Something that's bothered me ever since the first time I finished watching Nanoha StrikerS is that there's something odd about the way Hayate speaks. It's like a lilt or an accent, but I can't tell what it is.

I just now identified one specific thing: she sometimes tacks a ya sound onto the end of her sentences. For instance, in one case she ended a sentence as kaya which I think was the ka particle plus her ya. In another case she said onegaiya.

It doesn't make sense in story terms for it to be a regionalism, since Nanoha doesn't do it and they grew up in the same city. (But that doesn't mean it isn't one.) It isn't Ueda Kana's native accent; I've never heard her do it in any other role I've liistened to.

Usually when these kinds of things are present there's a reason why. It's something that the writers are using to indicate a stereotype. Is that what's going on in this case? If so, what stereotype?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in Japanese at 05:41 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 173 words, total size 1 kb.

1 It's the standard dialect for girls taken over my evil magic books.

/I got nuthin'.

Posted by: Wonderduck at August 15, 2010 06:25 PM (iJfPN)

2 That -ya is Kansai Accent 101.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at August 15, 2010 06:29 PM (mRjOr)

3 Wikipedia offers one possibility, Kansai dialect: "The standard Japanese copula da is replaced by the Kansai-ben copula ya." Might not be the correct reason in this case, of course.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at August 15, 2010 06:33 PM (2XtN5)

4 I'm going to vote "Kansai-ben" as well. 

/I got nothin'.

/I got nothin'.

...oops.

Posted by: atomic_fungus at August 15, 2010 06:38 PM (gLbEB)

Hide Comments | Add Comment