Hichiku dialect

The Hichiku dialect Hichiku hōgen (肥筑方言) is a group of the Japanese dialects spoken in western Kyushu. The name Hichiku (肥筑) is constructed by extracting a representative kanji from Hizen (肥前), Higo (肥後), Chikuzen (筑前) and Chikugo (筑後), the names of old provinces.

Hichiku Japanese
Native to	Japan
Region	western Kyūshū
Language family	Japonic Japanese Kyūshū Hichiku Japanese
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	hich1237
Hichiku dialect area (orange)

• Hichiku dialect
  • Chikuzen dialect (western Fukuoka Prefecture, formerly known as Chikuzen Province, includes the Hakata dialect of Hakata district in Fukuoka)
  • Chikugo dialect (southern Fukuoka Prefecture, formerly known as Chikugo Province)
    • Ōmuta dialect (Ōmuta)
    • Yanagawa dialect (Yanagawa)
  • Saga dialect (Saga Prefecture)
    • Karatsu dialect (northern Saga Prefecture centered Karatsu)
    • Tashiro dialect (easternmost Saga Prefecture centered Tashiro)
  • Nagasaki dialect (Nagasaki Prefecture)
    • Sasebo dialect (northern Nagasaki Prefecture centered Sasebo)
    • Hirado dialect (Hirado Island, west of Nagasaki Prefecture)
  • Kumamoto dialect (Kumamoto Prefecture)
  • Hita dialect (Hita, southwestern Oita Prefecture)
  • Iki dialect (Iki Island of Nagasaki Prefecture)
  • Tsushima dialect (Tsushima Island of Nagasaki Prefecture)
  • Gotō dialect (Gotō Islands of Nagasaki Prefecture)

Common characteristics of this group entail among others:

-adjectives ending in -ka instead of -i

-the ending -u or derivations instead of -ku

-copula -bai and -tai

-particle -to instead of -no

-palatized pronunciation of -se- as -she-

References

1. Kido, Yasuhito (2015). "On the Syntactic Structure of Bai and Tai in Hichiku Dialect | Collections | Kyushu University Library". 九州大学言語学論集 (in Japanese). 35. doi:10.15017/1518719. hdl:2324/1518719.
2. "視点と言語表現:移動動詞「行く/来る」の使い分けについて". 東京女子大学言語文化研究 (in Japanese). 23: 36–51. 2015-03-01. Archived from the original on 2022-12-24. Retrieved 2022-12-23.