The Nagoya dialect (名古屋弁) is a Japanese dialect spoken in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. In a wide sense, Nagoya dialect means the dialect in the western half of the prefecture (formerly part of Owari Province), and in that case, it is also called Owari dialect (尾張弁 Owari-ben). The dialect spoken in the eastern half of the prefecture (formerly part of Mikawa Province) is different from Nagoya dialect and called Mikawa dialect (三河弁 Mikawa-ben).

Phonology

Nagoya dialect is well known for possessing monophthongs where vowel sequences are found in Standard: and become ( or in some areas), becomes or, and becomes or ; in recent years, their use has significantly declined among young people. is very famous as a characteristic of the Nagoya dialect; it is widely imitated as a stereotype of Nagoya speakers and often becomes a target of jokes such as "Nagoya people speak like a cat" (a play on words with or and "meow"). Japanese comedian Tamori once joked about Nagoya dialect such as ebifuryaa (incorrect Nagoya form of ebifurai or "fried prawn") and made Nagoya people angry, but restaurateurs in Nagoya took advantage of the joke and ebifurai became one of Nagoya's specialty foods. The Pitch accent of Nagoya dialect is almost the same system as the Tokyo accent, but tends to shift the start of high pitch. For example, Nagoya-ben is pronounced as Low-High-High-High-High in Tokyo, and Low-Low-High-High-High in Nagoya. Some words have different downsteps between Nagoya and Tokyo. For example, Nagoya is pronounced as High-Low-Low in Tokyo, and Low-Low-High in Nagoya; arigato ("thanks") is pronounced as Low-High-Low-Low in Tokyo, and Low-Low-High-Low in Nagoya; itsumo ("always") is pronounced as High-Low-Low in Tokyo, and Low-High-Low in Nagoya. Interrogative words such as nani ("what") and dore ("which") have an accent on first mora in Tokyo, and accentless in Nagoya. Demonstratives (except do-) such as kore ("this") and sore ("it") are accentless in Tokyo, and have an accent on last mora in Nagoya.

Grammar

The grammar of the Nagoya dialect shows intermediate characteristics between eastern Japanese (including standard Tokyo dialect) and western Japanese (including Kansai dialect). For example, Nagoya dialect uses eastern copula da instead of western ya (to be precise, in traditional Nagoya dialect); western negative verb ending -n and -sen instead of eastern -nai; western verb oru (to exist [humans/animals]) instead of eastern iru. Onbin of verbs is same as eastern, but one of adjectives is same as western; for example, "eat quickly" becomes hayoo kutte in Nagoya dialect instead of eastern hayaku kutte and western hayoo kuute.

Particles

Tokyoites frequently use sa and ne, and Osakans frequently use naa. In contrast, Nagoya speakers frequently put yoo between phrases. De is another characteristic particle of Nagoya dialect. In the Nagoya dialect, the no in no de "because" is optional. Monde is also used as well as de in Nagoya dialect.

Sentence final particles

Nagoya dialect has a wider range of sentence-final particles than is used in standard Japanese.

Auxiliary verbs

Nagoya-ben has some auxiliary verbs which are not used in the standard language. Some standard helping verbs are contracted in Nagoya dialect.

Vocabulary