The is a group of
Japanese dialects
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 ...
spoken in central
San'in
The is an area in the southwest of Honshū, the main island of Japan. It consists of the northern part of the Chūgoku region, facing the Sea of Japan.
Etymology
The name San'in in the Japanese language is formed from two kanji characters. T ...
. The name ''Unpaku'' (雲伯) is constructed by extracting a representative
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
from ''
Izumo'' (出雲) and ''
Hōki
was a after '' Jingo-keiun'' and before ''Ten'ō''. This period spanned the years from October 770 through January 781. The reigning emperor was .
Change of era
* 770 : The new era name was created to mark an event or series of events. The p ...
'' (伯耆), the names of former provinces of this region.
The Umpaku dialects are:
* Izumo dialect (eastern
Shimane Prefecture, formerly known as
Izumo Province)
* Yonago dialect (western
Tottori Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Tottori Prefecture is the least populous prefecture of Japan at 570,569 (2016) and has a geographic area of . Tottori Prefecture borders Shimane Prefecture to the west, Hiro ...
centered on
Yonago
is a city in western Tottori Prefecture, Japan, facing the Sea of Japan and making up part of the boundary of Lake Nakaumi. It is adjacent to Shimane Prefecture and across the lake from its capital of Matsue. It is the prefecture's second larges ...
)
* Oki dialect (
Oki islands
The is an archipelago in the Sea of Japan, the islands of which are administratively part of Oki District, Shimane Prefecture, Japan. The islands have a total area of . Only four of the around 180 islands are permanently inhabited. Much of the ...
of Shimane Prefecture)
Pronunciation
Umpaku dialect, especially Izumo-ben, uniquely among
dialects in the Chūgoku region, superficially resembles
Tōhoku dialect
The , commonly called 東北弁 ''Tōhoku-ben'', is a group of the Japanese dialects spoken in the Tōhoku region, the northeastern region of Honshū. Toward the northern part of Honshū, the Tōhoku dialect can differ so dramatically from stand ...
s in pronunciation and is thus also called ''Zūzū-ben''. It has neutralization of the high vowels "i" and "u".
Vowels
Voiceless vowel sounds are common in most western Japanese accents and this is no different in Izumo where they are commonly heard.
In Izumo and western Hoki, just like the Tohoku dialects "i" and "u" sounds are
centralized. "i" is commonly pronounced and "u" .
Consonants
The dropping of "r" sounds
In Izumo and western Hoki dialects, "r" sounds are often dropped and replaced with an elongation of the previous vowel. e.g. ''dare'' > ''daa'' "who", ''arimasu'' > ''aamasu'' "there is". In particular this often happens to "ri" and "ru" sounds which are almost all replaced by this elongated sound. In some areas, ''shiroi'' "white" becomes ''shie'' and ''akeru'' "to open" becomes ''akyae''. In Oki, these sounds are also replaced by
sokuon
The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana '' tsu''. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "small ''tsu''". It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing.
Appearance
In both hiragana and katakana, ...
such as ''sono tsumodda'' (''sono tsumori da'').
Remnants of archaic sounds
; kwa, gwa
: The retention of /w/ in these syllables, prominent in Unpaku dialect, is non-standard in modern Japanese.
; f instead of h
: In the Heian period, all of the "h" row of sounds were pronounced with an "f" sound rather than with a "h" i.e. ''fa, fi, fu, fe, fo.'' Izumo still keeps this pronunciation. For example: ''fashi'' = ''hashi'' "chopsticks", ''febi'' = ''hebi'' "snake"
; se, ze
: In pronunciation "se" becomes "she" and "ze" becomes "je", similar to the
Kyushu dialect.
Pitch Accent
Grammar
Vocabulary
* ''kariru'' (かりる) "to borrow"; ''karu'' in other forms of western Japanese.
* ''dandan'' (ダンダン) "thank you"; ''arigatō'' in Standard Japanese. It is not used within the family, but rather in conversation with strangers, in much the same way as in Standard Japanese ''dōmo'' is used as an abbreviation.
* ''gosu'' (ごす) "to give (to speaker)"; ''kureru'' in Standard Japanese. E.g. ''X-san ga wa ni yasai o goita wa'' "Mr. X gave me vegetables." For a more polite form, ''goshinaru'' is also used。
* ''kyotoi'' (きょとい) "scary, frightening"; ''kowai'' in Standard Japanese. E.g. ''maa, ano hito wa kyotoi wa!'' "Oh, that person is scary!", ''aa! kyoto, kyoto! nigetoku da wa!'' "Oh, how scary he is! Let's escape!"
* ''chonboshi'' (ちょんぼし)/''chokkoshi'' (ちょっこし) "a little"; ''sukoshi'' or ''chotto'' in Standard Japanese.
* ''gaina'' (がいな) "giant"; ''sugoi'' or ''gotsui'' in Standard Japanese. The animation studio
Gainax is named for ''gaina''.
* ''banjimashite'' (ばんじまして) "good evening"; ''konbanwa'' in Standard Japanese.
References
External links
正しい?出雲弁講座
{{Japanese language
Japanese dialects