The Narada dialect (Japanese: 奈良田方言 ''narada hogen'') was a

Japanese dialect The dialects of the Japanese language fall into two primary clades, Eastern (including Tokyo) and Western (including Kyoto), with the dialects of Kyushu and Hachijō Island often distinguished as additional branches, the latter perhaps the most di ...

spoken in the village of Narada, Hayakawa, located in

Yamanashi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Yamanashi Prefecture has a population of 817,192 (1 January 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,465 km2 (1,724 sq mi). Yamanashi Prefecture borders Saitama Prefecture to the no ...

. Having formerly been isolated for centuries from surrounding areas, the dialect was considered a

language island A language island (a calque of German ''Sprachinsel''; also language enclave, language pocket) is an enclave of a language that is surrounded by one or more different languages. The term was introduced in 1847. Peter Auer, Frans Hinskens, Paul Ker ...

within the Tokai-Tosan dialect group, possessing various traits unique to Narada.

History

Narada was exceptionally isolated from ancient times; until the

Meiji era The is 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 colonization b ...

the nearest settlement was over 2 hours away on foot. Villagers married exclusively amongst themselves, and interactions with outsiders were rare. This environment fostered the persistence of older linguistic traits whilst also spurring the development of locally unique features. After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, various prefectural assemblies sought to have academic research conducted into the Narada dialect, with the resultant studies generating nationwide attention. Despite this, development of the nearby town of Hayakawa for electricity generation purposes, in addition to other factors, led to substantial changes in the lives of the residents. A following increase in

emigration Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanentl ...

and the continued ageing of its population meant that by the 1970's, young speakers had all but vanished, placing the dialect at risk of extinction. In 1998, all speakers were aged 40 or over, and by 2020 the dialect had fallen out of everyday use. Despite its sharp decline, a recent study found that the

pitch accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ( ...

and

grammar In linguistics, the grammar of a natural language is its set of structure, structural constraints on speakers' or writers' composition of clause (linguistics), clauses, phrases, and words. The term can also refer to the study of such constraint ...

of the Japanese spoken by current residents is heavily influenced by the former dialect.

Grammar

In the formerly long-secluded Narada, archaic grammar has been well preserved, with multiple unique traits.

Auxiliary verbs

* ''Nu'' (ぬ) and ''noo'' (のー) are used as negative auxiliary verbs. For example: ''kakanai'' (書かない ''don't write'') = ''kakanoo'' (かかのー). ''No'' is thought to originate from ''-nafu'' (-なふ) in Central Old Japanese, and is also found in another language island, the Ikawa dialect. * ''Too'' (とー) is used for the past tense of a verb. It is also used in other parts of Yamanashi Prefecture. For example: ''nonda'' (飲んだ drank) = ''nondoo'' (のんどー). * Usage of ''ra'' (ら) and ''zura'' (ずら) for conjecture and ''zaa'' (ざー) and ''zu'' (ず) for volition and persuasion is shared with the Koshu dialect.

Particles

* ''Sa'' (さ) is used as an equivalent to the directional particles ''ni'' (に) and ''he'' (へ) in standard Japanese. * ''Totte'' (とって) is used as an equivalent to the adversative conjunction ''keredo'' (けれど ''but, although''). * ''De'' (で) is used as a cause/reason-expressing conjunction, whilst ''node'' (ので ''because, so'') and ''kara'' (から same as ''node'') are rarely used.

References

{{Japanese language Japanese dialects Yamanashi Prefecture Culture in Yamanashi Prefecture