Kesen dialect explained

Kesen
Nativename: / Japanese: ケセン語
States:Japan
Region:Iwate Prefecture

Ōfunato, Rikuzentakata, and Sumita.

Speakers:?
Familycolor:Altaic
Fam1:Japonic
Fam2:Japanese
Fam3:Eastern Japanese
Fam4:Tōhoku
Fam5:Southern
Fam6:Southern Iwate dialect
Isoexception:dialect
Glotto:kese1237
Glottorefname:Kesen
Ietf:ja-u-sd-jp03

or is a Japanese dialect spoken in Kesen County, Iwate Prefecture, Japan.

Kesen has been described by . Yamaura considers Kesen an independent language, related to both Japanese and Ainu languages, but this is not accepted by other linguists.[1]

Kesen

Kesen is spoken in the Kesen district of Iwate Prefecture, in the Tōhoku region of eastern Japan. Kesen dialect has been described as a variety of the Tōhoku dialect.[2] The status of Kesen as an independent language, rather than a dialect of Japanese, is disputed.[1] Harutsugu Yamaura, who developed a writing system for Kesen in 1986[3] (see below), has argued that the form is a language.[4]

Harutsugu Yamaura

Iwate language activist and medical doctor Harutsugu Yamaura described the dialect in various books, including a dictionary, a grammar, and a translation of the New Testament. Yamaura also created an orthography for Kesen using two writing systems, the first based on the Latin script, and the second on the Japanese writing system. Yamaura has forwarded the theory Kesen should not be considered a Japanese dialect, but an independent language in its own right with an Ainu substrate, a theory that is controversial.[1]

According to Yamaura, Kesen was strongly influenced by the Emishi language. The word, for instance, comes from the Ainu term (cove at the south tip) and (scraped place). Yamaura considered the conventional Japanese kanji for an ateji imposed by Yamato Kingdom. Therefore, used katakana, a writing system for foreign words, to spell the name .

Yamaura's effort to describe Kesen and restore people's pride in their local speech is an example of efforts springing up all over Japan,[5] where the education system has resulted in the stigmatization of local dialects, which children were forbidden to use.[5] However, such efforts are routinely depicted in the Japanese media as "romantic, bizarre or quaint".[5] Yamaura's work has been recommended by Japanese linguists as a model to be followed for other dialects.[1]

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: The vanishing languages of the Pacific rim . . Shinji Sanada and Yukio Uemura . Japanese dialects and Ryukyuan . 362 . Oxford University Press . 2007 . 978-0-19-926662-3.
  2. Saito . Koji . CiNii Research . 1993 . ja:岩手県三陸町綾里方言の音韻 . The phonological system of Ryori dialect in Sanrikucho, Iwate-prefecture . Journal of the Department of Japanese, Tohoku University . 3 . 37–48 . Japanese . 18 February 2016.
  3. Hayata . Teruhiro . 1989 . ja:「ケセン語入門」山浦玄嗣 . 'Introduction to Kesengo' by Yamaura Harutsugu . Japanese . Kokugogaku: Studies in the Japanese Language . 156 . 65–70.
  4. Yamaura . Harutsugu . CiNii Research . 2004 . ja:ケセン語を拓く . Kesenese Renaissance . Japanese Journal of Language in Society . 7 . 101–119 . Japanese . 18 February 2016.
  5. Book: Language Change in East Asia . Thomas E. McAuley . Tessa Carroll . Chapter 1. Changing attitudes: dialects versus the standard language in Japan . 7–24 . Routledge . 2001 . 0-7007-1377-8.