The small group of , natively called , depending on classification, either are the most divergent form of
Japanese, or comprise a branch of
Japonic languages
Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan () is a language family comprising Japanese language, Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and sig ...
(alongside mainland Japanese,
Northern Ryukyuan, and
Southern Ryukyuan). Hachijō is currently spoken on two of the
Izu Islands
The are a group of volcanic islands stretching south and east from the Izu Peninsula of Honshū, Japan. Administratively, they form two towns and six villages; all part of Tokyo Prefecture. The largest is Izu Ōshima, usually called simply Ōsh ...
south of
Tokyo
Tokyo, officially the Tokyo Metropolis, is the capital of Japan, capital and List of cities in Japan, most populous city in Japan. With a population of over 14 million in the city proper in 2023, it is List of largest cities, one of the most ...
(
Hachijō-jima
is a volcano, volcanic Islands of Japan, Japanese island in the Philippine Sea. It is about south of the special wards of Tokyo. It is part of the Izu Islands, Izu archipelago and within the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park. Its only municipalit ...
and the smaller
Aogashima) as well as on the
Daitō Islands
The are an archipelago consisting of three isolated coral islands, administered by Japan, in the Philippine Sea southeast of Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawa. The islands have a total area of and a population of 2,107.
Administratively, the whole gr ...
of
Okinawa Prefecture
is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan. It consists of three main island groups—the Okinawa Islands, the Sakishima Islands, and the Daitō Islands—spread across a maritime zone approximately 1,000 kilometers east to west an ...
, which were settled from Hachijō-jima in the
Meiji period
The was an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868, to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonizatio ...
. It was also previously spoken on the island of
Hachijō-kojima
is a small volcanic deserted Japanese island in the Philippine Sea approximately south of Tokyo, and west of Hachijō-jima, in the northern Izu archipelago. Administratively, the island is within Hachijō, Tokyo, Japan.
Geography
Orient ...
, which is now abandoned. Based on the criterion of
mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between different but related language varieties in which speakers of the different varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. Mutual intelli ...
, Hachijō may be considered a distinct Japonic language, rather than a dialect of Japanese.
Hachijō is a descendant of
Eastern Old Japanese
Eastern Old Japanese (abbreviated as EOJ; ) is a group of heterogenous varieties of Old Japanese, historically spoken in the east of Japan, in the area traditionally called ''Togoku'' or ''Azuma''.
Classification
Eastern Old Japanese constitut ...
, retaining several unique grammatical and phonetic features recorded in the
Azuma-dialect poems of the 8th-century ''
Man'yōshū
The is the oldest extant collection of Japanese (poetry in Classical Japanese), compiled sometime after AD 759 during the Nara period. The anthology is one of the most revered of Japan's poetic compilations. The compiler, or the last in ...
'' and the ''
Fudoki
are ancient reports on provincial culture, geography, and oral tradition presented to the reigning monarchs of Japan, also known as local gazetteers. They contain agricultural, geographical, and historical records as well as mythology and ...
'' of
Hitachi Province
was an old provinces of Japan, old province of Japan in the area of Ibaraki Prefecture.Louis Frédéric, Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Hitachi fudoki''" in . It was sometimes called . Hitachi Province bordered on Shimōsa Province, S ...
. Hachijō also has lexical similarities with the
dialects of Kyushu and even the
Ryukyuan languages
The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family.
Ju ...
; it is not clear if these indicate that the southern Izu islands were settled from that region, if they are loans brought by sailors traveling among the southern islands, or if they might be independent retentions from
Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial.
Old Ja ...
.
Hachijō is a
moribund language
An endangered language or moribund language is a language that is at risk of disappearing as its speakers die out or shift to speaking other languages. Language loss occurs when the language has no more native speakers and becomes a " dead langua ...
with a small and dwindling population of primarily elderly speakers. Since at least 2009, the
town of Hachijō has supported efforts to educate its younger generations about the language through primary school classes, ''
karuta
are Culture of Japan, Japanese playing cards. Playing cards were introduced to Japan by Portuguese traders during the mid-16th century. These early decks were used for trick-taking games. The earliest indigenous ''karuta'' was invented in the ...
'' games, and Hachijō-language theater productions. Nevertheless, native speakers are estimated to number in the "low hundreds," and younger generations are not learning or using the language at home.
