us, a big "Ōkini!"
DC Palter
Kaoru Horiuchi
■ Introduction ■
Maido, maido and welcome to Kansai Japan, the land of historic temples, beautiful geiko, majestic mountains, and a vibrant, growing economy. Kindly leave your shoes and Tokyo dialect by the door. Remember to open your mouth when you speak here. If you like, you can roll your r's all the way down Mt. Rokko. The more expression in your voice, the better. Tell jokes. Go ahead, don't be afraid. You're among friends—this is Kansai.
If you've been here long, you have already noticed that nobody is speaking the Japanese you so diligently studied in classes and textbooks. But you're going to have to learn the language of the streets. Of course, you can continue speaking the so-called hyōjungo, standard Japanese, the language of poker-faced bureaucrats up in Tokyo, exactly as it is taught on NHK, but you'll bore everybody and you sure won't have a clue as to what people are saying to you.
We have written this book for people who, like us, despite years of studying Japanese, or even being a Japanese native, felt clueless when they moved to the Kansai region and wore out their dictionaries trying in vain to find the meaning of words like honma, akan, shimota, and chau. Despite being the language spoken by every one of your honorable neighbors, including your teachers, it isn't taught in classes and there are no textbooks, tapes, or television shows to help master it. Yet, not only does learning the language make it possible to understand everyone else but Kansai-ben is also a more expressive language, a more enjoyable dialect to speak than Tokyo-ben. And although it may seem strange for a foreigner to speak Kansai-ben (like a Japanese person affecting a Cockney accent or an Alabama drawl), it works wonders in livening up conversations, even in Tokyo.
If you're living in the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area, we hope you will find this book an indispensable road map to the language surrounding you. If you live elsewhere in the Kansai region, you should find that nearly all of our explanations are applicable, but that each region's dialect has its own pronunciation, special words, and other peculiarities you will need to pick up by paying close attention to your neighbors' speech patterns. If you live elsewhere in the southern half of Honshu, such as Nagoya, Hiroshima, or Okayama, we expect you will also find this book useful, since the language spoken throughout the area has more in common with Kansai-ben than with hyōjungo. But you should listen carefully for differences, and may want to consider writing a book similar to this one yourself. If you live anywhere else in Japan or, God forbid, are still stuck in Tokyo, you can at least pretend to live in Kansai and lighten up those monotonous conversations.
So pour yourself a glass of beer or a cup of hot Nada sake, put on your Hanshin Tigers baseball cap, and learn to speak like a native.
Ganbatte na!
What Is Kinki?
The Kinki region of Japan, called Kinki Chihō 近畿地方 in Japanese, covers a wide region in the southern hall of the main Honshu 本州island. Although the area considered part of the Kinki region has varied through history, it is now legally defined as the two cities (fu,府) of Osaka and Kyoto and the five prefectures (ken, 県) of Hyogo, Mie, Nara, Shiga, and Wakayama or, in less legal terms, the land south of Nagoya and north of Okayama. This region includes Osaka, Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, Akashi, the Ise Peninsula, and Awaji Island. Of course, there are differences in the language across such a large area containing such drastic contrasts in living styles and history, but these local variations are all considered sub-dialects of Kansai-ben.
What then is Kansai? Although the word "Kansai" is used much more frequently than "Kinki," unfortunately the meaning of Kansai is somewhat muddled. Officially, Kansai is synonymous with Kinki, but in actual usage it usually applies only to the Kyoto-Osaka-Kobe area. This tri-city region is usually abbreviated in Japanese as Kei-Han-Shin 京阪神, taking one character from the name of each city. Kei-Han-Shin also includes the surburban cities in between, such as Ibaragi, Hirakata, and Nishinomiya.
To make matters even more confusing, the version of Kansai-ben. spoken in Osaka is often referred to as Osaka-ben, but as most outsiders cannot tell the difference, and because Osaka is by far the largest city in the region, quite often anyone who uses words such as akan and honma is considered to be speaking Osaka-ben.
For the purpose of this book, we consider all the variations of Japanese spoken throughout the Kinki region to be part of Kansai-ben, and have tried to indicate the words or phrases that are used only in Osaka or only in the Kei-Han-Shin area.
We would also like to note that although many other areas of Central, Southern, and Western Honshu, such as Nagoya, Okayama, and Hiroshima, are not considered to be part of the Kinki region, the language in these areas has more in common with Kansai-ben than with standard Japanese. We have therefore tried to make this book useful for people living in these regions as well.
The Dialect
Why does the language spoken in Kansai differ from that in Tokyo and even vary from place to place within Kansai, even within the city of Osaka? The reason lies in the fact that before the advent of modern transportation and communication, residents of each area had little contact with people from more than a few miles away. As the language grew and changed, it did so within the confines of each locality. With the advent of modern communications, as well as the centralization of power in Tokyo, nearly everyone in Japan became able to understand and speak the officially sanctioned version of Japanese (the Tokyo version, of course). Regional dialects, however, although diminishing in usage, are still a fact of life in Japan. Children still master the local dialect spoken by parents and friends long before they are taught to speak standard Japanese.
But why are some words used in Kansai while different words with nearly identical meanings are used in Tokyo, and why are certain pronunciations of the same word favored in Kansai over the standard pronunciation? Essentially, it is because that is the way it is, but there are a few guiding rules for newcomers to Kansai-ben.
• Many words in standard Japanese are contracted. Note the following examples.
| KANSAI | STANDARD | ENGLISH |
| yō よぅ | yoku よ く | very, well |
| omoroi おもろい | omoshiroi 面白い | interesting |
| chau ちゃう | chigau 違う | wrong |
| kora こら | Kore wa これは | this is |
| sora そら | sore wa それは | that is |
• For no reason other than history, certain words are used in Kansai while others are used in Tokyo.
| nukui ぬくい | atatakai 暖かい | warm |
| kosobai こそばい | Kusuguttai くすぐったい | ticklish |
| kokeru こける | korobu 転ぶ | fall down |
| hokasu ほかす | suteru 捨てる | throw away |
• "S" sounds in standard Japanese are often replaced by "h" sounds.
| -han —はん | -san —さん | Mr., Ms., Mrs., Miss |
| -mahen —まへん | -masen —ません | (negative conjugation) |
| -mahyō —まひよう | -mashō —ましょう | ("let's do" conjugation) |
• Desu です and its variations are replaced by ya や.
| ya や | da だ | is |
| yaro やろ | darō だろう | don't you think? |
| yakaraやから | dakara だから | therefore |
• Long vowels, especially at the end of words, are often shortened.
| iko 行こ | ikō 行こう | let's go |
| sho しよ | shō しよう | let's do |
| soya そや, seya せや | sō da そうだ | yes |
• Short vowels at the end of words are sometimes lengthened.
| tē 手え | te
|