Iyo dialect


The Iyo dialect of Japanese is spoken by people from Ehime Prefecture in Japan. The name is a remnant of the Ehime area's historical name, Iyo Province.
Accents vary somewhat by geography within the prefecture. The southern area is particularly influenced by the Kyūshū dialect, while the central and eastern districts have accents similar to Kansai dialect.

Characteristics

The Iyo dialect has numerous characteristics that differentiate it from standard Japanese grammar.
  • ya replaces da as the plain form attributive copula, much like in the dialects of Hakata and Kansai
  • ken replaces kara as in "because"
  • oru replaces iru as the verb "to be" for animate objects in casual usage
  • n as a contraction of sentence-final no
  • ya and wai can be emphatic sentence-final particles, like yo
  • Negative potential forms are sometimes expressed as yō + V-neg.
  • Especially among the elderly, kogai, sogai, and dogai are used for "this ", "that ", and "which ", respectively.
  • zonamoshi 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.

    Regional variations

These patterns are found mostly in the Nanyo region:
  • ga replaces no in some contexts:
  • Especially in Yawatahama, -teya is an emphatic suffix, usually seen in sōteya, which is equivalent to ''sōdayo''

    Vocabulary

Some of the vocabulary in the dialect is readily understandable by speakers of standard Japanese, but many items are so different as to cause significant confusion. An example often proffered by locals is kaku かく, "to move/carry". For instance, it might be used in the context of a classroom—"Move your desk". This would be incomprehensible to a non-local; a speaker of standard Japanese would interpret this as either "draw a desk" or "scratch your desk".
Iyo dialectStandard JapaneseEnglish
いぬ 去るto go away
かく 担ぐto carry/to shoulder
おらぶ 叫ぶto shout
行きし行く途中currently going/en route
帰りし帰る途中currently returning
帰ってこーわい帰りますto go back/go home
行ってこーわい行ってきます"I'm leaving"
かまん 良い/構わないgood
もげるはずれる to be disconnected
つい 同じ/いっしょ the same
たいぎぃ しんどい/面倒くさい tiring/bothersome
ぬくい あたたかい warm, mild
むぐ むく to peel, to skin