Classification and dialects
The Izu Islands dialects of Hachijō are classified into eight groups according to the various historical villages within
Hachijō Subprefecture. On Hachijō-jima, these are Ōkagō, Mitsune, Nakanogō, Kashitate, and Sueyoshi; on Hachijō-kojima, these were Utsuki and Toriuchi; and the village of
Aogashima is its own group. The dialects of Ōkagō and Mitsune are very similar, as are those of Nakanogō and Kashitate, while the Aogashima and Sueyoshi dialects are distinct from these two groups. The Utsuki and Toriuchi dialects have not been subcategorized within Hachijō, though the Toriuchi dialect has been noted to be very similar to the Ōkagō dialect in phonology. The dialect(s) of the Daitō Islands also remain uncategorized.
The Hachijō language and its dialects are classified by John Kupchik and the
National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL), respectively, within the Japonic family as follows:
*
Proto-Japonic
Proto-Japonic, also known as Proto-Japanese or Proto-Japanese–Ryukyuan, is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed language ancestral to the Japonic languages, Japonic language family. It has been reconstructed by using a combination of int ...
** Proto-Japanese
***
Eastern Old Japanese
Eastern Old Japanese (abbreviated as EOJ; ) is a group of heterogenous varieties of Old Japanese, historically spoken in the east of Japan, in the area traditionally called ''Togoku'' or ''Azuma''.
Classification
Eastern Old Japanese constitut ...
****Hachijō language
***** Ōkagō & Mitsune dialects (Downhill dialects)
***** Nakanogō & Kashitate dialects (Uphill dialects)
***** Sueyoshi dialect
***** Aogashima dialect
***Central
Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial.
Old Ja ...
(including Western Old Japanese)
****
Japanese language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...
** Proto-Ryukyuan
***
Ryukyuan languages
The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family.
Ju ...
The dialects of Aogashima and Utsuki are quite distinct from the other varieties (and each other). The Aogashima dialect exhibits slight grammatical differences from other varieties, as well as noticeable lexical differences. The Utsuki dialect, on the other hand, is lexically similar to the Toriuchi dialect and those of Hachijō-jima, but has undergone several unique sound shifts such as the elimination of the phonemes and ; the loss of the latter is referred to as being ''sitagirecjaQcja'' "cut-tongued" by those of other villages, or ''citagije'' in Utsuki.
The dialects of Hachijō-jima are, like its villages, often referred as being or . The villages of Ōkagō and Mitsune in the northwest are Downhill, while the villages of Nakanogō, Kashitate, and Sueyoshi in the south are Uphill—though the Sueyoshi dialect is not particularly close to those of the other "Uphill" villages. Therefore, the Sueyoshi dialect is often excluded from the term "Uphill dialects."
As the number of remaining speakers of Hachijō as a whole is unknown, the numbers of remaining speakers of each dialect are also unknown. Since the abandonment of Hachijō-kojima in 1969, some speakers of the Utsuki and Toriuchi dialects have moved to Hachijō-jima and continue to speak the Hachijō language, though their speech seems to have converged with that of the Downhill dialects. As late as 2009, the Toriuchi dialect had at least one remaining speaker, while the Utsuki dialect had at least five.
[山田平右エ門 (Yamada Heiuemon), 2010. 消えていく島言葉~八丈語の継承と存続を願って~ ''(A Disappearing Island Language ~Wishing for the Inheritance and Survival of the Hachijō Language~),'' pp. 181–182. ]
Phonology
Phonotactics
Like Standard Japanese, Hachijō syllables are (C)(j)V(C), that is, with an optional syllable onset C, optional medial glide , a mandatory syllable nucleus V, and an optional coda or . The coda can only be present word-medially, and syllable nuclei can be short or long vowels.
The medial glide represents
palatalization of the consonant it follows, which also involves a change in
place
Place may refer to:
Geography
* Place (United States Census Bureau), defined as any concentration of population
** Census-designated place, a populated area lacking its own municipal government
* "Place", a type of street or road name
** Of ...
or
manner of articulation
articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the articulators ( speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One parameter of manner is ''stricture,'' that is, h ...
for certain consonants. Like in
Japanese, these changes can also be analyzed phonemically using separate sets of palatalized and non-palatalized consonants. However, from a morphological and cross-dialectal perspective, it is more straightforward to treat palatalized consonants as sequences of consonants and , as is done in this article, following the phonemic analysis made by Kaneda (2001). Furthermore, when a vowel begins with the
close front vowel , the preceding consonant (if any) becomes palatalized just as if a medial were present.
Hachijō contrasts three
syllable weight
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical Indo-European verse, as developed in Greek, Sanskrit, and Latin, distinctions of syllabl ...
s depending on their
rimes
Rimes is a surname. It is an English surname of unexplained origin, as well as a Huguenot surname which possibly originated as a habitational surname from the city of Reims. Variant spellings include Rhymes. Statistics compiled by Patrick Hanks o ...
