†Hitori, futari, yottari, futsuka, and mikka are Yamato words. Sannin, yonin, gonin, and ichinichi are Chinese character words.
* A form linked to verbs and adjectives, e.g., sakichiru (bloomingly fall), in which saki is the ren’y form of saku (to bloom) and modifies chiru (to fall).
†This is the ren’y form of tsurete-aruku (to take along) and was used as a noun equivalent in ancient times.
PART IIASPECTS OF SPEECH
1Regional Differences
What are the characteristics of the Japanese language? Although we simply call it “Japanese,” it is in reality a complex of a great many languages. English, German, Dutch, Danish, and the like are called Germanic languages as a group. The whole of the Japanese language is equal to the whole Germanic language group, as it were.
Japanese is often said to be complicated anddifficult. One of the causes can be found in its nature as a language group. Herein also lies the reason why Japanese is said to be in a state of disorder. Formerly, people of Ky
sh
generally lived in Ky
sh
and people of
u lived their whole lives in
u. But now we hear dialects of other areas everywhere. Moreover, in former days each person’s use of language depended, to a large extent, on his or her social position and trade. Now that we are becoming socially homogeneous, speech differences according to sex and situation are also growing less distinct. It is no wonder that Japanese is said to be in disorder.
Differences in dialects
Russia is a large country. Consequently, Russian is spoken over an area extending 2,000 miles from north to south and 1,500 miles from east to west. Dialects there differ very little. The daily conversations of the fishermen on the northern seacoast can be understood, it is said, by the farmers in the Ukraine, the southernmost area. This is natural, since people who speak Russian can understand Polish, Czech, and Serbo-Croatian, as mentioned above. It is as if a person in Siska, in the former Japanese domain of Sakhalin, and a person in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, could understand one another, each talking in his own native tongue.
The differences among dialects in Japan, however, are conspicuous. A place like Kagoshima is an entirely different world. The everyday conversations of people of Kagoshima prefecture cannot be understood even by the people of the neighboring prefecture of Kumamoto, not to mention those on Honsh
and Shikoku. In the Kagoshima dialect sounds like ki, ku, gi, gu, chi, tsu, bi, bu all become a stop sound at the middle or end of a word. Thus, the sentences Kuki ga aru (There is a stem), Kuchi ga aru (There is a job), Kutsu ga aru (There are shoes), Kugi ga aru (There is a nail), and Kubi ga aru (There is a head) all become Kugga ai. Such sentences as Kut no kug ga dete itte naran and Kut ba kirareta node atarashii kut ba sagaite oru become, in standard Japanese: Kutsu no kugi ga dete itakute tamaranai (The nails of my shoes poked through and are hurting me so much) and Kubi o kirareta node atarashii kuchi o sagashite iru (I was fired, so I am looking for a new job). It is no wonder that this dialect cannot be understood in other districts. A popular story relates that during the feudal ages the Satsuma clan purposely made the speech of its domain unintelligible to outsiders in order to guard against spies from the shogunate. At any rate, the Kagoshima dialect is so extraordinary that such a story does not seem unlikely. But there is an even more peculiar place, a fishing port called Makurazaki at the southern end of Satsuma peninsula in Kagoshima prefecture. Although I visited this port in winter, I saw irises and evening primroses already in bloom on the roadside and felt quite strange. This district is said to possess an especially peculiar dialect even within Kagoshima, the speech of a pure native being incomprehensible to people in other parts of the prefecture. A school teacher living there said that in former days when a person from Edo (T
ky
) had to speak with a person of Makurazaki two interpreters were needed, one who could interpret both Edo and Kagoshima dialects and another who could speak the Makurazaki and Kagoshima dialects. To use a Chinese classical expression, it was a place which “necessitated a threefold interpretation.”
A case like the above can be seen even within T
ky
prefecture. The language of the residents of the island called Hachij
jima, south of T
ky
, is altogether unintelligible to T
ky
people. It cannot be understood even by those residing on islands of the same Izu island group. Moreover, on a tiny island called Kojima right near Hachij
jima, there is a village called Utsuki with only seventy-four people. It is perhaps the smallest village in all Japan. How strange it is that the dialect spoken on this island cannot be understood in nearby Hachij
jima!
Differences existing among Japanese dialects can be seen best in the accents of words. It is well-known that the accent of words like aka meaning “red” and “dirt,” and hashi meaning “chopsticks” and “bridge” are quite the reverse in T
sh
make no distinctions at all in accents. In these places aka meaning “red” and “dirt” and hashi meaning “chopsticks” and “bridge” are all accented alike. That there are places like T
saka districts where accents are distinguishable and that there are also districts with no distinguishable
