Lesser-Known Language: Tsugaru-ben
A dialect from Japan that sounds like... French??
In my search for lesser-known languages, I’ve dug through loads of websites but only rarely talked about languages from Japan, the second country I ever called home.
It is home to the first lesser-known language I ever wrote about: Ainu.
When I dug into Ainu for the first time in 2012, I had already heard about the existence of what I thought was another language in Japan: Okinawan, without knowing that was just one of the many Ryukyuan languages.
Since then, I’ve searched and searched. But only recently did I stop to ask myself a new question:
What’s the weirdest dialect I can find?
I know. Quite subjective. And not a very nice question.
As I had already listened to many Japanese dialects, I thought this would be difficult to find. Until I heard of the Tsugaru dialect, Tsugaru-ben (津軽弁), a dialect from the north of the main island, Honshu, around Aomori.
The first time I heard it, I could recognize it was somehow connected to Standard Japanese only because I had read so. Had I heard it in the wild, I wonder what language I’d have mistaken this for.
Well, it turns out this dialect is famous for sounding like French to Japanese people. So famous, in fact, that it culminated in a Toyota Passo ad where the speaker acted as French people.
As a French, I doubt I’d have ever considered it close to French but I see where the idea comes from. Still, I definitely wouldn’t have chosen Japanese as its base!
Curious already? Let’s dive in.
Shortening
Tsugaru-ben is most famous for two aspects.
The first is how short its words are.
For instance, the pronoun I is わ wa and is thought to be a contraction of the Standard Japanese わたし watashi but that’s actually an old version of the pronoun I, now disused outside of Tsugaru-ben. The same thing applies to な for You.
Of the reasons for this myth is that the region where it’s spoken, Tohoku, is up north and therefore cold so people use shorter words to avoid freezing while speaking too much. In reality, some words are longer than their Japanese counterparts.
For example, おたってまった otattematta is one way of saying 疲れた tsukareta, for “I’m tired.”
Still, the fact that Tsugaru-ben uses shorter words in general is not completely wrong.
Many words have shorter versions of Standard Japanese, such as え e instead of 家 (いえ ie) for “house,” and some others have unrelated yet shorter versions, such as ぬげ nuge instead of 暖かい atatakai for “warm.”
Many sentences also end up being shorter as even more words are implied compared to Japanese.
For example, どさ dosa is famous for meaning “where are you going?” This is a shorter version of どさいぐ dosa igu (where - to go) which is already shorter than the Standard Japanese どこへ行く doko-e iku.
Those of you who speak Japanese may have also noticed the particle へ (h)e that indicates direction is also gone. That’s because many particles disappear in Tsugaru-ben:
The Subject Marker が ga isn’t used at all
The Object Marker を wo isn’t used unless you wish to put an emphasis on the thing itself. When that’s the case ごど godo or ば ba are used:
すすごどたべる susu-godo taberu → すしをたべる sushi-wo taberu → I eat sushi (and not something else).
The Topic Marker は ha (pronounced wa) is often replaced with a small ぁ a at the end of the previous word, as in 雨ぁ amea instead of 雨は ame-wa
To emphasize the topic, ぁ a is replaced with きゃ kya or だきゃ dakya as in わきゃいぐ wa-kya igu (I (and not someone else) am going).
The Directional Marker に ni is often replaced with ね ne or さ sa.
Japanese speakers who hear Tsugaru-ben are unlikely to get more than the gist of things because of all these differences. For example, I invite any Japanese speakers to listen to this video and get what the man means before the little girl translates. I had recognized only bits.
And if you didn’t get it with the ad and now this video, well, it’s time to turn to the second reason Tsugaru-ben is considered crazy.
Pronunciation
Tsugaru-ben’s second famous peculiarity is its accent.
It’s part of what are called the zuzu-ben (ズーズー弁), a bunch of dialects (mostly in the north-east side of Japan) where じ ji, ず zu, ぢ dji, and づ dzu are all pronounced as the same sound: [d͡ʑi]. This is apparently mostly followed in this dialect and the Akita dialect.
This may seem weird to some of you but it’s only partly strange to Japanese speakers. These four were pronounced differently in the past but only dialects from the south west (mostly in Kyushu) kept the difference. For Standard Japanese, じ and ぢ are pronounced the same way (ji), while ず and づ are too (zu).
To be honest, I never really thought about it when I first learned Japanese but it is strange to have no difference between those.1 And now that I know there are (many) dialects making NO difference whatsoever between all four, this makes my head turn.2
Tsugaru-ben feels so foreign even to Japanese people for one other reason: its overall sounds.