:
* ''Light syllables'' end in a short vowel with no coda (e.g., ''ko'').
* ''Heavy syllables'' have either a short vowel with a coda (e.g., ''koN''), or a long vowel with no coda (e.g., ''koo'').
* ''Superheavy syllables'' have both a long vowel and a coda (e.g., ''kooN'').
Unlike light and heavy syllables, superheavy syllables are strongly avoided in Hachijō, and they are forbidden outright in most verbal inflections. Where they would occur, they are generally resolved by deletion of the coda or by shortening of the long vowel. Where the latter occurs, it can be written with a
tie or as a short vowel, e.g., ⟨kogo͡oN⟩ or ⟨kogoN⟩ "in this way"; the former practice will be followed here. Though these shortened vowels are pronounced the same length as short vowels, they still follow the dialectal correspondences for long vowels (listed below).
Finally, there are a small number of words that contain
''N'' as a syllable nucleus instead of a vowel, such as ''NNmakja'' "tasty" (stem ''NNma-'', cognate to Japanese ''uma-i'').
Vowels
There are five short vowels found in all varieties of Hachijō:
Many of Hachijō’s long vowels are properly
diphthong
A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
s, though the majority of them vary in quality based on region, being long monophthongs in some dialects and diphthongs in others. Therefore, in this article, the term "long vowel" will be used to include diphthongs as well. There are relatively straightforward correspondences between the dialectsʼ long vowels:
The long vowels ''aĭ'', ''uĭ'', and ''oĭ'' are comparatively rare, arising mainly from contractions.
Lastly, there are a very small number of
discourse marker
A discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. Since their main function is at the level of discourse (sequences of utterances) rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, discou ...
s that contain
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are p ...
s, such as ''oĩ'' "Oh my!" and ''hõõ'' "Oh?" or "Oho!"
Consonants
Hachijō contains roughly the same consonants as Standard Japanese, with most consonants able to be followed by all vowels as well as by the medial glide .
Phonological processes
In addition to the variations described above, Hachijō also exhibits a handful of other conditioned sound alternations:
Affrication of and
When followed by the high vowels or (short or long), the plosive consonants ''t'' and ''d'' become
sibilant affricates, merging into ''c'' and ''z'' respectively, which is also reflected in orthography (as shown here). This change happens in addition to the palatalization of coronal consonants described below.
Palatalization of coronal consonants
When followed by the vowel (short or long), or when combined with the medial glide , the coronal nasal ''n'' as well as all coronal obstruents—namely, ''t'', ''d'', ''c'', ''z'', ''s''—change from an
alveolar place of articulation to a
palatal
The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity.
A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly sepa ...
one. This change happens in addition to the affrication of ''t'' and ''d'' mentioned previously. Thus, ''t-j'' and ''c-j'' become ''cj'' , ''d-j'' and ''z-j'' become ''zj'' , ''s-j'' becomes ''sj'' , and ''n-j'' becomes ''nj'' .
The consonant ''j'' is already palatal in articulation, reducing any would-be sequences of to simply .
Lastly, the coronal affricates ''c'' and ''z'' have a tendency to be sporadically palatalized to ''cj'' and ''zj''; compare Utsuki ''mizoma'' and Kashitate ''mizjoma'' "sewer, drainage," cognate to Japanese 溝 ''mizo'' "ditch."
Vowel coalescence
Hachijō generally disallows vocalic segments in hiatus except for in the long vowels listed above. Where such a hiatus would appear (from compounding, affixation, consonant elision, etc.), coalescence generally occurs instead. For combinations of two vowels, the following chart gives a general overview:
Noteworthy irregularities or exceptions include:
* ''a-wo'' → ''ou'', seen in the inflection of Class 1.1Aʼ verbs whose stems end in ''...aw-'', such as ''utaw-'' "to sing" → attributive
*''utaw-o'' → ''utou''.
* ''e-wa'' → ''a'', seen on personal pronouns with the topic-marking ''-wa'' in some dialects (''ware-wa'' → ''wara'').
* ''o-wa'' → ''a'', seen in the verbal inflection of the stative ''-ar-'' (
*''-arowa'' → ''-ara''), copula ''dara'' (
*''darowa'' → ''dara''), new-type negative ''-Nn(ak)-'' (
*''-Nnakowa'' → ''-Nnaka''), etc.
And although these rules are usually followed etymologically as well, there are some exceptions:
*
*''uwa'' → ''a'', seen in words like
*''kuwa'' → ''ka'' "hoe" (related to Standard Japanese 鍬 ''kuwa'').
