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貯金も確かにありやな！！ お金があったら何でも出来るし. I'm definitely into saving money too! If you have money you can do anything.

My young friend wrote this to me. Would someone be kind enough to explain the やな for me?

yadokari
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  • Are you really just expecting explanation for やな? Then, あり would be irrelevant. Or, do you rather want to know what あり means? –  Feb 11 '12 at 16:56
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    @sawa. It doesn't hurt to over-answer a question I guess. – Flaw Feb 11 '12 at 17:01
  • I answered both, but the title should at least be corrected. あり is not a variation of 有り得る. And やな is not a slang. –  Feb 11 '12 at 17:12
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    sorry , i thought ありやな was related to ありえない, which i thought was related to 有り得る. if this あり (in the question) is unrelated to 有り, does it have another kanji origination? – yadokari Feb 11 '12 at 17:29
  • They are related in the sense that `有難い` or `或る` are related to `有る` or `在る`. But they have evolved into different words. They are not variants of a same word. –  Feb 11 '12 at 17:35

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や is the copula in Kansai dialect. Its counterpart in standard Japanese is だ. な is a sentence final particle expecting agreement (to oneself or to other person). It is similar to ね except that it is masculine.

Added upon Flaw's suggestion: あり used here is a slang term meaning "an acceptable idea", "can be dealt with", or "cool". Another slang expression with a similar meaning is いける. The slang なし is the negation of あり. For usages of these, you can do a search with phrases like ありかなしか.

hippietrail
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    や is not only in Kansai Japanese. About half the country uses it. – Ian Feb 12 '12 at 01:48
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    Since when are あり and なし slang ? – oldergod Feb 12 '12 at 11:10
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    Ah but ありや（な） is not standard Japanese nor Tokyo-ben... –  Feb 12 '12 at 14:57
  • @oldergod The words あり and なし themselves are never slangs, because they are the classical forms of ある and ない. Only this usage あり+copula is slangy. – Gradius Jul 03 '12 at 10:17
  • @Gradius read the conversation again then. Because I know they are not. Sawa said so. – oldergod Jul 03 '12 at 22:28
  • @oldergod I see. Actually, I even don't think ありだ is naturally a "slang". It is a little bit informal and colloquial, but used in even political interviews and magazine articles. Osaka Governor Hashimoto recently said, "（法案が）通ってしまえば何でもあり、そのときの状況で何でもありだという政治を許してしまう採決だと思っています". – Gradius Jul 04 '12 at 05:39
  • I don't think な is masculine in 関西. – Angelos Jun 14 '15 at 10:29