Kumamoto dialect explained

Kumamoto dialect
Familycolor:Altaic
States:Japan
Region:Kumamoto
Fam1:Japonic
Fam2:Japanese
Fam3:Kyushu
Nativename:熊本弁
Glotto:kuma1281
Glottorefname:Kumamoto-ben
Glottofoot:no

Kumamoto dialect (Japanese: 熊本弁,) is a dialect of the Japanese language spoken in Kumamoto Prefecture. It belongs to the Hichiku group, and shares similarities with other nearby dialects in Kyushu.

Features

Adjectives

The I adjective in Standard Japanese becomes "か" (ka) in Kumamoto dialect:[1]

うまい (umai, "tasty") > うまか (umaka)

よい (yoi, "good") > よか (yoka)

This feature is found in other Kyushu dialects. The negative conjugation "ない" (nai) also becomes "なか" (naka).

Accent

Unlike Standard Japanese, Kumamoto dialect is described as "accentless", meaning it has no fixed tonal pattern.[2]

Words

Kumamoto dialect has a different set of Ko-so-a-do words:

これ (kore, "this") > こっ (ko')

それ (sore, "that") > そっ (so')

あれ (are, "that over there") > あっ (a')

どれ (dore, "which") > どっ (do')

Notes and References

  1. Book: MIT Working Papers in Linguistics. Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 2007. 55. 120.
  2. Book: Tones and Tunes: Typological studies in word and sentence prosody. 2007. 327. Tomas Riad . Carlos Gussenhoven .