edoben

江戸弁 江戸言葉 下町言葉

A Japanese dialect spoken in Tokyo. Generally considered a working-class dialect and is heavily associated with certain "downtown" wards of Tokyo located on the eastern side. This dialect is sometimes also called the Shitamachi dialect (Shitamachi-kotoba, lit. "Downtown Speech".)

The stereotypical phrase associated with this dialect is "beranmee" (corruption of "beranbou"), roughly meaning "bloody fool" or "frickin' idiot". Edoben is thus also sometimes called the beranmee-kuchou, or the "Beranmee Accent". Another common phrase is "teyandee", i.e. "The hell are ya sayin'?"

Other features of this dialect includes a lack of distinction between /shi/ and /hi/ (resulting in shichi sounding like "hichi"), as well as "fronting" of /ju/ to /ji/ (this results in juujutsu being pronounced like "jiu-jitsu"). The sounds of /ai ae ie oi/ also tends to be converted into a long /e/ sound, resulting in taihen and sugoi being pronounced as "teehen" and "sugee".

Characters of the "edokko" archetype (Rowdy Child of Edo/Tokyo) tend to speak with a distinctive Edoben accent.

Edoben is usually adapted into a colloquial-sounding English in translations, with greater emphasis on use of contractions and other colloquialisms. On Danbooru, heavier accents of Edoben are sometimes adapted into Cockney English.

Notable characters who speak Edo dialect