The great rival to Tokyo, and the accent of Japanese comedy. Pitch patterns are often the mirror image of Tokyo's — the words that fall in Tokyo rise in Osaka. One-syllable words stretch to two beats. Vowels are not devoiced, so 'desu' keeps its u. The grammar differs in the words everyone hears first: ya for the copula da, hen for the negative nai, akan for dame.
Where: Osaka, Kyoto and the Kansai region
Anything the spelling engine can transcribe, the accent can move. Slow it down to hear the shape.
The mirror of Tokyo: many words carry the opposite pitch pattern, so 橋 and 箸 swap. The melody is wider and more emphatic, with a lengthened, rising stress — 'nande ya nen'. Sentence-final 'ya', 'na', 'de' where Tokyo has 'da', 'ne', 'yo'.
In the order the mouth applies them. Every before-and-after is playable — click the IPA. The pattern is the rule as the engine runs it, for the curious.
^([pbtdkɡszhɸɕmnɾjw]?[aiɯeo])$ → $1ːWhen: when the whole word is a single mora
How: Hold the vowel for two counts.
Kansai does not like a word that is only one beat long. 'Te' becomes 'tee'.
| Word | Reference | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| te | hand | ||
| me | eye | ||
| ki | tree | ||
| ha | tooth |
([sɕ])ɯ(?=$| ) → $1ɯA rule that changes nothing, kept here because the ABSENCE is the accent. Tokyo whispers this vowel; Osaka says it.
| Word | Reference | Accent | |
|---|---|---|---|
| desu | unchanged — the contrast is with Tokyo's des | ||
| masu |
Other accents of Japanese: Tokyo · all accents