western Japanese pattern. Again you can hear this dialect in the 2006 taiga drama when the Yamauchi clan goes to Tosa.

Satsuma = or Kagoshima dialect (part of the Kyushu dialect group) is famous for being impossible to understand for people from outside of Kagoshima. Again 19th century revolutionaries from Satsuma like Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi spoke this dialect. The Imperial Japanese Navy also had some Satsuma dialect words since one of the major contributors to the early IJN was the Satsuma domain navy (the other was the Tokugawa shogunate navy).

Okinawa = or Ryukyu dialect is subject to debate because many experts think it ought be in its own linguistic group. It's that different from standard Japanese. You can hear this dialect in the Churasan series.

Above are dialects from Western Japan.
Below are dialects from Eastern Japan.

Edo = the dialect that the working class in Edo/Tokyo used to speak. Famous chracteristics are that the syllable "su" is often replaced by "tsu" and the syllable "hi" is often replaced by "shi." Some remnants of this survive, but mostly it has died. It was swamped by the standard Japanese that emerged from a fusion of Edo dialect and samurai dialect. You can hear some of this in the drama about Beat Takeshi's life, Kikujiro to Saki.

Tohoku = northeastern dialect group. One characteristic is the frequest use of "dakuon" (nasal? sounds) such as G, Z, D, B, etc. The word "yes" for example is "nda" in Fukushima dialect. Ito Misaki's character uses this in Tiger and Dragon (also she is from Fukushima so she obviously does an authentic Fukushima dialect).

Tsugaru dialect (part of the Tohoku dialect group) is famous for being the eastern dialect that people from outside Aomori cannot comprehend. Note: Satsuma and Tsugaru are at the extreme edge of what was Tokugawa Japan.

Echigo = This dialect is the one that the former prime minister Tanaka Kakuei and his daughter Tanaka Makiko used/use when they were/are at home in Niigata. One of the main features is that there is little distinction between the vowel sound of "e" and "i" This pattern occurs more broadly on the north-central part of the Japan Sea side of the country.

various Kanto dialects = each province near Edo/Tokyo used to have their own dialects, the use of "dabe" at the end of sentences is a remnant of many of these dialects. But with the emergence of a strong centralizing power center in Edo/Tokyo and recently with Radio and TV, these dialects (which were already relatively close to the Edo/Tokyo dialect) have more or less died. Either through elimination or through absorption into standard Japanese.

Hokkaido = some debate whether a Hokkaido dialect actually exists, but I think it does. It's not so much the intonations that are different from the standard Japanese, but the words used are different.

Finally because Japan had a rigid class system here more info for 300 years (1590-1868), there also emerged dialects that certain classes used. The most famous among them is the samurai dialect and you can hear this dialect in almost all historical dramas. This dialect really emerged after the Tokugawa shogunate implemented the system of alternate attendance in the 1630s. Alternate attendance brought many samurai from all over Japan to Edo and forced them to communicate with each other. This pushed many upper class samurai to abandon their geographical dialect and replace it with a new one. But this new samurai dialect was most likely based on the already existing Edo dialect.

Modern standard Japanese thus has an interesting genealogy.
In the 1600s the samurai dialect emerged from the Edo dialect of the time.
For 250 years the samurai dialect and the Edo dialect evolve in their own way.
Then in the late 1800s the samurai dialect and the Edo/Tokyo dialect merge again to create modern standard Japanese.

Because of these changes a lot of sounds were lost in standard Japanese that continue to exist in various dialects such as "wi," "wu", "we," "wo." Most recently the "kwa" sound was lost sometime in the 1950s from standard Japanese. But new sounds are being introducted (primarily from English) too such as the reintroduction of "wi" and "we."

Prince of Moles wrote: ↑Dec 29th, '06, 02:01 There are many dialects in Japan and recently you do see more of them in various places.

Take for example Nodame Canterbile.

Nodame when she is stressed or back home with her parents speaks with a light Kyushu dialect.
Her later teacher Eto speaks with an exaggerated Osaka dialect.
Most characters speak in the standard dialect which emerged from a fusion of Samurai dialect and Edo/Tokyo dialect.

Few dramas are entirely done in a particular dialect (since it won't sell to those who won't understand it) and thus they are hard to find (and groink has named 2 decent ones).

If you pay attention you will see characters with various dialects pop up. Some famous dialects you might encounter aside from the standard Japanese and the ones I mentioned above, are:


Osaka = there are at least 2 versions, one more working class which is what the manzai comedians tend to use, and another more refined dialect. Telling the difference between the 2 is really hard as it tends to be about the words used rather than the intonation.

