Tōhoku dialect

Tōhoku Japanese
Native to	Japan
Region	Tōhoku
Language family	Japonic Japanese Eastern Japanese Tōhoku Japanese
Language codes
ISO 639-3	–
Glottolog	toho1244
Northern Tōhoku dialects (navy), Southern Tōhoku (med. blue), and the transitional Eastern Kantō dialects (azure)

The Tōhoku dialect (東北方言, Tōhoku hōgen^?), commonly called 東北弁 Tōhoku-ben, is a group of the Japanese dialects spoken in Tōhoku Region, the northeastern region of Honshū. Toward the northern part of Honshū, the Tōhoku dialect can differ so dramatically from standard Japanese that it is sometimes rendered with subtitles in the nationwide media and it has been treated as the typical rural accent in Japanese popular culture (See also Tohoku Regional Accent of TV Tropes).

A notable linguistic feature of the Tōhoku dialect is its neutralization of the high vowels "i" and "u" (Standard [i] and [ɯᵝ]), so that the words sushi, susu (soot), and shishi (lion) are rendered homophonous, where they would have been distinct in other dialects. In light of this, Tōhoku dialect is sometimes referred to as Zūzū-ben. The vowels tend to be neutralized to [ɨ] in Northern Tohoku dialect and [ɯ̈] in Southern Tohoku dialect.

In addition, all unvoiced stops become voiced intervocalically, rendering the pronunciation of the word "kato" (trained rabbit) as [kado]. However, unlike the high vowel neutralization, this does not result in new homophones, as all voiced stops are prenasalized, meaning that the word "kado" (corner) is pronounced [kaⁿdo]. This is particularly noticeable with /ɡ/, which is nasalized fully to [ŋ] with the stop of the hard "g" [ᵑɡ] almost entirely lost, so that ichigo 'strawberry' is pronounced [ɨzɨŋo]. Standard Japanese does this with /ɡ/ too (see Japanese phonology), but not with the other stops.