Arigatou!

[telophase]

Those of you who know Japanese:

I'm watching an episode of the new series of Mushishi, and after Ginko is rescued by a farmer and given a meal by the farmer's wife, he thanks her by saying what sounds to me sort of like "Arigatey" instead of the usual "Arigatou." Is this a variant, an accent, a dialect, or what?

Comments

[lnhammer]

Dialect, probably a deeply rural one. I think northern (Tohoku)? I'd have to look it up.

---L.

[telophase]

Nifty, thanks! Now I'll have to pay attention and see if Ginko uses it more of the time or if he was just using that other character's dialect.

lol seeing same post in both LJ and DW and commenting both places

[solarbird]

So, I was wondering if it was ありがたい (adjective form "thankful") and wondering if it's an informal way of saying "I am thankful" as opposed to "thank you." That's not usual, but it would be grammatically valid - but would it be culturally so?

Re: lol seeing same post in both LJ and DW and commenting both places

[lnhammer]

I tend to get in trouble when talking about dialects, as I don't really have the background or, indeed, real knowledge (I know more Classical Japanese than Kansai-ben, for heaven's sake), but my understanding is that there is a range of pronunciations of the -ô ending, including -ee/-ei shading into an -ai sound. But it could be entirely possible those are intended as arigatai? Dunno.

(Sorry for romaji but this keyboard's not set up for kana input.)

---L.

Re: lol seeing same post in both LJ and DW and commenting both places

[solarbird]

Mmm. Interesting. Well, I'll certainly keep that in mind as a thing. Thanks!

(And no apologies needed, I can read romaji just fine. XD )