Comments on: いうった？

By: How to Japonese» Blog Archive » ゆった Recap

How to Japonese» Blog Archive » ゆった Recap — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 00:13:50 +0000

[...] for the delay with this post. I meant to put up a summary of the comments on this post earlier but have been really busy the past two [...]

By: Blue Shoe

Blue Shoe — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 04:12:11 +0000

Heh, interesting – I asked this same question a couple months back:

http://jadij.blogspot.com/2009/11/just-another-random-question-112909.html

Good stuff to know.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:34:16 +0000

Hey everyone, thanks for the great comments! I’ve realized that I was mistakenly hearing (and saying) いう for ゆ all this time. Very interesting. I guess they aren’t too far apart if you blend my version.

My friend Kaida on facebook also mentioned that the phenomenon is called 音便変化 – because the っ is so difficult to pronounce after い, it becomes ゆ.

Going to type a summary of all this up and update the post. Will definitely mention something about 地方, because I think that’s related.

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 14:26:42 +0000

I’m just going off what I remember learning in a Japanese linguistics course about 10 years ago so bear with me here, but as I mentioned above, in the early days of Japanese (I forget the dates, but I’m talking like 古事記 and 万葉集 times or even before) the あ行 didn’t used to exist but actually came afterward in the evolution of the language. If you look at the oldest written Japanese, you won’t find it pronounced いく anywhere – it was ゆく all the time. This is where colloquialisms such as 行方(不明)/etc. find their roots. I’m not sure how the shift works for いう, but I know the old form was written 言ふ and not 言う. (PS: after checking, I found an entry in a 古語辞典 that says “ゆう” for the old reading and can also find entries for 言ふ, so I’m going to assume that this would go to ゆふ if you go back far enough)

Linguists will tell you that if you go back far enough the 50音 table was actually complete, with a full わ行 and や行, and if you go back even further then there was no ん or あ行. This means that any word starting or ending with an あ行 mora originally started or ended with one of the わ行/や行 characters, possibly one that has fallen out of usage – you may have seen some vestiges of this with ゐ、ゑ、ヱ（ビス）, etc.

By: Akaki Kuumeri

Akaki Kuumeri — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:17:20 +0000

I’m pretty sure ゆき for 行き is used in Tokyo trains too.
Also in song lyrics, and some special expressions like 過ぎ行く and 行方不明.
This my dictionary doesn’t have anything specific on, but it seems that in case of 行く, it isn’t a recent corruption of the word like with 言う, but both いく and ゆく have existed for a longer time. And in fact, ゆく appears to have been the more popular one earlier.

By: Robin

Robin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 08:36:11 +0000

Having lived in Fukushima, Nagoya and Kochi, I think I’m fairly safe in saying ゆった is fairly ubiquitous. I try to avoid it if possible though, simply because I’ve had problems in the past with going ultra 方言 and I think I have over compensated. In Fukushima I have even heard people use it in the ます form: ゆいました

By: Thomas (babelhut.com)

Thomas (babelhut.com) — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 04:43:41 +0000

It’s Kansai-ben. I live here and everyone pronounces it like ゆった. Nobody says いった unless they are reading from a book or are in some other more formal setting.

By: Doug

Doug — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 03:40:03 +0000

I concur w/ the above comments that it sounds like ゆった – have always thought so personally.

Also as mentioned, the parallel that sort of gives credence to this is 行く pronounced ゆく, which I thought was more of a 関東 thing myself… I can attest that you don’t hear it in 東北 as much – you will hear train platform announcements say stuff like ○○ゆきの列車が参ります on Tokyo platforms, where they will 100% say ○○いき in 東北.

My guess as to where the ゆった roots come from is that long, long ago, there was no real あ行 and all mora had a starting consonant sound… would not have be surprised to find out that the original word was pronounced ゆふ or something, although Akaki’s comment above seems to contract this. Maybe ゐふ? Maybe I’ll look it up.

By: Rei

Rei — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:23:49 +0000

Interesting topic!
I was born and brought up in Tokyo Yamanote-area being surrounded by so-called the standard Japanese (標準語）, and never heard いうった in my life.　So I suppose it is a kind of dialect.　On the other hand, I’m quite familiar with ゆった as a colloquial version of 言った.　Tokyo people do use ゆった、but put the stress on the 2nd syllable （た） while Kansai people put it on the 1st.（ゆ）. .. I think.

By: Siena

Siena — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:13:46 +0000

Somebody from Osaka once told me it was Kansai-ben… I think it’s mostly just casual though. I was going to bring up 行く（ゆく） as well, which I hear more in song lyrics than anywhere else.

I love using ゆった, it makes things so much clearer.