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The , often referred to as the , is a group of dialects or dialect continuum of the Japanese language spoken mainly within the area of the former Ōsumi and Satsuma provinces now incorporated into the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima. It may also be collectively referred to as the Satsuma dialect ( ''Satsuma Hōgen'' or ''Satsuma-ben''), owing to both the prominence of the Satsuma Province and the region of the Satsuma Domain which spanned the former Japanese provinces of Satsuma, Ōsumi and the southwestern part of Hyūga. Although not classified as a separate language, the Satsugū dialect is commonly cited for its mutual unintelligibility to even its neighbouring Kyūshū variants, despite sharing more than three-quarters of the Standard Japanese vocabulary corpus and some areal features of Kyūshū. == Distribution and subdialects == The boundaries of the Satsugū dialect are traditionally defined as the former region controlled by the Satsuma Domain, which primarily encompassed the main portion of the Kagoshima Prefecture, located in the southern part of Japan's Kyushu Island, and a small part of the Miyazaki Prefecture to the East. For precision, this area could be further separated into three distinct branches of the Satsugū dialect: the ''Satsuma dialect'' spoken in western Kagoshima, the ''Ōsumi dialect'' spoken in eastern Kagoshima, and the ''Morokata dialect'' spoken in the southwestern most part of the Miyazaki Prefecture. However, the dialectal differences are much more localized making this three-way distinction superficial. Variations in pronunciation, words, expressions and grammatical constructions may occur between neighbouring cities, towns and villages, with peripheral islands exhibiting greater divergence due to isolation. As such, Satsugū may be considered a dialect continuum, differing only slightly between areas that are geographically close, and gradually decreasing in mutual intelligibility as the distances become greater. By this token, all major areas of the mainland—including Satsuma, Ōsumi, Morokata, and possibly also a small fraction of southern Kumamoto—may form a single, closely related dialect branch with no precise boundaries due to continuous contact between the regions. Conversely, the peripheral islands are easier to distinguish and seemingly form three distinct, but related clades associated with the proximity of the islands. These would be: the Koshikijima Islands to the West, the Ōsumi Islands directly to the South (such as Tanegashima, Yakushima, and Kuchinoerabu), and the Tokara Islands in the very far South. The variants spoken on the Amami Islands are not considered part of the Satsugū dialect, but are rather part of the Northern Ryukyuan language branch.〔Shibatani (1990), pp. 192-194〕 Further subdivisions are possible for all areas, and a classification tree of the general Satsugū sub-dialects might look something like the following (areas in parentheses indicate approximate regions): |2=Central Satsuma (most of Kagoshima, especially in and around Kagoshima City) |3= }} }} |2=Ōsumi (Eastern Kagoshima) |3=Morokata (South-Western Miyazaki) }} |label2=Koshikijima Islands |2= |label3=Eastern Ōsumi Islands |3= |label4=Tokara Islands |4= }} }} 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Kagoshima dialect」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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