Mikawa dialect


The Mikawa dialect is a Japanese dialect spoken in eastern half of Aichi Prefecture, former Mikawa Province. It is subdivided into western variety centered Okazaki and eastern variety centered Toyohashi. The Mikawa dialect is classified into the Gifu-Aichi group of the Tokai-Tosan dialect with the Nagoya dialect spoken in western half of Aichi Prefecture, however the Mikawa dialect also closes to dialects spoken in western Shizuoka Prefecture and southern Nagano Prefecture.

Phonology

The Nagoya dialect is notable for peculiar monophthongs such as , but the Mikawa dialect is not. Pitch accent of the Mikawa dialect, especially western Mikawa, is almost same to standard Tokyo accent.

Grammar

The grammar of Mikawa dialect shows transitional features between Eastern and Western Japanese as well as the Nagoya dialect; use eastern copula da, western negative verb ending -n and western verb oru. Onbin of adjectives of the western Mikawa dialect is western form hayō "quickly", but one of the eastern Mikawa dialect is eastern form hayaku. Use of particles de and monde instead of standard node "because" is common to the Nagoya dialect. The Mikawa dialect is notable for its three sentence endings: jan, dara and -rin.