The is a group of Japanese dialects in the Kansai region (Kinki region) of Japan. In Japanese, is the common name and it is called in technical terms. The dialects of Kyoto and Osaka are known as , and were particularly referred to as such in the Edo period.
The Kansai dialect is typified by the speech of Osaka, the major city of Kansai, referred to as . It is characterized as more melodic and harsher by speakers of standard Japanese.Omusubi: Japan's Regional Diversity , retrieved January 23, 2007
Background Since Osaka is the largest city in the region and its speakers received the most media exposure over the last century, non-Kansai-dialect speakers tend to associate the dialect of Osaka with the entire Kansai region. However, technically, Kansai dialect is not a single dialect but a group of related dialects in the region. Each major city and prefecture has a particular dialect, and residents take some pride in their particular dialectal variations.
The common Kansai dialect is spoken in Keihanshin (the metropolitan areas of the cities of Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe) and its surroundings, a radius of about around the Osaka-Kyoto-Kobe area (see regional differences).Mitsuo Okumura (1968). . 202 number. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo. This article mainly discusses variations in Keihanshin during the 20th and 21st centuries.
Even in the Kansai region, away from Keihanshin and its surrounding areas, there are dialects that differ from the characteristics generally considered to be Kansai dialect-like. Tajima and Tango (except Maizuru) dialects in northwest Kansai are too different to be regarded as Kansai dialects and are thus usually included in the Chūgoku dialect. Dialects spoken in Southeastern Kii Peninsula including Totsukawa and Owase are also far different from other Kansai dialects, and considered a language island. The Shikoku dialect and the Hokuriku dialect share similarities with the Kansai dialects, but are classified separately.
History
The Kansai dialect has over a thousand years of history. When Kinai cities such as Heijō-kyō (Nara), Naniwa-kyō (Osaka) and Heian-kyō (Kyoto) were Imperial capitals, the Kinai dialect, the ancestor of the Kansai dialect, was the de facto standard Japanese. It had an influence on all of the nation including the Edo dialect, the predecessor of modern Tokyo dialect. The literature style developed by the intelligentsia in Heian-kyō became the model of Classical Japanese language.
When the political and military center of Japan was moved to Edo under the Tokugawa Shogunate and the Kantō region grew in prominence, the Edo dialect took the place of the Kansai dialect. With the Meiji Restoration and the transfer of the imperial capital from Kyoto to Tokyo, the Kansai dialect became fixed in position as a provincial dialect. See also Early Modern Japanese.
As the Tokyo dialect was adopted with the advent of a national education/media standard in Japan, some features of the Kansai dialect have diminished and changed. However, Kansai is the second most populated urban region in Japan after Kantō, with a population of about 20 million, so Kansai dialect is still the most widely spoken, known and influential non-standard Japanese dialect. The Kansai dialect's idioms are sometimes introduced into other dialects and even standard Japanese. Many Kansai people are attached to their own speech and have strong regional rivalry against Tokyo.Fumiko Inoue (2009). . 456 number. Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.
Since the Taishō period, the form of Japanese comedy has been developed in Osaka, and a large number of Osaka-based comedians have appeared in Japanese media with Osaka dialect (See also Yoshimoto Kogyo). Because of such associations, Kansai speakers are often viewed as being more "funny" or "talkative" than typical speakers of other dialects. Tokyo people even occasionally imitate the Kansai dialect to provoke laughter or inject humor.Masataka Jinnouchi (2003). Studies in regionalism in communication and the effect of the Kansai dialect on it.
Phonology
In phonetic terms, Kansai dialect is characterized a lack of vowel reduction, in contrast with Tokyo dialect that often reduces vowels but emphasizes consonants, but the basis of the phonemes is similar. The specific phonetic differences between Kansai and Tokyo are as follows:Umegaki (1962)
Vowels
is nearer to than to . Vowel reduction frequently occurs in Standard Japanese, but is rare in the Kansai dialect. For example, the polite copula is pronounced nearly as in standard Japanese, but Kansai speakers tend to pronounce it distinctly as or even . In some registers, such as informal Tokyo speech, hiatuses often fuse into , as in and instead of "yummy" and "great", but are usually pronounced distinctly in Kansai dialect. In Wakayama, is also pronounced distinctly; it usually fuses into in standard Japanese and almost all other dialects. A recurring tendency to lengthen vowels at the end of monomoraic nouns. Common examples are for "tree", for "mosquito" and for "eye". Contrarily, long vowels in Standard inflections are sometimes shortened. This is particularly noticeable in the volitional conjugation of verbs. For instance, meaning "shall we go?" is shortened in Kansai to . The common phrase of agreement, meaning "that's it", is replaced or even in Kansai. When vowels and semivowel follow , they sometimes palatalize with or . For example, "I love you" becomes , 日曜日 "Sunday" becomes にっちょうび and 賑やか "lively, busy" becomes にんぎゃか .