Tsugaru-ben softens the hard Ks and Ts. These often end up being pronounced (and even written sometimes!) as Gs and Ds. That’s how the word みかん mikan would sound like みがん migan.
I laughed when I realized the word かたい katai which means “hard” (in the sense “solid, strong”) would become がだい gadai, a much less… well, hard way to say the word.
/u/ and /i/ also often meet in the middle, as explained Vance, creator of Tsugaruben.net, which is likely why sushi sounds like susu.
Tsugaru-ben is a very nasal dialect so the sound /n/ often appears in the middle of words, and especially in front of Zs, Bs, Gs, and Ds.
Listening to it, some more in common videos like this one, it also feels to me the flow of the dialect is slightly different from Standard Japanese.
Grammar & Endings
Now, it wouldn’t be a Japanese dialect if it didn’t have its own well-known sentence-ending particles.
The most famous Tsugaru-ben uses is the べ be as a way to invite action:
かぐべ kagube = かこう kakou = Let’s write.
おぎべ ogibe = おきよう okiyou = Let’s get up.
This べ be can be found in many dialects of Tohoku. It’s even found in Standard Japanese spoken in the region—as in, people speaking in Standard Japanese might still use this べ be in sentences.
The polite present tense sees its ～ます ~masu form replaced with し shi, as in かぎし kagishi, but it’s possible to be even more polite by using でごし degoshi or でごえし degoeshi instead: かぐでごえし kagudegoeshi.
The negative ～ません ~masen is replaced by へん hen or ひぇん hyen as in かぎへん kagihen. This hen reminds me of the Kansai dialect negation but I’m not sure if that’s a coincidence. Unlikely I guess but still.
The verb “to be” in the affirmative is like the Standard Japanese です desu but its negation becomes でひぇん dehyen3 instead of ではありません de-wa arimasen.
Some sentences
Here are some sentences I found in Tsugaru-ben.
Where to Learn
If you wanted to learn Tsugaru-ben, I’d say your best bet would be to go there as a Japanese speaker or find friends who speak it in your area. Both are unlikely for most people though (especially the latter since fewer and fewer younger generations speak it).
Either way, you’ll need at least some good basics of Japanese to learn Tsugaru-ben since the variations are easier to understand as a Japanese speaker and most (of the few) resources available for learners are in Japanese.
The two sources I used most to write this piece were the website I shared above from Vance: Tsugaruben.net and the Japanese Wikipedia page which contains a lot more than what I’ve shared.
I also reached out to Vance who very kindly told me about a few more resources:
A book called 日本語と津軽弁 (Nihongo to Tsugaru-ben)
The Matsunoki Corpus, which features 20 stories with both pronunciation and English translations, as well as annotated syntactic trees. It also has quite a developed learner’s dictionary in English.
Apart from these, I also found this dictionary in Japanese which is useful to find words or expressions like いだわしい idawashii, which means もったいない (mottainai, It’s too bad).
There are also other less complete but useful platforms like this one that explains the endings for Tsugaru-ben or this script with both Japanese and Tsugaru-ben.
Final words
The Tsugaru-ben was very interesting to research. Despite being very famous in Japan for its “strange” sounds, not much actual explanation about the language itself exists.
In a way, it makes sense, it is “just” a dialect, found in an area less populated than many others in Japan, a country that insists on having everyone speak in the same manner: “Standard Japanese.” For example, the Ainu language—a full-fledged language different from Japanese—was only recognized in June 2008 despite its people having been in Japan before the Japanese even arrived.
Governments often look down upon dialects. They’re not considered important enough to be preserved or expanded. Japan is no exception and Tsugaru-ben suffers from it as do many other dialects.
Still, some people try their best to preserve and research the language (such as Vance, the only person to write extensively in English about it as far as I know). There are also some locals showcasing the language with short videos on TikTok or YouTube such as Annadayooon or Nebuta Rumi.
Let’s hope more and more people spread it online and in Japan!
If you know more resources, let me know so I can add them in this piece.
To be honest, I still make a tiny difference between ず and づ, in which I usually add an almost indistinguishable “d” or at least the start of one.
Don’t get me started on how strange I find the Kunisaki dialect, the only dialect that doesn’t distinguish between じ and ぢ but does between the other two, therefore having three pronunciations for four kanas. 🤯
I don’t know why but it sounds cute to me.