Does the Japanese Language Have Regional Accents?

[Lamia]

@Koxinga

At least for me, though, it’s odd to think of Japan as having such regional variations, given its perceived emphasis on homogeneity.

Well, they’re not robots. Local variations in language, food, etc., are openly acknowledged.

I don’t speak Japanese well at all, but when I was living there it was obvious even to me that Osaka had a distinct dialect very different from what was spoken around where I was living in Yamaguchi prefecture – something about Osaka-ben actually sounded vaguely like German to me.

[alphaboi867]

@Koxinga

I had heard a story that at the end of World War II when the Emperor came on the radio for the first time ever to announce Japan would surrender and “endure the unendurable,” one of the ironies was that many of his subjects couldn’t understand what he was saying. Don’t know if that’s true or an exaggeration, though.

It’s true. The Imperial Court spoke a very formal, archaic, form of Japanese that few people outside the upper classes (or scholars/clerics) were familier with. Presumably the Imperial family’s personal servants & palace staff would’ve understood the dialect as well.

[China_Guy]

@Koxinga

At least for me, though, it’s odd to think of Japan as having such regional variations, given its perceived emphasis on homogeneity.

Think about all the mutually unintelligible dialects in Fujian province alone of China. It’s roughly analogous.

[hibernicus]

@BellRungBookShut-CandleSnuffed

OK, well what about the hashi case? Do you know if bridge is reversed, or are both pronounced haSHI? It blows my mind a little to know that one of the ways to distinguish homophones is different down there.

If anyone else is curious as to what I mean and I’m not explaining myself well, it’d be like an English speaker saying “I’m going to the grocery store to buy some proDUCE.”

Sorry I missed your point. Yes, in Osaka a bridge is HAshi and chopsticks are haSHI. Just the opposite from Tokyo.

[Nava]

@Cosmic Relief

There are regional accents and then there are regional dialects that are nearly incomprehensible to one another. Many countries have regional accents. It’s less common to have places like Japan that have so many dramatically different regional dialects. By analogy look at the Iberian peninsula that has several dozen full-fledged languages that are arguably more similar to each other than many dialects of Japan.

Several dozen languages in the Iberian peninsula?

What are you doing, count Oscense as a language? :dubious:

[HMS_Irruncible]

@Nava

Several dozen languages in the Iberian peninsula?

What are you doing, count Oscense as a language? :dubious:

Well, depending on where you draw the line between language and dialect, at least a dozen and maybe more. Languages of the Iberian Peninsula - Wikipedia

[JoelUpchurch]

I’ve found in the United States that people with distinct regional accents are becoming rarer as television tend to flatten out local differences. What many people call a regional accent is actually a lower class accent and younger middle class people sound much the same no matter where they grow up.

Is the same thing happening in Japan.

[Nava]

@Cosmic Relief

Well, depending on where you draw the line between language and dialect, at least a dozen and maybe more. Languages of the Iberian Peninsula - Wikipedia

OK, so you are counting Oscense as a language. Gotcha.

[Autolycus]

@JoelUpchurch

Is the same thing happening in Japan.

In my experience, yes.

My older teachers often speak with a thick accent that is hard to understand. My middle-aged teachers speak with a mild accent. My kids probably use slightly different pitch accents and a few localized words, but otherwise they sound very similar to people on TV.

Also, the average citizen of Aomori City (suburban with a smidge of urban) speaks with much less local dialect than people that live in the farm-towns no more than 20 minutes away. I am certain this is in no small part due to nationalized media and the pushing of hyoujungo (標準語 - standard Japanese).