9

According to Wikipedia (and some posters here), Kagoshima Japanese resists the じ・ぢ and ず・づ mergers, much in the same way that various English dialects retain differences between words like meet and meat: Yotsugana by dialect map But the gendai kanadzukai (or rather kanazukai) has flattened out the orthographical distinctions between these kana. Is this just a "sucks to speak a nonstandard dialect!" sort of situation? I believe I remember reading in a different Wikipedia article (although I can't find it now) that said that ぢ and づ were "not completely obsolete" because of the Kagoshima dialect. Do Kagoshima speakers, when writing in their own vernacular, still use the ぢ- and づ-based spellings of words that they pronounce differently?

Also... what's that little speck of purple on the edge of Yamanashi?

Foobie Bletch
  • 221
  • 1
  • 6
  • 1
    The short answer is "yes". However, for some of dialects, the differences with Hyojungo is so dramatic as to make this point rather moot. For example, while much is made of the differences between Osaka and Tokyo dialects, in Kyushu people often point to *strangeness* the Kagoshima dialect. I have a books written in Kyushu dialects from around Kumamoto and Fukuoka. Even these are quite different from what was spoken in Fukuoka-shi itself. These dialects often have their own orthographic conventions which can diverge noticeably from that of the standard national language. – A.Ellett Apr 16 '21 at 16:00
  • 1
    Though my comment looks like an answer, good answer should be able to provide examples of the orthographic conventions used in various dialects. And I really lack a firm grasp of these conventions (particularly given I barely comprehend much that diverges much from the standard language). Moreover, my understanding is that the dialects of northern Japan are also perhaps as distinctive from the standard language as Kagoshima-ben is. I seem to recall watching a video of a guy from Tohoku speaking in his native dialect; it felt like I was listening to a completely different language – A.Ellett Apr 16 '21 at 16:12
  • 3
    `much in the same way that various English dialects retain differences between words like meet and meat` Which dialects are those? And how do they pronounce each of them? For Japanese, I'm じ＝ぢ, but ず≠づ. – istrasci Apr 16 '21 at 16:31
  • @A.Ellett, many years ago I spent some time living in Morioka. At one point, I visited an old folks home where people spoke full-on Tōhoku-ben—unintelligble . Most other dialects I've heard in Japan (specifically, Honshū) maintain roughly the same sound system, and differ in vocab and inflection. The Tōhoku-ben I heard also had a pronounced accent -- differences in pronunciation. This was most obvious with the らりるれろ morae, where the initial consonant sounded much more like a liquid //l// than the usual [tap](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiced_dental_and_alveolar_taps_and_flaps) //ɾ//. – Eiríkr Útlendi Apr 16 '21 at 22:49
  • @istrasci Fewer than I thought, now that I look it up, but they do exist. You find them in the North of England and in some rural parts of Ireland. How the words are actually pronounced differs depending on the dialect. For more information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonological_history_of_English_close_front_vowels#Meet%E2%80%93meat_merger More recently in America there have been similar shifts: "cot" and "caught" are now homophones in most American English, but a few dialects (including mine) keep them distinct. – Foobie Bletch Apr 17 '21 at 16:16
  • @A.Ellett could you provide some examples of these orthographic differences in Fukuoka? I have lived there for many years, but I cannot recall seeing any orthographic differences. Or maybe I misunderstand you... – a20 Sep 27 '21 at 09:05
  • Interested in the same thing, I have asked many people (all younger than 40 though) from both Kagoshima and Miyazaki, but basically people did not even know what I was talking about. Thus I would think that it is at least not something well-spread and general, but probably contained to a smaller number of mostly elderly people. As for the spelling, even in standard the four different kana are used with dakuten. In what sense do you mean that the spelling would be different? – a20 Sep 27 '21 at 09:29
  • @a20 That was in the late 80's. We would go on trips to places like Dazaifu and Yanagawa and I'd collect books on ghost stories and old folk tales. We'd go on trips up to Aso or to Tagawa and I'd do much the same. We'd go persimmon picking and stop in country towns and I'd find these sorts of books. The books were written in dialect which made them hard to read. But also, the orthography was definitely nonstandard. Perhaps such places to buy such books are still around. Over the years through too numerous moves, I've lost a lot of these. Sorry I can't be more helpful. – A.Ellett Sep 27 '21 at 13:25
  • 2
    @a20 Standard uses ぢ and づ in rendaku contexts (e.g. 小野塚{おのづか}) and when a kana is repeated with voicing (e.g. 続{つづ}く), but in the historical kana orthography many words had ぢ and づ in contexts _other_ than this, reflecting archaic pronunciations: 水{みづ}, 劇場{げきぢやう}, etc. – Foobie Bletch Sep 27 '21 at 17:12
  • @FoobieBletch thanks for the examples. Do you have any where kanji is not normally used, such that the archaic kana usage is actually apparent? – a20 Sep 27 '21 at 18:13
  • @a20 That's the thing about the historical orthography: a decent portion of the differences in spelling are masked by kanji anyway, especially since older texts often did use kanji for words that are nowadays usually just kana. Naked ぢ and づ are even rarer because they aren't particles and don't often(?) occur as okurigana. – Foobie Bletch Sep 27 '21 at 19:53
  • @istrasci "For Japanese, I'm じ＝ぢ, but ず≠づ" which is indicated by number 3, the tiny orange part of the map, yes? Do you live there? – Leebo Sep 27 '21 at 21:20
  • @Leebo: Nope... – istrasci Sep 28 '21 at 02:20
  • @istrasci ah, I see. It's such a specific one, thought maybe that was the case. – Leebo Sep 28 '21 at 02:24

1 Answers1

2

Many moons ago, I taught English to first-year college students at a school in Tochigi Prefecture. One student had come up from somewhere in Kyūshū, although I forget exactly where. His name was 小島【こじま】. I called him こじまさん using the generally-Kantō pronunciation of じ, starting with a consonant something like [[dʑ]] (not too far from an English ⟨j⟩, with more of a stop sound initially), and he was insistent that the consonant in じ was pronounced more like [[ʑ]] or [[ʒ]] without the initial stop (technically, the voiced alveolo-palatal fricative, which doesn't exist in most varieties of English; or the voiced post-alveolar fricative, as in the pronunciation of the letter ⟨s⟩ in the words leisure or collision). He wrote his name in kana on the blackboard (since we were already standing there) and emphasized that it's spelled with a じ.

While not conclusive, I think this is strongly suggestive that, for this one person at least, the spellings and pronunciations are both distinct for those who distinguish the 四つ仮名 pronunciations in speech.

Eiríkr Útlendi
  • 35,463
  • 1
  • 67
  • 114