Japanese dialects

Japanese dialects (日本の方言, Nihon no hōgen) are the dialects of the Japanese language. There are four dialect groups in mainland Japan: Hachijō, Eastern (including Tokyo), Western (including Kyoto) and Kyushu.

The Ryukyuan languages of Okinawa Prefecture (and parts of Kagoshima Prefecture) are not dialects of Japanese and a Japanese speaker wouldn't understand them.^[1]

Japanese Dialects Media

Eastern Japanese dialects are blue, Western Japanese tan. Green dialects have both Eastern and Western features. Kyushu dialects are orange; southern Kyushu is quite distinctive.Template:Imagefact
Kyoto type (tone+downstep)* Tokyo type (downstep)*Map of Japanese pitch-accent types. The divide between Kyoto and Tokyo types is used as the Eastern–Western Japanese boundary in the main map.Template:Imagefact
Copula isoglosses. The blue–orange da/ja divide corresponds to the pitch-accent divide apart from Gifu and Sado.(blue: da, red: ja, yellow: ya; orange and purple: iconically for red+yellow and red+blue; white: all three.)
Akita dialect area in dark blue.
Amami Ōshima in Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.
The location of Awaji Island
Map of the former Japanese provinces, with Harima highligted
Prefectures of Japan Bingo region
Prefectures of Japan Gunma
Map of Japan with highlight on Fukuoka city