Saga dialect


The Saga dialect is a dialect of the Japanese language widely spoken in Saga Prefecture and some other areas, such as Isahaya. It is influenced by Kyushu dialect and Hichiku dialect. Saga-ben is further divided by accents centered on individual towns.
The Saga dialect, like most dialects of rural Kyushu, can be nearly unintelligible to people who are accustomed to standard Japanese. A popular urban legend has it that two Saga-ben speakers met up in Tokyo and bystanders mistook their dialect for Chinese.

Characteristics

Many of Saga's dialectical properties are variants, in particles or conjugations, of standard Japanese.
  • Words are often repeated twice.
  • The sentence-ending particle "よ" becomes "ばい" or "たい".
  • The contrastive conjunction "ばってん" replaces standard Japanese equivalents.
  • The operative particle "を" is replaced with "ば".
  • *Ex.:手紙ば書いた=Wrote letter.
  • The particle "が", when referring to other people, is replaced with "の".
  • *Ex.:黒君の書いた=Kuro-kun wrote .
  • Traditional masu-form keigo is replaced by the suffix "～しんさつ", "～しんさる", "～しよんさつ", or "～しよんさる".
  • *Ex.:手紙をかきよんさった=Wrote letter.
  • The direction particles "に" and "へ" are replaced with "さい".
  • *Ex.:学校さい行く=Go to school.
  • The explanatory "の" is replaced by "と".
  • *Ex.:手紙を書いたと？= Wrote letter .
  • The continuative conjugation "～ている" becomes "とっ".
  • *Ex.:書いとっ= writing.
  • In the passive conjugation of a verb, "れ" is taken out and "る" becomes a long vowel, or doubles the next consonant.
  • *Ex.:書かれる becomes replaced with 書かるう or 書かるっ.
  • I-adjectives have their "い" s replaced with "か" s.
  • *Ex.: cold becomes 寒か.
  • Na-adjectives sometimes have a か added on, reminiscent of the above characteristic. This seems to happen more in the south.
  • *Ex.: じょうず becomes じょうずか.
  • Pronunciation is similar to Hakata dialect in the following: "sa, shi, su, se, so" become "sha, shii, shu, she, sho". In addition, Saga-ben also has the unique pronunciations of "za, zu, ze, da, ga," and "na" rendered as "ja, ju, je, ja, gya," and "nya", respectively.
  • "～ない" conjugations become "ん" the "ない" adjective itself becomes "なか" ). This reflects the negative archaic/rude conjugation in standard Japanese. For example, whereas 食べん would be rude in eastern Japan, in Saga-ben it is standard.
  • *Ex.:分からない becomes 分からん
  • The Saga-ben version of 好きじゃない is either 好かん or 好きじゃなか
  • I-adjectives' "い"s become "さ" in when the speaker wants to add strong emphasis.
  • I-adjectives' continuative form's "く" becomes a modifying "う" that elongates and possibly changes the vowel of the character before it.
  • *Ex.:interesting becomes "おもしろう" ; fun becomes 楽しゅう.

これ, それ, あれ, どれ (kore, sore, are, dore) Series

The Demonstrative series is uniquely pronounced in Saga-dialect.
  • The normal これ, それ, あれ, どれ series in Japanese has its れ sounds replaced with い. 俺 also follows this pattern, and becomes おい. Indeed, many words follow this pattern; even 誰 becomes だい.
  • The related words どう, こう, and そう become どがん, そがん, and こがん, respectively. An even more rustic conjugation set of these words is どぎゃん, そぎゃん, and こぎゃん.

Vocabulary

Saga-ben contains much characteristic vocabulary. Examples are included in the following table:
Saga-benStandard JapaneseEnglish gloss
おばっちゃん おば-ちゃん granny
いわじいにゃ 言わないのよI'm not saying
きんしゃ 来るCome
あばかん -Too small, and cannot be fit into
がばい すごくTerribly; extremely
～ごた のようだ It's that way
うーか 多いMany
うすか 怖いScary
くさい だ！;だよ！
しぎーのする しびれる Fall asleep
じゃーた 出したcame out
すらごと 嘘 Falsehood
とっとっと 取っているのtaken/reserved
～とけ なのに despite~
ふうけもん バカidiot
みたんなか みっともない shameful; extremely
きゃーないた 疲れたtired
ぎゃーけした 風邪をひったcaught a cold
～やろー 〜なんでしょう;〜だろ I guess; probably
～やん 〜じゃん isn't it.
えいくろった 酔っ払ったinebriated
ひやがいーめし 昼食lunch
いっちょん 全くcompletely
やぐらしい うるさい annoying
あちゃこちゃ あちこち here and there
そいぎんた さよなら/さようなら goodbye
ちゃがつか　恥ずかしいembarrassing

Cultural references