http://www.atrus.org/yokohama_dialect/

This is the most hilarious thing I have ever seen.

I learned how to count in Japanese. For example, nine is Cocoanuts. It also covers the subtle difference between Wok-kallonai and Wok-kallimassing...not to mention the gender differences between cooking on a Heebatchey and a Sheebatchey.

"You" - "Oh My"

-dies from the horror-

"Piggy"? *twitch*

-- Get me a boat. (Boto motty koy)
-- Is it strong and well trimmed? (Die job arimas)
-- Are the boatman able to take care of the sails in case of heavy gales? (Sindoe die job arimas?)

Oh god, this is almost as good as English as She is Spoke.

"Church" - "Oh terror"
"Take care" - "Ah booneye"
"Where are the small ones you showed my friends from England last week?" - "Cheese eye doko?"
"Unfortunately they were purchased on Tuesday by a party of tourists from San Francisco" - "Arimasen"
"Twenty" - "Knee jew"

It is indeed right up there with English as She is Spoke!

Arimas, Arimas, Arimas, Arimas, Arimas, Arimas, Cow

What in the...

Although this book is hilarious, it's really cool to see some spoken Japanese from the 1800's.

The scary bit is that I already spotted a lot of foreign words (even French) on the right side. That is probably not surprising as the people in Yokohama were more exposed to foreigners than the rest of the country.

How about todie-mar? I think that's 'tadaima'. They got it listed as 'immediately' with a footnote that it's more correctly translated as 'when it suits my purpose' or 'eventually'. And Grammar students say it means 'never'. lol

Edit: Ooh... Ohh... I wish I wasn't at work so I could howl in laughter.

one - stoats
two - stats
three - meats
four - yotes
five - it suits
six - moots
...
nine - cocoanuts
!!

But what does "piggy" translate to? That one is going to keep me up at night.

Wikipedia dates Hepburn romanization from 1867; no statistics on rate of adoption are given.

~J

rich_f Wrote:But what does "piggy" translate to? That one is going to keep me up at night.

lol I haven't figured that out. I see others on there that I think are actually really bad English... In other words, the Japanese were trying to communicated in English.

'jiggy-jig' comes to mind.

You must make less disturbance driving nails into the wall, or I shall be obliged to punish you. - Oh my pompom bobbery wa tarkshee pumgutz

Take good care of the child. - Babysan ah booneye

Excuse my plain speaking, I am not like other Japanese dealers, and have always made it a rule to ask only the price I will take for my goods. I have travelled in Christian countries and have learned to despise the double faced dealings of our nation. - Watarkshee atchera kooni maro maro arimas. Japan otoko bakka, kono house stoats neigh dan backary hanash.

The key here is to read the "Japanese" parts in a thick, Texan oil tycoon accent.

Quote:"Translate Idiomatically into English.

Oh my nangeye tokey high kin nigh. Die job arimas? Jiggy jig oh char motty koy, donnyson arimas. Doko maro inaro? Nanny house arimas? Anatter tempo sinjoe. Tempo arimasen. Ah me arimas? Ah me hass arimasen, Ginricky pshaw motty koy — ginricky pshaw arimasen,
mar motty koy! Mar sick-sick, betto drunky drunky, koora serampan. Oh my piggy jiggy jig, watarkshee pumgutz sinjoe arimas. "

Would anyone care to share the answers?
I just want to make sure I've got everything right.

Thanks.

tokyostyle Wrote:This seems to be a serious academic pamphlet, I think

...

It reads pretty clearly to me as somebody taking the piss out those of his fellow gaijin who resorted to a hideous pidgin in their attempts to talk with the natives (and there were probably quite a number knocking around Yokohama in the late 1870s hoping to get rich).

pm215 Wrote:

tokyostyle Wrote:This seems to be a serious academic pamphlet, I think

...

It reads pretty clearly to me as somebody taking the piss out those of his fellow gaijin who resorted to a hideous pidgin in their attempts to talk with the natives (and there were probably quite a number knocking around Yokohama in the late 1870s hoping to get rich).

You know, I've been thinking about it all day... And when I found that footnote about 'todie-mar' meaning the opposite of what it really meant, I started to think this was a big joke.

I see I'm not the only one, now.

I'm beginning to suspect that myself. A dog is "come here"? Ghosts of departed cattle is a legal technicality (note: if it really is, please tell me)? "baby san"? "num wun"? "I admire your intelligence and as you wish to raise the standard of your countrymen to that of the civilized world, I presume you wil accept payment in Kinsatz instead of dollars"? The section on 分かります (wok-kallimassing—"I never intended to and nothing you can say will make me understand")?

It's oddly done, though; a lot of it varies between broadly reasonable and only slightly wrong, once you get the hang of the transliteration.

~J

Well, it *is* the Yokohama dialect, not proper Japanese.

I'd wager it was something done for sailors and the like. Sort of like the 1879 version of "Japanese for Dummies." Think about the time period, and the prevailing attitude of western countries towards Japan at the time, anyway. It was the prime of Victorian attitudes, Imperialism, and other "enlightened" ideas of the times.

Sentence mining, anyone?

I thought it was clear from the beginning that it is a joke! Just see how super-long and detailed sentences in English become 3 word phrases in the "dialect". It's clearly meant to be funny

Google tells me that "Bishop of Homoco" is apparently another in-joke, from 浜っ子.

Ironically, this booklet is now apparently one of the few bits of source material for what the Yokohama pidgin was actually like, making it the subject of serious scholarship...