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Kumamoto dialect

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kumamoto dialect
熊本弁
Native toJapan
RegionKumamoto
Japonic
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologkuma1281

Kumamoto dialect (熊本弁, Kumamoto-ben) 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

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Adjectives

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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

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

Words

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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')

References

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