Edit: 12/01/09: Asked one of the English teachers I work with today and she said that ゆう is Kansai-ben for 言う。
言う (iu; to say) is a word that you learn fairly early on in Japanese studies. Being an ~う verb, the ~て form (used for commands and a slew of other grammatical constructions) is, of course, 言って. However I've noticed that sometimes Japanese people will say いうて instead. I'm wondering if this is just a spoken variation or some special rule I haven't encountered in my studies.
Anyone know anything about this one?
Japanese people often say ゆう instead of いう... simply because it's easier to say.
ReplyDelete「ゆ」を伸ばせば自然に「ゆう」になるでしょう？
I've never seen it used in writing, except in dialog.
Also, in casual speech 「て言った」 turns into 「つった」... just to save time.
この「つった」は聞いたことがあるだろうと思うんだけど．．．
For example:
「何て言った？」
becomes...
「何てゆった？」
becomes...
「何つった？」
Ahh, interesting. Thanks, Bryce.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that ゆう is Kansai-ben, but with the diffusion, who can tell for sure?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I don't know. It's my experience that many people from Kansai often don't know exactly what words are kansai-ben.
ReplyDelete