Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 28, 2026

Shikoku dialect

The Shikoku dialects are a group of the Japanese dialects spoken on Shikoku.

Last revised
Jul 28, 2026
Read time
≈ 1 min
Length
276 w
Citations
3
Source
Shikoku Japanese
Native toJapan
RegionShikoku
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottologshik1243
Shikoku dialect area. Orange: Kyoto-type pitch accent. Yellow: Kyushu-type.

The Shikoku dialects (四国方言, Shikoku hōgen) are a group of the Japanese dialects spoken on Shikoku.12

The Shikoku dialects are:

The Shikoku dialect has many similarities to the Chūgoku dialect group in grammar. Shikoku dialect uses ken for "because", and -yoru in progressive aspect and -toru or -choru in the perfect. Some people in Kōchi Prefecture use kin, kini, or ki instead of ken, - (Hata) or - (Tosa) instead of -yoru, and -chō (Hata) or -chū (Tosa) instead of -choru.

The largest difference between Shikoku dialect and Chūgoku dialect is in pitch accent. Except southwestern Ehime and western Kochi (yellow area on the right map), many dialects in Shikoku use the Kyoto-Osaka-type accent or its variations, and are similar to Kansai dialect, but Chūgoku dialect uses a Tokyo-type accent.

The differences between zi and di and between zu and du, which have been lost in standard Japanese, have been preserved in the southern part of the Shikoku dialect region.3

References

References

  1. Fujiwara, Yoichi (1964). "Cessationals in the Japanese Dialects". Monumenta Nipponica. 19 (1/2): 130–162. doi:10.2307/2383286. ISSN 0027-0741. JSTOR 2383286.
  2. Fujiwara, Yoichi (1963). "A Dialect Grammar of Japanese". Monumenta Nipponica. 18 (1/4): 147–190. doi:10.2307/2383138. ISSN 0027-0741. JSTOR 2383138.
  3. Boberg, Charles; Nerbonne, John; Watt, Dominic (2018-01-30). The Handbook of Dialectology. John Wiley & Sons. p. 566. ISBN 978-1-118-82759-8.