# ～かや？



## lammn

What is the difference between かや and か as a question marker?

Here are some of the examples of かや that I have come across:
１．どうしたのかや？
２．ぬしはどう思うかや？

Any help would be appreciated.


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## Strutter

It might be old Japanese or a local dialect. Then, I think that it is similar to か or かい or かな or something, at least I've always thought so.


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## lammn

Thanks for the suggestion, Strutter! 

I think it is old Japanese, but I'm not sure. I heard it in the anime "Spice and Wolf". It was spoken by Holo, the wolf-deity girl, who was several hundred years old (even though she looked like a sixteen).

I wonder what tone does it carry?
Is it condescending, masculine or what?


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## almostfreebird

Me and people around me have never heard or heard of "...かや?".

To answer the question:

(1) I wonder what tone does it carry?

It carries very old Japanese tone.


(2) Is it condescending, masculine or what?

No, it doesn't sound condescending.
It just makes me think of a very very old man/woman like this: http://usera.ImageCave.com/almostfreebird/gandalf-hippy.jpg


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## lammn

almostfreebird said:


> It carries very old Japanese tone.


 
Got it. Thanks a lot!


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## Arui Kashiwagi

To be precise, her wording is not really a dialect (It's true that there are some dialects which resemble this though).
It's called "花魁 (おいらん) 言葉" or "廓 (くるわ) 言葉".
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%8A%B1%E9%AD%81
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oiran
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/廓詞

花魁 is a high-class prostitute in Edo era (廓 is the place where they do their job). Although they were prostitutes they had a very respectable position in society and had developed a quite unique culture - most town people even couldn't see them. For various reasons they were trained to use a peculiar language like that.

The typical image of 花魁 is historical & old-fashioned, but sexy, noble, wise, and also well-versed in several arts and cultures. The author has tried to "revive" this image for the modern day character - and I suppose he succeeded.


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## lammn

Arui Kashiwagi said:


> It's called "花魁 (おいらん) 言葉" or "廓 (くるわ) 言葉".


 
That is interesting! 

Apart from かや, I find that the wolf-deity character I talked about in my 2nd post also used a lot of ぬし as second person pronoun, and used じゃ as question ending. For example:

1.　ぬしよ！
2.　それはなんじゃ？

Are these also 廓詞？
And what tone do they carry?


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## Arui Kashiwagi

lammn said:


> 1.　ぬしよ！
> 2.　それはなんじゃ？
> 
> Are these also 廓詞？
> And what tone do they carry?


Yes. These words appear in 廓詞 too.
Actually, ordinary people (typically old men/women or samurais) may also use "ぬし" or "...じゃ". Thus we feel these words just old-fashioned if we hear them without context.

However we can recognize that Holo is definitely using them as a part of 廓詞, because she often combines them with another terms such as "...ありんす" (=ある in standard language) or "...くりゃれ" (=くれ) - which appear strictly only in 廓詞. So now I can feel her spoken words are "old but mysterious & coquettish" even she's just simply saying "それはなんじゃ？".


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## lammn

Arui Kashiwagi said:


> Actually, ordinary people (typically old men/women or samurais) may also use "ぬし" or "...じゃ". Thus we feel these words just old-fashioned if we hear them without context.


 
Do you meant old men and old women _nowadays_ may also use those wordings?


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## Arui Kashiwagi

Well, for real people, possibly no.
Apart from the usage in dialects (I'm not sure what dialects exactly are), "じゃ" sounds too old-fashioned and theatrical today.

For fictional characters, still yes.
Many writers prefer to let an old-man character use this suffix, even their writing is a modern day story. Especially creators of juvenile book, comic, comedy show or anime, tend to do so because they often want to exaggerate someone's characteristic. My feeling about "じゃ" mainly comes from here.


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## lammn

I see.  Thank you very much for your detailed answer!


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