From: Patrick Ryan
Message: 52477
Date: 2008-02-07
----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick McCallister" <gabaroo6958@...>
To: <cybalist@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 3:14 PM
Subject: [tied] was Punk Ekk, now Japanese
> Here's what the Wik has to say about Japanese
>
> Japanese vocabulary has been heavily influenced by
> loans from other languages. A vast number of words
> were borrowed from Chinese, or created from Chinese
> models, over a period of at least 1,500 years. Since
> the late 19th century, Japanese has borrowed a
> considerable number of words from Indo-European
> languages, primarily English. Because of the special
> trade relationship between Japan and first Portugal in
> the 16th century, and then mainly Holland in the 17th
> century, Portuguese and Dutch have also been
> influential.
>
> Formerly, standard Japanese in writing
> (文語 bungo , "literary language") was
> different from colloquial language (口語
> kōgo ). The two systems have different rules
> of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was
> the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900;
> since then kōgo gradually extended its influence
> and the two methods were both used in writing until
> the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for
> historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many
> Japanese laws that survived World War II are still
> written in bungo, although there are ongoing efforts
> to modernize their language). Kōgo is the
> predominant method of both speaking and writing
> Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary
> are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
>
> Main article: Japanese dialects
> Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion
> is due to many factors, including the length of time
> the archipelago has been inhabited, its mountainous
> island terrain, and Japan's long history of both
> external and internal isolation. Dialects typically
> differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional
> morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even
> differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although
> this is uncommon.
> The main distinction in Japanese accents is between
> Tokyo-type (東京式
> Tōkyō-shiki ) and Western-type
> (京阪式 Keihan-shiki ), though
> Kyūshū-type dialects form a third, smaller
> group. Within each type are several subdivisions. The
> Western-type dialects are actually in the central
> region, with borders roughly formed by Toyama,
> Kyōto, Hyōgo, and Mie Prefectures; most
> Shikoku dialects are also Western-type. Dialects
> farther west are actually of the Tokyo type. The final
> category of dialects are those that are descended from
> the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese; these dialects
> are spoken in Hachijojima, Kōchi Prefecture, and
> very few other locations.
> Dialects from peripheral regions, such as Tōhoku
> or Tsushima, may be unintelligible to speakers from
> other parts of the country. The several dialects used
> in Kagoshima in southern Kyūshū are famous
> for being unintelligible not only to speakers of
> standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects
> elsewhere in Kyūshū as well[citation
> needed]. This is probably due in part to the Kagoshima
> dialects' peculiarities of pronunciation, which
> include the existence of closed syllables (i.e.,
> syllables that end in a consonant, such as /kob/ or
> /koʔ/ for Standard Japanese /kumo/ "spider"). The
> vocabulary of Kagoshima dialect is 84% cognate with
> standard Tokyo dialect.[citation needed] Kansai-ben, a
> group of dialects from west-central Japan, is spoken
> by many Japanese; the Osaka dialect in particular is
> associated with comedy.
> The Ryūkyūan languages, while closely
> related to Japanese, are distinct enough to be
> considered a separate branch of the Japonic family,
> and are not dialects of Japanese. They are spoken in
> the Ryukyu Islands and in some islands that are
> politically part of Kagoshima Prefecture. Not only is
> each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but
> most are unintelligible to those who speak other
> Ryūkyūan languages. See Classification of
> the japanese language.
> Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent
> nationwide (including portions of the Ryūkyū
> islands like Okinawa) due not only to television and
> radio, but also to increased mobility within Japan due
> to its system of roads, railways, and airports, as
> well as economic integration. Young people usually
> speak their local dialect and the standard language,
> though in most cases, the local dialect is influenced
> by the standard, and regional versions of "standard"
> Japanese have local-dialect influence.
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
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