*
*''ie'' → ''ei'', seen in several Class 2 verbs such as
*''kierowa'' → ''keirowa'' "to disappear" (related to Old Japanese 消ゆ ''ki
1yu'', ''ki
1ye-'').
*
*''ue'' → ''ei'', seen in words like
*''suerowa'' → ''seirowa'' "to set" (related to Standard Japanese 据える ''sueru'').
*
*''ui'' → ''ei'', seen in words like
*''uttui'' → ''uQcei'' "the day before yesterday" (related to Standard Japanese 一昨日 ''ototoi'').
*
*''ei'' → ''ee'', seen in a single word:
*''tame(s)ite'' → ''tameete'' "attempting" (participle form of ''tamesowa'' "to attempt," related to Japanese 試す ''tamesu'').
*
*''owa'' → ''ou'', seen in a single word:
*''kowasowa'' → ''kousowa'' "to destroy" (related to Japanese 壊す ''kowasu'').
Coalescence can be blocked by
leveling and reversed or altered by influence from other dialects or mainland Japanese.
=Non-coalescence
=
As an exception to the vowel coalescence rules given above, there are special situations where the vowel can diphthongize with another short vowel ''a'', ''o'', or ''u'' without coalescing with it, forming the long vowels ''aĭ'', ''oĭ'', or ''uĭ'' instead of the expected ''ee'', ''ei'', or ''ii''. Many notable examples of this occur when the light syllable ''re'' is contracted to , such as in ''waĭra'' "we" (from ''warera'') and ''nomaraĭdou'' "despite drinking" (from ''nomararedou''). The frequency of such contracted forms depends on the dialect and individual.
Non-coalescing vowels are comparatively common in the Utsuki dialect, as , , and often occur in place of other dialectsʼ ''ri'', ''ru,'' and ''re'' due to the loss of the phoneme word-medially. As a result, former ''ari'' and ''aru'' have merged into the reflexes and of Common Hachijō ''ei'' and ''ou''. Compare the following vocabulary:
Consonant gemination
The majority of consonants undergo no special changes when geminated, merely becoming longer, e.g.: ''t'' → ''Qt'' . However, there are a few main exceptions. These first exceptions usually arise by the prefixing of -final suffixes onto words:
* Gemination of ''h'': When an ''h'' is made geminate, it becomes ''Qp'' —for example, ''oQ-'' (intensifier) + ''hesowa'' "to push" → ''oQpesowa'' "to push."
* Gemination of ''n'' and ''m'': When an ''n'' or ''m'' is made geminate, it becomes ''Nn'' or ''Nm'' , respectively—for example, ''hiQ-'' (intensifier) + ''magarowa'' "to bend" → ''hiNmagarowa'' "to bend."
* Gemination of ''s'': When an ''s'' or ''sj'' is made geminate, an
excrescent causes it to become ''Qc'' or ''Qcj'' , respectively—for example, ''hiQ-'' (intensifier) + ''simerowa'' "to tie" → ''hiQcimerowa'' "to tie." This feature occurs in all dialects except for Sueyoshi, which has ''Qs'' and ''Qsj'' in these cases.
Lastly, in the Uphill dialects (and occasionally for other dialect speakers as well), a sound shift has occurred wherein /N/ has become /Q/ when followed by a voiced obstruent:
* Special gemination of ''b, d, g, z'': In the Uphill dialects, etymological ''Nb, Nd, Ng,'' and ''Nz'' have often changed into geminate ''Qb'', ''Qd'', ''Qg'', and ''Qz.'' For example, the participle of ''jomowa'' "to read" in the Kashitate dialect is ''joQde'' in contrast to most other dialectsʼ ''joNde'' .
''Rendaku''
Like all Japonic languages, Hachijō exhibits , wherein word-initial voiceless obstruents alternate with voiced ones in some compounds. The alternation is straightforward in Hachijō:
All other consonants are unaffected by ''rendaku''.
Grammar
Hachijō is
head-final
In linguistics, head directionality is a proposed Principles and parameters, parameter that classifies languages according to whether they are head-initial (the head (linguistics), head of a phrase precedes its Complement (linguistics), complement ...
,
left-branching
In linguistics, branching refers to the shape of the parse trees that represent the structure of sentences. Assuming that the language is being written or transcribed from left to right, parse trees that grow down and to the right are ''right-bra ...
