Hey everyone - I recently stumbled on this really useful site explaining 関西弁
http://web.mit.edu/kansai/

It had a list of some anime and movies that use 関西弁, but I didn't see any TV shows or dramas listed. I haven't seen this come up before, so does anyone know some good shows, podcasts, etc. that feature 関西弁? (or any other nonstandard dialects for that matter)

Gaki no tsukai

A large part of Japans comedians are from Kansai, probably due to the influence of Yoshimoto Kougyou. I personally consider a healthy portion of Kansai dialect to be mandatory in order to enjoy Japanese comedy.
You should however be aware that what people use on television is most likely not the "real" dialect but rather a toned down version that appeals to Tokyoites.

I second Jarviks suggestion and would like to add: Ameagarikesshitai (雨上がり決死隊) and Jinnai Tomonori (陣内智則).

There is no such thing as a "real" kansai dialect (language is in a constant state of flux), but I guess you are talking about the speech of people in their 60s or older. Real Kansai people speak in toned down kansaiben if they are younger or live in the larger Osaka cities. You can almost never hear much kansaiben if you are hanging out in Umeda for example. It's partly a case of Tokyo dialect eradicating hougen in youths, and partially a case of non-Tokyoites having an inferiority complex and hiding their accent in public (Nagoya is especially bad for this, I have yet to hear ANY Nagoya-ben in public after 4 months here). Gaki no Tsukai is way more dense Kansai-ben than you are likely to encounter in person in Osaka (in public).

Jinnai Tomonori is great too, and a lot more accessible than Gaki no Tsukai since much of his humor is visual.

Yep, that's what I was talking about. The same holds true for any country I guess. Young people from most parts of Germany do not - in my experience - know their "own" dialect all too well. But although for example a Northern German dialect used for comedic effect on television or something would probably be a lot denser than what you would typically hear if you were to live in Hamburg or Bremen, it is toned down when compared to the dialect that used to be standard 60 or so years ago. Just like with Kansai dialects or any other Japanese dialect I guess.

This site's a good resource for actually learning it: http://llarc.mit.edu/kansai/

You'll see 'neo-dialect' mentioned, which seems to be more common with younger people. My girlfriend's from Osaka, and although she uses things like the や sound, あかん and へん・ひん, she said stronger examples like こうた(買った) and はようあらへん(早くない) sound like something an old woman from the countryside would use.

Edit: By the way, you should be able to find some stuff just buy doing a podcast search for 関西 in iTunes.

I find youth dialect more interesting than regional dialect nowadays. My current jp gf is 13 years younger than my last one (who spoke pretty dry 標準語 except to her parents), and it's fun picking out parts of her speech that indicate how old she is (yes I took too many linguistics classes in university).
ex:
大丈夫 as a neg.verb = だいじょうばない
とりま = "とりあえず、まあ" squished into one word
A healthy dose of kansaiben, even though she isn't from kansai (influence from tv/media)
None of her own dialect at all (typical young Nagoyan)

Even still, she looks disgusted when she hears how current highschool girls speak ("めちゃ下げぇって感じぃ" etc,) even though she just graduated highschool not too long ago herself Language evolution is accelerating thanks to electronic communication and increased mobility..

Jarvik7 Wrote:You can almost never hear much kansaiben if you are hanging out in Umeda for example. It's partly a case of Tokyo dialect eradicating hougen in youths, and partially a case of non-Tokyoites having an inferiority complex and hiding their accent in public

What? Speaking standard Japanese is a sin for most of the local people in Osaka unless you're in a situation where you're supposed to use standard Japanese, e.g., conversation with foreigners who only learned the standard accent and formal speech in front of people from various regions. Granted that younger generations use more regionally neutral words, but if you had been born and grown up in Osaka and spoke with the standard pitch accent, we'd regard you as an infidel and kick you out of the Holly Land.

I know quite a few non-standard Japanese speakers consider their dialects less prestigious or something, but you'd have a hard time finding a person from Osaka who has that kind of opinion. Actually some people who have the inferiority complex get upset because we don't change our accent or try to learn standard Japanese.

By the way, standard Japanese and the Tokyo dialect are different.

I put together a few Kansai-ben "lessons" here.
http://www.japannewbie.com/2007/02/17/ka...-round-up/

I've also frequently picked up Kansai-ben media and attached explanations and translations.

Search JapanNewbie.com for Kansai-ben and you'll find a lot.

For example, this Kansai-ben speaking Car Navigation System!
http://www.japannewbie.com/2009/05/15/ka...-car-navi/

Or this too-cute Kansai-ben song.
http://www.japannewbie.com/2009/09/03/ne...ben-music/

Many more. I'm a huge fan of Kansai-ben!

Harvey

I've ran across a site that has a collection of information concerning Japanese dialects. The only problem it might cause you though is that its completely in Japanese, but it has a lot.

http://www.weblio.jp/cat/dialect - Scroll to the bottom to see the list of stuff.
http://www.weblio.jp/category/dialect/kyktb - This in particular is the kansai-ben page

Hope it helps.

Javizy Wrote:This site's a good resource for actually learning it: http://llarc.mit.edu/kansai/

Yes, that's exactly the site I mentioned...

magamo Wrote:By the way, standard Japanese and the Tokyo dialect are different.

Really? How so? I've been under the impression that Tokyo dialect was standard Japanese.

Thanks for the suggestions guys!

shabekuri 007 is awesoem
tv program.

Best place to learn 関西弁 from: http://www.eng.ritsumei.ac.jp/jpn05/dlnihongo.html

Supposedly this guy is speaking in Satsuma-ben?

Or is that a built-in excuse for his Japanese skills?

Jaunty Wrote:

magamo Wrote:By the way, standard Japanese and the Tokyo dialect are different.

