Hi there!
I’m still in a low japanese level, between a N4 and a N3 if that helps to give you an idea, but I recently noticed japanese natives use ゆ instead of いう for the verb 言う, that will be clearer with an example that, despite I’m not so exposed to the language, I pay extra attention and follows the pattern:
-なにゆってんの？
When the correct thing should be:
-なにいってんの？
Noticed also that すみません turns to すいません。
So I was wondering if there are rules that I still haven’t covered in my studies, or it is some kind of deformation/evolution of the language.
If it’s not much asking, if by any chance you know some more cases, please don’t hesitate to comment since it’s actually a really interesting thing and will improve everyone’s 喋り方 I guess!
5 comments
It’s just slurred speech. Like a contraction. ゆう is somewhat regional and somewhat just a preference thing. There’s also ふいんき instead of ふんいき and a bunch of other alternative pronunciations. Or saying an え sound instead of あい, as in さめえ instead of 寒い. There’s no conjugation you’re missing, just normal variance in a spoken language.
EDIT brain fart that 寒い isn’t あい but the concept is the same. I need more coffee.
ゆう is very common! So is すいません. Some will from the す in things like おはようございます
Partially covered here:
[https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2019/07/contractions.html](https://www.japanesewithanime.com/2019/07/contractions.html)
They’re contractions, not evolutions. Same reason why in English we use ‘they’re’ a lot instead of ‘they are’ all the time. じゃない is a similar example of just such a contraction becoming accepted in Japanese much like ‘I’m’ or ‘you’re’ is in English.
As for why いう becomes ゆ, well, that’s because the structure is very close. Though it’s considered a consonant in English, the ‘y’ in ‘you’, for example, acts more like the half vowel /j/ (think like a short ‘ih’ sound). As speech becomes spoken faster and faster, that diphthong (a.k.a. ‘double vowel’) begins to contract, until speakers of both English and Japanese begin to recognise it as the sound for ‘y’, thus ‘yu’ or /ju/.
As for すいません, well, that’s just a standard consonant drop. /m/ takes some time to close the lips, and if you’re trying to say すみません very quickly (like, say, when you’re *apologising*), you might not close the lips in time, meaning the nasal sound doesn’t occur. That’s a bit of a guess, some other factors may be at play, but phonetically speaking that’s probably what’s happened.
You’re talking about pronunciation, right? 言った should be pronounced “itta,” whereas 言う is supposed to be pronounced as “yuu.” そういう is supposed to be pronounced as そうゆう. As a japanese native, I’m rather shocked to know that there are some japanese grown-ups that habitually say ゆって or ゆった. Either way, don’t use ゆう/ゆって/ゆった in writing. Those young japanese natives writing ゆ instead of い would be considered uneducated and unintelligent outside of their circles.