Why Is the Kagoshima Dialect So Hard to Follow? Sound and History
The Kagoshima dialect, known to linguists as Satsugu, works on a sound system that differs sharply from most other Japanese dialects. Here is what makes it so distinctive, and how that very unfamiliarity was put to real historical use, with sources.
The Kagoshima dialect is spoken across Kagoshima Prefecture, apart from the Amami Islands, and in the Morokata district of neighboring Miyazaki Prefecture. Linguists classify it as the Satsugu dialect. Kyushu's dialects are generally divided into three broad groups, and Satsugu is considered the most heavily specialized of the three.
This article covers two defining traits of how Satsugu actually sounds, then turns to how that unusual sound shaped both everyday standard Japanese and a real wartime episode.
A sound system unusual even by Japanese standards
Satsugu has no concept of the mora; the syllable itself sets the rhythm, an unusual trait among Japanese dialects.
A syllable-timed dialect with no mora
Standard Japanese pronounces the word itte, meaning went, as three beats, i-q-te, spanning two syllables but three morae. In Satsugu, the same word can only be two beats, iq-te, because every syllable takes the same length regardless of type, removing any need for a separate mora unit. This makes Satsugu unusual among Japanese dialects; only a few Tohoku dialects, such as Tsugaru and Akita, share the trait.
Word-final consonant endings and homophones
In Satsugu, word-final syllables such as ki, gi, ku, gu, chi, ji, tsu, bi, and bu lose their vowel and collapse into a glottal stop or an unreleased consonant. As a result, words that once sounded completely different, such as shoe, neck, mouth, nail, comb, and comes, all converge on the same pronunciation, kuq, creating a striking amount of homophony. In Kagoshima City and nearby areas, the verb ending ru undergoes the same kind of contraction.
Words that entered standard Japanese, and a dialect that kept a secret
Words like oi and kora entered standard Japanese from Satsugu, which was also used as a spoken code during the Second World War.
Oi and kora, words that slipped into standard Japanese
Meiji-era Japanese policing was dominated by Satsuma domain veterans, and Kawaji Toshiyoshi, the first Dai-keishi, a post equivalent to today's Superintendent-General and himself from Kagoshima, led the force. The Satsugu word oi, and kora, originally meaning something closer to this here or you, were the words these officers used to get a citizen's attention; over time they settled into standard Japanese as informal, sometimes reproachful ways of addressing someone.
Satsugu as a wartime code
In 1943, as Germany transferred the submarine U-511 to Japan, deteriorating conditions made the usual coded telegrams between Tokyo's Foreign Ministry and the Japanese embassy in Berlin, based on a random-number cipher, too hard to keep using. Instead, staff at both ends, all from Satsuma, exchanged sensitive details over international telephone calls conducted in rapid Satsugu. American naval intelligence intercepted the calls but could not even identify what language was being spoken; after searching through languages from around the world, it finally took Itami Akira, a second-generation Japanese-American from Kajiki, a town in what is now Aira City, Kagoshima, to identify the dialect, and decoding the calls took a full two months from the original recordings. German intelligence, which was also listening in, reportedly never managed to crack the code at all.
FAQ
How does Satsugu differ from other Kyushu dialects?
Kyushu dialects are generally split into three groups. Features that feel quintessentially Kyushu, such as the ka-ending adjectives seen in yoka, or the word batten for but, are concentrated in the Hichiku group elsewhere on the island. Satsugu instead developed its own path, most notably by letting words end in a bare consonant through vowel loss.
What is the two-pattern accent system in Satsugu?
Every word belongs to one of only two accent patterns, called Type A and Type B, regardless of how many syllables it has. Across Kagoshima City and much of the prefecture, Type A raises the pitch on the second-to-last syllable of a phrase, while Type B raises only the very last syllable.
Is ogojo also a Satsugu dialect word?
Yes. It belongs to the Satsugu vocabulary and means a young woman or miss. The phrase Satsuma ogojo, used affectionately for Kagoshima women, comes from the same root.
What did binta originally mean?
In Satsugu, binta simply meant the head, specifically the area of hair near the temple. Its later sense of a slap is thought to have grown out of the corporal punishment once handed out by sports coaches and military instructors from Kagoshima, who called it guidance.