The are a group of the

Japanese dialects The dialects of the Japanese language fall into two primary clades, Eastern (including Tokyo) and Western (including Kyoto), with the dialects of Kyushu and Hachijō Island often distinguished as additional branches, the latter perhaps the most ...

spoken on

Shikoku is the smallest of the four main islands of Japan. It is long and between wide. It has a population of 3.8 million (, 3.1%). It is south of Honshu and northeast of Kyushu. Shikoku's ancient names include ''Iyo-no-futana-shima'' (), '' ...

. The Shikoku dialects are: * Awa dialect (

Tokushima Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Tokushima Prefecture has a population of 728,633 (1 October 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,146 km2 (1,601 sq mi). Tokushima Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the nort ...

, formerly known as Awa Province) * Sanuki dialect (

Kagawa Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Kagawa Prefecture has a population of 949,358 (as of 2020) and is the smallest prefecture by geographic area at . Kagawa Prefecture borders Ehime Prefecture to the southwest and Tok ...

formerly known as

Sanuki Province was a province of Japan in the area of northeastern Shikoku. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Sanuki''" in . Sanuki bordered on Awa to the south, and Iyo to the west. Its abbreviated form name was . In terms of the Gokishichidō system ...

) *

Iyo dialect The of Japanese is spoken by people from Ehime Prefecture in Japan. The name is a remnant of the Ehime area's historical name, Iyo Province. Accents vary somewhat by geography within the prefecture. The southern area is particularly influe ...

(

Ehime Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Shikoku. Ehime Prefecture has a population of 1,342,011 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 5,676 km2 (2,191 sq mi). Ehime Prefecture borders Kagawa Prefecture to the northeast, T ...

, formerly known as

Iyo Province was a province of Japan in the area of northwestern Shikoku. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Tosa''" in . Iyo bordered on Sanuki Province to the northeast, Awa to the east, and Tosa to the south. Its abbreviated form name was . In te ...

) *

Tosa dialect The Tosa dialect (Japanese: 土佐弁 ''tosa-ben'') is a Japanese Shikoku dialect spoken in central and eastern Kochi Prefecture (former Tosa Province), including Kochi City. The dialect of the Western region of Kochi Prefecture is called the H ...

( Kōchi Prefecture, formerly known as

Tosa Province was a province of Japan in the area of southern Shikoku. Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Tosa''" in . Tosa bordered on Awa to the northeast, and Iyo to the northwest. Its abbreviated form name was . In terms of the Gokishichidō syst ...

) ** Hata Dialect ( Hata district, westernmost of Kochi) The Shikoku dialect has many similarities to Chūgoku dialect in grammar. Shikoku dialect uses ''ken'' for "because", and -''yoru'' in progressive aspect and -''toru'' or -''choru'' in the perfect. Some people in Kōchi Prefecture use ''kin'', ''kini'', or ''ki'' instead of ''ken'', -''yō'' (Hata) or -''yū'' (Tosa) instead of -''yoru'', and -''chō'' (Hata) or -''chū'' (Tosa) instead of -''choru''. The largest difference between Shikoku dialect and Chūgoku dialect is in

pitch accent A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...

. Except southwestern Ehime and western Kochi (yellow area on the right map), many dialects in Shikoku uses Kyoto-Osaka-type accent or its variations, and are similar to

Kansai dialect The is a group of Japanese dialects in the Kansai region (Kinki region) of Japan. In Japanese, is the common name and it is called in technical terms. The dialects of Kyoto and Osaka are known as , and were particularly referred to as ...

, but Chūgoku dialect uses a Tokyo-type accent.

References

{{Japanese language Japanese dialects Shikoku region