Kyoto = this is the dialect that used to be considered the official dialect until around 400 years ago (well some would say 150 years). You can hear the Kyoto maiko and geishas, court aristocrats and members of the imperial family use this in any historical drama.

Note: Kansai ben can refer to Osaka dialect, Kyoto dialect, Kobe dialect, or sometimes even Nara dialect. It's best to think of Kansai ben as a dialect group.

Nagoya = this is the dialect that Hideyoshi spoke and you can hear him using it in the 2006 Taiga drama when he talks with his family.

Tosa = this dialect was made famous by Sakamoto Ryoma and other mid-nineteenth century revolutionaries that came out of Tosa. Intonations tend to follow the western Japanese pattern. Again you can hear this dialect in the 2006 taiga drama when the Yamauchi clan goes to Tosa.

Satsuma = or Kagoshima dialect (part of the Kyushu dialect group) is famous for being impossible to understand for people from outside of Kagoshima. Again 19th century revolutionaries from Satsuma like Saigo Takamori and Okubo Toshimichi spoke this dialect. The Imperial Japanese Navy also had some Satsuma dialect words since one of the major contributors to the early IJN was the Satsuma domain navy (the other was the Tokugawa shogunate navy).

Okinawa = or Ryukyu dialect is subject to debate because many experts think it ought be in its own linguistic group. It's that different from standard Japanese. You can hear this dialect in the Churasan series.

Above are dialects from Western Japan.
Below are dialects from Eastern Japan.

Edo = the dialect that the working class in Edo/Tokyo used to speak. Famous chracteristics are that the syllable "su" is often replaced by "tsu" and the syllable "hi" is often replaced by "shi." Some remnants of this survive, but mostly it has died. It was swamped by the standard Japanese that emerged from a fusion of Edo dialect and samurai dialect. You can hear some of this in the drama about Beat Takeshi's life, Kikujiro to Saki.

Tohoku = northeastern dialect group. One characteristic is the frequest use of "dakuon" (nasal? sounds) such as G, Z, D, B, etc. The word "yes" for example is "nda" in Fukushima dialect. Ito Misaki's character uses this in Tiger and Dragon (also she is from Fukushima so she obviously does an authentic Fukushima dialect).

Tsugaru dialect (part of the Tohoku dialect group) is famous for being the eastern dialect that people from outside Aomori cannot comprehend. Note: Satsuma and Tsugaru are at the extreme edge of what was Tokugawa Japan.

Echigo = This dialect is the one that the former prime minister Tanaka Kakuei and his daughter Tanaka Makiko used/use when they were/are at home in Niigata. One of the main features is that there is little distinction between the vowel sound of "e" and "i" This pattern occurs more broadly on the north-central part of the Japan Sea side of the country.

various Kanto dialects = each province near Edo/Tokyo used to have their own dialects, the use of "dabe" at the end of sentences is a remnant of many of these dialects. But with the emergence of a strong centralizing power center in Edo/Tokyo and recently with Radio and TV, these dialects (which were already relatively close to the Edo/Tokyo dialect) have more or less died. Either through elimination or through absorption into standard Japanese.

Hokkaido = some debate whether a Hokkaido dialect actually exists, but I think it does. It's not so much the intonations that are different from the standard Japanese, but the words used are different.

Finally because Japan had a rigid class system for 300 years (1590-1868), there also emerged dialects that certain classes used. The most famous among them is the samurai dialect and you can hear this dialect in almost all historical dramas. This dialect really emerged after the Tokugawa shogunate implemented the system of alternate attendance in the 1630s. Alternate attendance brought many samurai from all over Japan to Edo and forced them to communicate with each other. This pushed many upper class samurai to abandon their geographical dialect and replace it with a new one. But this new samurai dialect was most likely based on the already existing Edo dialect.

Modern standard Japanese thus has an interesting genealogy.
In the 1600s the samurai dialect emerged from the Edo dialect of the time.
For 250 years the samurai dialect and the Edo dialect evolve in their own way.
Then in the late 1800s the samurai dialect and the Edo/Tokyo dialect merge again to create modern standard Japanese.

Because of these changes a lot of sounds were lost in standard Japanese that continue to exist in various dialects such as "wi," "wu", "we," "wo." Most recently the "kwa" sound was lost sometime in the 1950s from standard Japanese. But new sounds are being introducted (primarily from English) too such as the reintroduction of "wi" and "we."