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Playing around with Japanese dialects

 
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Tolkien_Freak



Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 1231
Location: in front of my computer. always.

PostPosted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 3:42 am    Post subject: Playing around with Japanese dialects Reply with quote

I'm messing with various althist scenarios involving a colonial Japan, and so I've been working up TTL versions of the standard dialect (since the capital remains in Kyouto) and the North American colonial dialect.
(The North American colony is called Nikka 日果, as an antonym of Nihon. The standard dialect is called Teikoku-ben 帝国弁 (the Imperial dialect), even though Japan's not an empire anymore.)

Since the colonisation began in the mid 1600s, the dialects diverge around the end of Late Middle Japanese.

Some correspondences:
OTL : Teikoku : Nikka
se : se : she (Nikka-ben still has the palatalisation before /e/)
ha : ha : fa (/p\a/) (Nikka-ben doesn't have the /p\/>/h/ thing)
yaranai : yarahen : yaran(u) (Teikoku-ben is Kansai-ben here, Nikka-ben retains the -nu)
yarou : yarou : yaraa (OJ /au/ went to /O:/, normally that merged with /o:/ but Nikka turns it to /a:/)
yatte iru : yatte iru : yaate oru (some dialects did yarite > yaate rather than yarite > yatte, Nikka is one)
yatte kure : yatte kure (?) : yaatame (<yaritamae) (Haven't decided on this one yet)
ureshiku : ureshuu : ureshuu (there are attested k/V_V/_ sound changes like everywhere, IDK where they went)
takaku : takou : takaa (on the other hand, yoku : you : you)
miro (見ろ) : miro : miyo

Nikka-ben also frequently uses be as a version of yo.
Past tenses were changing in LMJ, but the Wikipedia article doesn't have enough information to let me determine if I want anything different. There's a few other verb forms I might want to mess with too.

I can't quite think of anything to post as an example T_T - maybe I'll come up with something later.
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Kiri



Joined: 13 Jun 2009
Posts: 471
Location: Latvia/Italy

PostPosted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok, so let's take a haiku:

古池や 蛙飛込む 水の音
furuike ya kawazu tobikomu mizu no oto
/Bashou/

What would be the changes? Very Happy
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Tolkien_Freak



Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 1231
Location: in front of my computer. always.

PostPosted: Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Mostly it's the same. It changes a bit with a change I'm debating (namely, bdg>mnN due to LMJ prenasalisation, then ptk/V_V/bdg):

furuige ya kawadzu tomigomu midzu no woto
-Mashaa
(haven't decided on o vs wo yet, nor have I decided exactly how the orthography will look)


Last edited by Tolkien_Freak on Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Hemicomputer



Joined: 04 Feb 2008
Posts: 610
Location: Calgary, Alberta

PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 12:56 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Where exactly in NA is Nikka? I gather from your article on the trains that it borders on the US; have you considered the possibility of a large English influence on Nikka-ben? Say, borrowing from English where Teikoku-ben borrowed from Chinese or something? What about aboriginal languages?
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Bakram uso, mi abila, / del us bakrat, dahud bakrita!
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Tolkien_Freak



Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 1231
Location: in front of my computer. always.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:45 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's the US West Coast from around LA north to Alaska. I haven't quite decided on how far east it goes - at least as far as the western edge of Utah, maybe more. When I wrote the article I had it in my head that it went past Denver, but looking at a map makes me reconsider.

English'll probably have about as much influence as English does on OTL Japanese (there is a whole lot), but there will certainly be more Chinese-derived words in Teikoku-ben at least for modern concepts. There might actually end up being less English influence in Nikka-ben than OTL Japanese, since they'll more likely have Japanese words they can use for technology words and the like that OTL just borrowed.
There might be a fair amount of Russian loanwords, especially up in the north (since Alaska would never have been bought by the US).

Haven't thought about aboriginal languages, since I know almost nothing about the native languages in the area. There would likely be a lot of borrowings from Inuktitut, Salishan languages, northern Na-Déné and California Athabaskan, and Ohlone mostly, but some other stuff too. Looking at the map on Wikipedia, the California-British Columbia corridor is ridiculously complicated though.
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Tolkien_Freak



Joined: 26 Jul 2007
Posts: 1231
Location: in front of my computer. always.

PostPosted: Sun Jan 23, 2011 3:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Better example, from a facebook status of mine:

OTLMJ: ittai naze mahou shoujo anime o miteru n darou? da ga, omoshiroku natta jan.
NB: ittai naze mafaa shaazho anime o midoru n jaraa? ja ŋa, omoshirou naada jan.

(TL: why on earth am I watching a mahou shoujo anime? and yet, it's gotten good...)
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