Is the difference between the Tokyo “Edo” accent and dialect and the Kyoto accent and dialect similar to the difference between an American English accent and a British English accent and dialect?

2 comments

1. The dialects in that video are ones from over 100 years ago, when the difference between Kansai and Kanto speech was a bit more pronounced. They’re not representative of local speech today.

   I find a lot of similarities between Japanese dialects and British ones. English from London and Manchester is still the same ‘British English’ backed by a shared culture, but there are plenty of unique quirks, slang, and turns of phrase that they do not share. Japanese is the same: it’s still Japanese, but different.

2. I’m not sure if that’s a salient comparison, but if that’s what helps you, then yes.

   The accent might be closer to a Maine accent vs a Southern accent because the accent groups were separated by a contiguous land mass, so there’s a gradient of intermediate accents rather than two groups separated by great distance and time, leaving the groups to develop differently.