Hichiku dialect

Hichiku Japanese
Hichiku Japanese
Native to	Japan
Region	western Kyūshū
Language family	Japonic Japanese Kyūshū Hichiku Japanese; ; ;
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	hich1237
	Hichiku dialect area (orange)

The Hichiku dialect Hichiku hōgen (肥筑方言) is a group of the Japanese dialects spoken in western Kyushu. The name Hichiku (肥筑) is constructed by extracting a representative kanji from Hizen (肥前), Higo (肥後), Chikuzen (筑前) and Chikugo (筑後), the names of old provinces.

Hichiku dialect
- Chikuzen dialect (western Fukuoka Prefecture, formerly known as Chikuzen Province, includes the Hakata dialect of Hakata district in Fukuoka)
- Chikugo dialect (southern Fukuoka Prefecture, formerly known as Chikugo Province)
  - Ōmuta dialect (Ōmuta)
  - Yanagawa dialect (Yanagawa)
- Saga dialect (Saga Prefecture)
  - Karatsu dialect (northern Saga Prefecture centered Karatsu)
  - Tashiro dialect (easternmost Saga Prefecture centered Tashiro)
- Nagasaki dialect (Nagasaki Prefecture)
  - Sasebo dialect (northern Nagasaki Prefecture centered Sasebo)
  - Hirado dialect (Hirado Island, west of Nagasaki Prefecture)
- Kumamoto dialect (Kumamoto Prefecture)
- Hita dialect (Hita, southwestern Oita Prefecture)
- Iki dialect (Iki Island of Nagasaki Prefecture)
- Tsushima dialect (Tsushima Island of Nagasaki Prefecture)
- Gotō dialect (Gotō Islands of Nagasaki Prefecture)

Common characteristics of this group entail among others:

-adjectives ending in -ka instead of -i

-the ending -u or derivations instead of -ku

-copula -bai and -tai

-particle -to instead of -no

-palatized pronunciation of -se- as -she-