Consonants
The syllable ひ is nearer to than to . The yotsugana are two distinct syllables, as they are in Tokyo, but Kansai speakers tend to pronounce じ and ず as and in place of Standard and . Intervocalic is pronounced either or in free variation, but is declining now. In provocative speech, becomes , similar to the Tokyo Shitamachi dialect. The use of in place of . Some debuccalization of is apparent in most Kansai speakers, but it seems to have progressed more in morphological suffixes and inflections than in core vocabulary. This process has produced はん for さん -san "Mr., Ms.", まへん for ません (formal negative form), まひょ for ましょう (formal volitional form), and ひちや for 質屋 "pawnshop", among other examples. The change of and in some words such as さぶい for 寒い "cold". Especially in the rural areas, are sometimes harmonized or metathesized. For example, でんでん for 全然 "never, not at all", かだら or からら for 体 "body". A play on words around these sound changes goes as follows: 淀川の水飲んれ腹らら下りや for 淀川の水飲んで腹だだ下りや "I drank water of Yodo River and have the trots". The + vowel in the verb conjugations is sometimes changed to , similar to colloquial Tokyo speech. For example, 何してるねん？ "What are you doing?" often changes to 何してんねん？ in fluent Kansai speech.
Pitch accent
The pitch accent in Kansai dialect is very different from the standard Tokyo accent, so non-Kansai Japanese can recognize Kansai people easily from that alone. The Kansai pitch accent is called the Kyoto-Osaka type accent (京阪式アクセント, Keihan-shiki akusento) in technical terms. It is used in most of Kansai, Shikoku and parts of western Chūbu region. The Tokyo accent distinguishes words only by the position of an optional pitch drop, whereas the Kansai accent distinguishes words also by initial tones, so Kansai dialect has more pitch patterns than standard Japanese. In the Tokyo accent, the pitch between first and second morae usually changes, but in the Kansai accent, it does not always.
Below is a list of simplified Kansai accent patterns. H represents a high pitch and L represents a low pitch. or The high pitch appears on the first mora and the others are low: H-L, H-L-L, H-L-L-L, etc. The high pitch continues for the set mora and the rest are low: H-H-L, H-H-L-L, H-H-H-L, etc. The high pitch continues to the last: H-H, H-H-H, H-H-H-H, etc. or The pitch rises drastically on the middle set mora and falls again: L-H-L, L-H-L-L, L-L-H-L, etc. The pitch rises drastically on the last mora: L-L-H, L-L-L-H, L-L-L-L-H, etc. If high-initial accent words or particles attach to the end of the word, all morae are low: L-L-L(-H), L-L-L-L(-H), L-L-L-L-L(-H) With two-mora words, there are two accent patterns. Both of these tend to be realized in recent years as L-H, L-H(-L).NHK Broadcasting Culture Research Institute (1998). . pp149-150. The second mora rises and falls quickly. If words or particles attach to the end of the word, the fall is sometimes not realized: L-HL, L-HL(-L) or L-H(-L) The second mora does not fall. If high-initial words or particles attach to the end of the word, both morae are low: L-H, L-L(-H)
KansaiTokyoEnglishhashiH-LL-H(-L)bridgeL-HH-LchopsticksH-HL-H(-H)edgeNihonH-L-LL-H-LJapannihonL-L-HH-L-L2-honkonnichiwaL-H-L-L-HL-H-H-H-HhelloarigatōL-L-L-H-LL-H-L-L-Lthanks
Grammar
Many words and grammar structures in Kansai dialect are contractions of their classical Japanese equivalents (it is unusual to contract words in such a way in standard Japanese). For example, chigau (to be different or wrong) becomes chau, yoku (well) becomes yō, and omoshiroi (interesting or funny) becomes omoroi. These contractions follow similar inflection rules as their standard forms, so chau said politely is chaimasu in the same way as chigau is inflected to chigaimasu.
Verbs Kansai dialect also has two types of regular verb, 五段 godan verbs (-u verbs) and 一段 ichidan verbs (-ru verbs), and two irregular verbs, 来る ("to come") and する ("to do"), but some conjugations are different from standard Japanese.
The geminated consonants found in godan verbs of standard Japanese verbal inflections are usually replaced with long vowels (often shortened in 3 morae verbs) in Kansai dialect (See also Onbin, u-onbin). Thus, for the verb 言う ("to say"), the past tense in standard Japanese 言った ("said") becomes 言うた in Kansai dialect. This particular verb is emblematic of a native Kansai speaker, as most will unconsciously say 言うて instead of 言って or even if well-practiced at speaking in standard Japanese. Other examples of geminate replacement are 笑った ("laughed") becoming 笑うた or わろた and 貰った ("received") becoming 貰うた , もろた or even もうた .
An auxiliary verb -てしまう (to finish something or to do something in unintentional or unfortunate circumstances) is contracted to -ちまう or -ちゃう in colloquial Tokyo speech but to -てまう in Kansai speech. Thus, しちまう , or しちゃう , becomes してまう . Furthermore, as the verb しまう is affected by the same sound changes as in other 五段 godan verbs, the past tense of this form is rendered as -てもうた or -てもた rather than -ちまった or -ちゃった : 忘れちまった or 忘れちゃった ("I forgot [it]") in Tokyo is 忘れてもうた or 忘れてもた in Kansai.
The long vowel of the volitional form is often shortened; for example, 使おう (the volitional form of tsukau) becomes 使お , 食べよう (the volitional form of 食べる ) becomes 食べよ . The irregular verb する has special volitional form しょ（う） instead of しよう . The volitional form of another irregular verb 来る is 来よう as well as the standard Japanese, but when 来る is used as an auxiliary verb -てくる , -てこよう is sometimes replaced with -てこ（う） in Kansai.
The causative verb ending is usually replaced with in Kansai dialect; for example, させる (causative form of ) changes さす , 言わせる (causative form of 言う ) changes 言わす . Its -te form and perfective form change to and ; they also appear in transitive ichidan verbs such as 見せる ("to show"), e.g. 見して for 見せて .