Dialects

[LotusNegra]

Hi All,

I'm trying to learn some japanese, and I've come across the Seto no Hanayome manga (for all of you who don't know this series, I highly recommend reading and watching, I found the anime much funnier ^^). Anyway, Seto San is a girl from Setouchi, I don't know at all where it is but they seem to have their own dialect. I.E., she seems to say ええ instead of いい meaning 良い. Also she ends some phrases with きん, which I don't have a clue what it adds to the conversation, meaning or emotion. For example, her famous line (yes, she's a mermaid ^^):

人魚姫と書いて、任侠姫と読むきん！
Written as mermaid, readen as chivalry!

I was wondering what this きん means, and if someone have a link or some material about different dialects in general.

Thanks!

[Vagrere]

I'm no expert on dialects, but that looks like standard Japanese to me; ええ, while certainly informal, isn't an uncommon substitution for いい or はい; and as for きん, I couldn't say for sure, but a lot of manga and anime characters end phrases with various noises that don't actually carry a whole lot of meaning—some that are actually in relatively common use, such as す; and some that are only there to be cute, such as にゃ, and variations thereof, which many-a-catgirl will end her sentences with; and that seems to fit with the description you gave.

Is there anything else unusual you've noticed? Because otherwise, I'd say that the mangaka just wants to try to make give her a slightly more interesting means of speaking.

[ParaParaJMo]

i actually live near where this manga takes place. what the characters speak in this anime/manga is sanuki ben, it's a mix of some dialects from osaka and other dialects from hiroshima. "ee" is another way of saying "ii" meaning "yes." it's also used in osaka dialect.

"kin" is the sanuki dialect way of saying "kara" meaning "because" or "so therefore"