So I’ve been doing some research into Heian Japan and in general the Japanese language and history and one thing I’m not clear on is if the Japanese language was different back then or not?
I’m also curious about the different dialects in Japan, I’m trying to learn but I’m either not looking properly or the information just isn’t readily available.
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The language was certainly very different. Look for resources on Early Middle Japanese- this is what we categorize the language of the Heian period as.
Iirc there are also English materials for Osaka or Kansai dialects
you will want resources on “classical Japanese”. “Classical Japanese: A Grammar” by Haruo Shirane is the one I used, it has an accompanying reader with texts. You’re gonna need to know kanji pretty well though, and have a decent grasp of modern Japanese because a lot of the explanations are based on “this is the old-japanese form of ‘x’.” if you want resources on how it actually sounded, a lot of the phonological reconstructions of old japanese are pretty terminology heavy, but “Old Japanese: A Phonetic Reconstruction”
By Marc Hideo Miyake is a good resource.
There is a youtuber who tried to recreate the language back then on voice, using computer perhaps. It sounds so bizarre and I can’t understand any of that.
https://youtu.be/lrBuftKQQQY
Even with exception for the part of todays territory like Okinawa (Rykyu) and Hokkaido (Ainu), it was vastly different. We’re all learn the classical language, but while there are lots of similarity, it’s an entirely different language. I mean I can understand them way better than Korean when it’s written in clear form, but still it’s hard to get. (I was doing very poorly at class though.)
You’ll hear some pieces of that in literature or other pieces like drama and comics to sound classical, but it’s not an accurate representation at all for the said reason: it’s just too hard. There’s one novel that tried to write a modern story in old language (Ougai Mori’s Maihime) and I loved it as the story takes place in Berlin yet in the language that I only associate with old Japan.
Yes the language back then looks really different (and pretty much unintelligible) for us modern Japanese speakers. Maybe it’s like Beowulf for modern English speakers.
I guess the best information about this is actually in Japanese. At least if you want to hear theories about pronunciation (I am also still looking though). I am currently taking a course on the old written language (bungo). I could look if I find some texts from the Heian era and send them via dm if you want.
I recommend checking out Frellesvig’s *A History of the Japanese language* for a general overview of how Japanese developed. It has sections on both the phonology and brief grammar sketches of Early Middle Japanese (which is the Japanese of the Heian period)
I have a few more recommendations for Old Japanese of the Nara period:
Miyake’s *Old Japanese a phonetic reconstruction* looks specifically at the phonology of Western Old Japanese of the Kansai area
Vovin’s *A Descriptive and Comparative Grammar of Western Old Japanese* also looks at the grammatical aspect
Kipchak also has *A Grammar of the Eastern Old Japanese Dialects* which instead focuses on the varieties that were spoken in the Kanto area