Really? How so? I've been under the impression that Tokyo dialect was standard Japanese.

Here are the Japanese Wikipedia articles about 東京方言, 首都圏方言, and 標準語/共通語:

東京方言
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9D%B1%E...9%E8%A8%80

首都圏方言
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%A6%96%E...9%E8%A8%80

標準語/共通語
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%99%E...4.E5.90.88

Also, Japan has long had diglossia between spoken and written languages. So the Japanese language has been bilingual and is still so to an extent. While the difference between spoken and written languages is gradually disappearing, because of some historical reasons, 標準語 is not strict about certain aspects of spoken languages.

The "normal" languages you hear younger Japanese people speak on TV are variations of 首都圏方言, which is very different from 東京方言. Your average Japanese newspaper uses 標準語. You can find some example words that illustrates differences between 首都圏方言 and 標準語 on the above links.

If you speak 東京方言, you sound like an old guy from Tokyo. If you speak 首都圏方言 like a native speaker, you'd pass for a young Japanese person born in Tokyo or a surrounding city. If you were Japanese and only spoke 標準語, your friends might think you're a little distant.

I'm not sure that current written and spoken Japanese really qualifies as diglossia any more so than other languages; I can see that applying back in Meiji or Edo when people were still writing in kanbun and sourou-bun and such, but today's written language is essentially the same as the standard spoken language.

(The Tokyo/Standard thing is kind of in English as well; sometimes "midwest" American English is said to be Standard English but I'm from the Midwest and the dialect I grew up speaking has a lot of different features from "standard" English. It's not as different as Southern or Black English or the like, of course.)

Anything owarai should do. Most variety shows like London Hearts, Mechaike and Lincoln has TONS of famous comedians from kansai regularly on their shows.

yudantaiteki Wrote:I'm not sure that current written and spoken Japanese really qualifies as diglossia any more so than other languages

I think it's a matter of definition, though. Sometimes the current English is also considered to have spoken-written diglossia because its spelling represents older pronunciations. I don't think the modern Japanese language is bilingual in a stricter sense, but it's in the state of diglossia in the widest sense, I guess.

I only speak Japanese as a mother tongue, and I'm not an expert on this either. So I can't compare Japanese with another languages. But, from my limited knowledge of English, I'm guessing that the spoken-written difference in English is due in large part to the differences in formality etc. while Japanese makes a bit clearer distinction between "written" and "spoken" probably because of grade school education and historical reasons such as the 言文一致 movement.

For example, a friend of mine from Fukuoka speaks a mix of his local dialect and 首都圏方言 to me, but he texts me in a lot more 標準語-ish language. My dad would never use the polite form in 標準語 to me when talking in person, but he uses it in an email to me. I don't know if the same thing happens in English (or in any other language for that matter). If you didn't know this phenomenon, you can see it in ep. 18 of Lucky Star where a high school girl replies to a text from her mother and her friend asks if it's a conversation between her and her parent. The funny scene is meant to remind the audience of the awkward feeling we get when we text to close friends/family members in Japanese; it's kind of difficult to choose whether to write the same way we speak or to use the politer written Japanese because texting falls somewhere between the two. If you were Japanese and not used to the texting culture, you'd end up sending a text to a close friend in full-fledged written Japanese so when you read aloud the whole conversation, it sounds weird.

Anyway, 口語体 is the current written Japanese language used for general purposes, and 文語体 is the older written languages that were quite different from spoken languages. You can still find older written Japanese in laws, poems, etc., but nowadays it's quite rare to use 文語体 for general purposes (I think those who still use 文語体 on the internet switch to 口語体 when they fill official documents and so on.). 口語 is the current spoken language. 口語体 was born out of a bit older 口語 when the 言文一致 movement was going on.

The definitions of 文語体, 口語体, and 口語 can vary depending on context. But when the difference between 口語 and 口語体 matters, I think 口語体 is more strictly restricted to the written part of 標準語, or at least it looks like transcribed 首都圏方言 minus spoken only grammar/vocabulary/slang. I don't know if the loosest definition of 口語体 includes the newer written language used on the internet.

I'm guessing the difference between written and spoken Japanese is getting smaller at a faster rate than before especially among younger generations who grew up with the internet and texting. But I don't know if the distinction will disappear in the near future.

Edit: Here are some threads on forums where the OPs are asking if you and your boyfriend/girlfriend use honorifics and/or polite forms when texting:

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/...hie_detail
http://komachi.yomiuri.co.jp/t/2009/1227...8.htm?g=04
http://soudan1.biglobe.ne.jp/qa3725780.html

As you can see, many people use です/ます and/or honorifics when texting in spite of the fact that they wouldn't speak that way in person. There are many other differences in grammar and such between written and spoken Japanese. Here are some blog posts giving example vocabs that are not used in spoken Japanese:

http://writing-s.txt-nifty.com/kouza/200..._81b9.html (A how-to-write-a-novel blog written by a retired professional writer. This blog post gives good examples of written vocabularies.)
http://www.freeml.com/somchai/31
http://www.gengokk.co.jp/hanashi.htm (This is mainly about pronunciation/intonation, but it gives 訪仏する as a written-only-word example that should be replaced with フランスへいく etc. when read aloud.)

Here is an academic article published in a Hiroshima university's journal about the newer 口語体 used on the internet:

http://homepage3.nifty.com/recipe_okiba/...kougo.html

As the how-to-write-a-novel site says, the difference in vocabulary is entirely due to the difference between "written" and "spoken." Formality etc. doesn't matter.

I wonder what kind of difference foreign languages have. Does English have the same kind of distinction?

magamo Wrote:from my limited knowledge of English

I giggled to myself, then cried

Isn't South Park dubbed in Kansaiben or is that just the movie?