, and
topic-prominent; often
omits nouns that can be understood from context; and has default
subject–object–verb word order. Nouns do not exhibit
grammatical gender
In linguistics, a grammatical gender system is a specific form of a noun class system, where nouns are assigned to gender categories that are often not related to the real-world qualities of the entities denoted by those nouns. In languages wit ...
, nor do they usually indicate
grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a Feature (linguistics), feature of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement (linguistics), agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and many other ...
.
Hachijō preserves several grammatical features from Old Japanese—particularly Eastern Old Japanese (EOJ)—that are not reflected in Modern Standard Japanese, for example:
* Verbal adjectives use the attributive ending ''-ke'', from EOJ. Contrast Western Old Japanese ''-ki
1'', Modern Japanese ~い ''-i''.
* Verbs use the attributive ending ''-o ~ -ro'', from EOJ. Contrast Western Old Japanese and Modern Japanese ''-u ~ -ru''.
* Verbs use the stative derivation ''-ar-'', from EOJ. Contrast Western Old Japanese ''-e
1r-'', obsolete in Modern Japanese.
* Verbs use the past tense ''-ci ~ -zi'', from Old Japanese ''-si'' (attributive form of ''-ki
1''). This affix is obsolete in Modern Japanese.
* Verbs use the conjectural extension ''-naw-'', descended from EOJ ''-nam-''. Contrast Western Old Japanese ''-ram-'', Modern Japanese ''-rō''.
* The existence verb ''arowa'' is used with all subjects, without the
animate–inanimate (''iru–aru'') distinction made in Standard Japanese.
** Relatedly, the verb ''irowa'' (cognate to Japanese ''iru'') has only its original meaning of "to sit."
* The particles ''ga'' and ''no'' are both used to mark the
nominative
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case, or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb, or (in Latin and formal variants of E ...
and
genitive case
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive ca ...
s.
* Many interrogative particles are based on ''an-'', such as ''ani'' "what," ''aNde'' "why," and ''aNsei'' "why." Contrast the Japanese cognates based on ''nan-'': 何 ''nani'' "what," なんで ''nande'' "why," and なぜ ''naze'' "why".
* The Japonic grammatical phenomenon of still occurs with the question particle ''ka'' (related to Japanese か ''ka'') and the focus particles ''ka'' and ''koo'' (perhaps related to Japanese こそ ''koso''). This phenomenon started disappearing in Japanese in
Late Middle Japanese
was a stage of the Japanese language following Early Middle Japanese and preceding Early Modern Japanese. It was a period of transition in which the language shed many of its archaic features and became closer to its modern form.
The period ...
, and it was lost entirely in Standard Japanese around the Edo Period.
* Many cases of Proto-Japanese
*''e'' and
*''o'' are reflected as Hachijo ''e'' and ''o'', as seen in EOJ. Contrast Western Old Japanese, which usually merged these vowels into ''i
1'' and ''u''.
Hachijō has also had developments and innovations not found in Modern Standard Japanese:
* The final verb ending ''-u ~ -ru'' has been replaced by a new declarative ''-owa ~ -rowa'' for many uses.
* The participle (''te''-form) of ''k''- and ''g''-stem verbs end in ''-Qte'' and ''-Nde'', in contrast to most Japanese dialectsʼ ''-ite'' and ''-ide''.
* Several verb affixes have arisen based around an optative-like suffix ''-oosi'', related in some way to the Middle Japanese optative ~ま欲し ''-(a)maosi''.
Vocabulary
Hachijō contains a large number of vocabulary words whose phonetic shapes are not predictable from their Japanese cognates. These differences often reflect forms Hachijō inherited from Eastern Old Japanese (rather than from mainland Japanese’s ancestor of Western-Central Old Japanese) or irregular sound changes in one or both languages.
Hachijō also preserves vocabulary that has become obsolete in most Japanese dialects, such as:
There are some words which do occur in standard Japanese, but with different meanings:
Lastly, Hachijō also has unique vocabulary words whose relationship to Japonic are unclear or unknown:
See also
*
Japanese language
is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...
*
Japanese dialects
The of the Japanese language fall into two primary clades, Eastern (including modern capital Tokyo) and Western (including old capital Kyoto), with the dialects of Kyushu and Hachijō Island often distinguished as additional branches, the latter ...
*
Japanese phonology
Japanese phonology is the system of sounds used in the pronunciation of the Japanese language. Unless otherwise noted, this article describes the standard variety of Japanese based on the Tokyo dialect.
There is no overall consensus on the nu ...
References
Works cited
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
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Further reading
Sound clip and transcription of Hachijō
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hachijo dialects
Japanese dialects
Languages of Japan
Japonic languages
Endangered languages of Japan