Tsushima-ben

Here's a blogger I actually know offline--Austin, who's in my Japanese class. He is a very smart, interesting guy. We've started going out after class with another guy (usually) to talk about Japan, traveling, history, culture, repatriation, being weird, etc. He wants to be a professor, but I don't meet a lot of people like him (who are either aspiring academics or already there) who are intellectual but open. The ones I usually meet exhibit the typical academic cul-de-sac thinking, which not only is predictable but lacking critical thinking.

Unfortunately, his blogging isn't as frequent now because it was really more of a journal of his life on Tsushima, an island in Japan. However, he's recently posted a list of words he learned there:

Tsushima actually boasts two dialects, one for the whole island and the other for Tsutsu, an isolated village at the very southern tip. Tsutsu-ben is so different that even other Tsushima-jin find it incomprehensible. Tsushima-ben itself is strange to the mainlanders who come to the island...the biggest distinction is that Tsushima-jin attach "cha" and "cho" to the end of damn near everything, and even use the particle "chi" in place of the usual "wa." Along with vocabulary, a woman saying she "didn't eat, I'm alright but I feel bad" can be very different:

Standard: "Tabenakatta. Daijoubu kedo astashi wa kibun ga warui."
Tsushima-ben: "Tabenakacha. Dogeemonai kedo ondo chi anbe ga warui."

Here's the list he created--just from what he knows, which is why it's not that long:

rigacho ... Arigato ... Thanks

Anbe ga warui ... Kibun ga warui ... To feel sick

Iibai ... Ii ... Good!

Osha ... Omae ... You (rude)

Ondo ... Atashi ... I, me (women's speech)

Katsu ... Tobikomu ... To dive (esp. pearl diving)

Koke ... Koko ... Here

Saen ... Tsumaranai ... Lame, boring

Se de ... Osu koto ... Pushing

Tau ... Te wo todoku ... In reach

Tawan ... Te wo todokanai ... Out of reach

Dari ... Baka ... Stupid

Chi ... Particle "wa" ... Particle marking sentence subject; is

Dogeemonai ... Daijoubu ... Alright

Nanchi ... Nani ... What

Nemaru ... Kusaru ... To rot

Yasukaran ... Takusan, ippai ... Many, full of~

Wakarancha ... Wakaranai ... Don't understand

Waya! ... Dame! ... No good, stop that!

I want to do another post about where he lived because it's a small place with a rich history. It's between Korea and Japan.