Re: [tlug] Japanese Encoding - which one?

["Lyle (Hiroshi) Saxon" <ronfaxon@example.com>]

Stuart Luppescu wrote:

> I am able to read both test messages in Evolution. However, 
>
> > れは日本語なのじゃ！
> >    
>
> should really be
>
> これは日本語なのじゃい！
>
> shouldn't it? :)
>  
I'm no master of the Japanese language, but to my ears, the way some old 
men say it I would say the ending is "ja" and not "jai".  I've heard the 
"jai" ending too, but much more often the "ja" ending.  Actually... I'm 
embarrassed to admit it, but the two sources that come immediately to 
mind are an animation that I first saw in 1985 (and is still broadcast 
on... Wednesday evenings?) of old traditional children's tales and the 
narration is in the style of older people, with half the sentences 
ending in "no-ja".  The other source that comes to mind is in the old 
Doraemon comics where they have a cranky old man appear from time to 
time and he tends to end his sentences with "ja"......  (I meant it in 
the spirit of the comic books as a kind of joke, BTW.)

Okay - I just consulted with a native speaker and was told that "ja" is 
correct - with the caveat that it's "hogen" (a dialect) and is not in 
use in Tokyo (any more or never was?).  The native speaker commented 
that "probably there's 'jai' as well - but certainly it's 'hogen'".  In 
any case, my feeling - which was just backed up by a native speaker - is 
that "ja" is definitely the more common.  Where did you hear "jai"?  On 
this topic - I have a book on hogen that came with a CD of actual 
recordings of dialects starting up in Hokkaido and going all the way 
down to Okinawa.  The Okinawan one is so radically different that I 
would say it's basically a different language!  Regarding the many other 
dialects on the CD, one of the main distinguishing characteristics of 
them is how sentences are ended......

Lyle