Iyo Dialect - Characteristics

Characteristics

The Iyo dialect is an old one with many rustic characteristics and modifications of standard Japanese grammar.

• ya (や) replaces da (だ) as the casual copula
• ken (けん) replaces kara (から) as in "because"

• yaken (やけん) is used instead of dakara (だから)

• oru (おる) replaces iru (いる) as the verb "to be" for animate objects

This leads to two alternate conjugations of the continuative form (～ている -te iru):

• -toru (～とる) is a contraction of -te oru
• V-stem + -yoru (～よる) is a slurring of oru

Example: "What are you doing?" (何してるの？ nani shiteru no? in standard Japanese) becomes either

• nani shitoru no? (何しとるの？) or
• nani shiyoru no? (何しよるの？)

• n (ん) as a contraction of sentence-final no (の)

Example: The second "What are you doing?" above, nani shiyoru no? is often contracted to nani shiyon? (何しよん？) or nani shon? (何しょん？)

• ya and wai (わい) can be emphatic sentence-final particles, like yo (よ)
• Negative potential forms ("can't X") are sometimes expressed as yō + V-neg. (yō is an onbin of 良く yoku, so literally, "not well Xed")

Example: "Can't do" (できない dekinai in standard Japanese) becomes yō sen (ようせん）

"Can't go" (行けない ikenai in standard Japanese) becomes yō ikan （よう行かん)

• Especially among the elderly, kogai (こがい), sogai (そがい), and dogai (どがい) are used for "this (kind of~)", "that (kind of~)", and "which (kind of~)", respectively (konna こんな, sonna そんな, donna　どんな in standard Japanese).
• zonamoshi (ぞなもし) is the most famous sentence-final particle of Iyo dialect due to being used in Botchan, a famous novel by Natsume Sōseki, but the usage is now obsolete.