# 私ん家



## kyn

Recently I watched a Japanese animation, and there's a trend that "の" is replaced by "ん", as in "私ん家". Is this a dialect? Or is it just a common shortened form?
And I also noticed "家" is pronounced "ち". Does this make it a dialect, too?
Any native speaker, pls explain.


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## Aoyama

家 is normally read *uchi*. In spoken Japanese, I (boku, ore) is sometimes pronounced *orenchi*. That may give you some clue for a possible answer.


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## Flaminius

Hello kyn,

In fact, んち is a colloquial contracted form for のうち (家).  It may have been a Kansai dialect a long time ago but I think it has established itself since then as part of the standard language, albeit a casual part.


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## Aoyama

That explains also why "ore no uchi" becomes orenchi, or "boku no uchi" becomes bokunchi .


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## kyn

so, in this way, does "no" always become "n" ? Or is it just in the case of "no uchi"?


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## Aoyama

No is often shortened in n, in spoken or colloquial Japanese.


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## Ocham

It is  similar contraction you can find in "do not→don't".

In Japanese "na" or "no" is in colloquial speech contracted into "n" sound.

a*na*ta (you)　→　*an-*ta
ko*no* (this) shu (week)　→　*kon*-shu
a*no* (that) toki (time)　→　*an-*toki (at that time)
anta *no* uchi　→　an-*tan*-chi (your house)


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## kyn

Ok, thanks. So, "watashi no hon" could be "watashin hon"? Is it common to say so ?


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## Ocham

No, it can't be. The sound shift takes place in certain circumstances.
It depends on the sound following "na, no, ni". but I can't explain
when it happens because ...

kore wa *nani*? (=What is this?)　
→　kore wa *nan *desuka? (more polite)
→　kore wa *nan *da? (impolite)
kare wa *nani *mono? (=What is he?)
→　kare wa *nani* mono desuka? (more polite)
→　kare wa *nani* mono da? (impolite)


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## Aoyama

Ocham is very right in his explanations.
I just wonder if this can really apply to :


> kono (this) shu (week)　→　kon-shu


konshu being written with a kanji (kon) as kon nichi (but coming also from kono hi ?).
There is also kon nen and kotoshi (this year) ...
Maybe Flam can shed some light on this one ...


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## Ocham

I know I might be wrong in connecting "kono (shu)" with "kon (shu)", but
I believe they had something common in root in ancient Japanese.

I've got some more examples:

son-na mono iranai (I don't want/need it.)
→son-na mon iran ((western dialect))
watashi no toko konai? (Won't you come to my place?)
→watashin toko kon? ((western dialect))


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## Flaminius

Ocham said:


> It is  similar contraction you can find in "do not→don't".
> 
> In Japanese "na" or "no" is in colloquial speech contracted into "n" sound.
> 
> a*na*ta (you)　→　*an-*ta
> ko*no* (this) shu (week)　→　*kon*-shu
> The kanji 今 in 今週 has _on_-reading _kon_.  _Konshū_, being a Sino-Japanese word, has no salient relationship with _kon_ (<— _kono_) from the indigenous vocabulary.
> a*no* (that) toki (time)　→　*an-*toki (at that time)
> anta *no* uchi　→　an-*tan*-chi (your house)





Ocham said:


> No, it can't be. The sound shift takes place in certain circumstances.
> It depends on the sound following "na, no, ni". but I can't explain
> when it happens because ...
> 
> kore wa *nani*? (=What is this?)
> →　kore wa *nan *desuka? (more polite)
> →　kore wa *nan *da? (impolite)
> kare wa *nani *mono? (=What is he?)
> →　kare wa *nani* mono desuka? (more polite)
> →　kare wa *nani* mono da? (impolite)



Ocham's two posts above illustrate how a vowel between certain combinations of consonants are ellipted.  If we just look at the ellipted vowels and consonants that surround them, we can extradt schemes as below (where underscore shows there the vowel has been removed from):
nat → n_t
not → n_t
nouch → n_ch
nid → n_d

Comparing the two vowels between consonants before and after the underscore, I realise that they share the same place of articulation (or almost the same place of articulation).  Place of articulation is the place within the mouth that the tongue touches when making the sound.  A vowel between homorganic consonants (consonants that have the same or similar place of articulation) tends to be ellipted for the ease of pronunciation.

Obviously this is a phonological account of the phenomenon and the semantic side of it is still to be accounted for.  Not all ellipses have the same speech level.  For example, _anta_ sounds to me much more casual than _watashinchi_.  Others such as _nandesuka_ are the standard forms and non-ellipted forms are not used at all.



Ocham said:


> I've got some more examples:
> 
> son-na mono iranai (I don't want/need it.)
> →son-na mon iran ((western dialect))
> watashi no toko konai? (Won't you come to my place?)
> →watashin toko kon? ((western dialect))


I suspect that these phonological changes are motivated by other factors than ones for the first two quotes.  You might want to check that the "_mon_  → _mono_" change occurs regardless of what comes after the word (it can occur even when followed by no other words).

If we could analyse this as a vowel weakening at the end of a word, _iran_ and _kon_ make more sense.  I suppose that they are respectively derived from _iranu_ and _konu_.  Even if the U vowel is more articulately pronounced in the Western dialects than in the Eastern dialects, I find it very likely that these instances of U lost stress and eventually disappeared.


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