I ask this because a lot of countries tend to mistreat speakers of regional languages/accents/varieties and basically shame them into learning the official language/variety.
(i.e France historically and their treatment of Occitan, Basque, Corsican languages etc. shamed them into basically forgetting their languages which is where the word dialect stems from. All non-French speakers had their languages referred to as dialects)
I know there exists the Ryukuan languages and the Ainu language, but I’m talking more about what would be known as “ben”.
For example the Aomori variety is very hard to understand for people who only know the Tokyo variety of Japanese.
Is there **pride** and/or **protection** of these differences?
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I’m gonna ride on this question and ask that if I want to go to okinawa, will I have to study different Japanese or will the standard Tokyo dialect work?
Can’t speak to places like Okinawa or Hokkaido but in reality, regional accents aren’t discouraged. In fact, you’ll find plenty of people still use them to an extent. I’m so used to Chugoku Shikoku dialects now that I use them myself and no one bats an eye.
Having spent a lot of time in western Japan now, even in most workplaces it’s common but, 標準語 is what is taught in schools and expected in the business and public sector. I’ve seen upper management be antagonistic towards 新卒who don’t speak “properly”
One of my old bosses was from Osaka, and I would say he was a bit proud of his Kansai ben which is probably the most prominent regional dialect. I’ve even heard of accent schools in Tokyo where people can learn it and practice it (for acting, or just to sound cooler).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kansai_dialect
There is a bit of rivalry between Kansai area and Tokyo. It’s not the norm by any means but I’ve witnessed light joking between friends to strangers picking fights with folks that speak Kansai-Ben here in Tokyo.
Japanese are also very self aware of their regional accents and can typically also speak Japanese with a standard accent. Most young educated people can And do lose their accents when they are not among friends and locals.
I’m fairly young so I can’t speak to how things were before the early 2000s, but as far as I can tell it’s traditionally the kind of thing that people felt self conscious about and I think people moving to Tokyo for college/work often feel like they need to hide their accent. At the same time, a lot of people seem to *like* the sound of regional accents, so overall I don’t think there’s much active shaming going on. (Although I wouldn’t put it past elementary school kids to bully somebody over their accent.)
It can depend on the dialect. For example, Kansai can be considered cool but Gunma can be considered inferior. There’s definitely instances if いじめ (bullying) of classmates who transfer in with a heavy dialect.
Kansai people are very proud of their dialect and even in Kansai itself, different region have different level of pride for their dialect.
dialects are not discouraged at all, but people pick up the hyojungo at an early age to be able to communicate everywhere else.
but as for languages, there’s the Ryukyu and Ainu languages. And I think Ainu is slowly dying out because it’s an isolate. Ryukyu is more common than Ainu as most native Okinawan speak it.
I think it depends on the area a lot – in Nagano when I’m interested in regional words and want to try to use them people go “oh but you shouldn’t, it’s きたない Japanese”. On the other hand I’ve met some people from Osaka online who seem to take a lot of pride in using Osaka dialect. Other people seem to not realize that their accent is regional, a friend of mine went to Tohoku for business and said she (a native Japanese speaker) couldn’t understand even one word but no one seemed to try to make themselves more understandable for her. Kyoto dialect is often felt to be really elegant compared to “standard” dialects. A friend of mine from Miyazaki who lives in Kanagawa said some of her students made fun of the way she pronounces certain words. So, idk. I guess from those anecdotes I’m noticing a city/country bias – big city accents are cool/elegant/sophisticated while countryside ones are dirty/backward/funny. I’m sure someone who’s from Tokyo and speaks “standard Japanese” might have different feelings about it than someone from Osaka, or Kyoto, or Tohoku, or Nagano.