The Okuyoshino dialect (Japanese: 奥吉野方言 okuyoshino hogen) is a Kansai dialect of Japanese spoken in several villages in the Okuyoshino region of southern Nara Prefecture. It is well-known as a language island, with various rare and unique characteristics.

The dialect is currently spoken in the villages of Totsukawa, Kamikitayama, Shimokitayama, Tenkawa and Oto (now part of Gojo), and although it is classified as part of the neighbouring Nara dialect, the village of Nosegawa is also sometimes included in definitions.

Despite the relatively small size of Nara Prefecture, there is a major difference between the dialects of the north-central and southern parts of the prefecture. The mountain ridges of Tentsuji, Kominami and Obamine form a natural boundary, north of which the Nara dialect is spoken and south of which the Okuyoshino dialect is spoken. The many atypical traits of the Okuyoshino dialect, such as its having a Tokyo-style pitch accent despite being in the Kansai region, have been fostered due to its history as a region isolated from its surroundings by the Kii Mountains. However, in addition to the effect of mass communication, the movement of residents due to dam construction as well as improved transport access and depopulation are causing rapid changes in the dialect.

Even between the various villages in Okuyoshino there are dialectal differences. The village of Nosegawa is sometimes included in the dialect area due to various Okuyoshino-like traits such as a lack of modal verbs to use in attitudinal expressions. The sub-divisions of the dialect are shown below.

Okuyoshino dialect

The Okuyoshino dialect possesses a nairin (Tokyo-style pitch accent); the same type as those used in the Nagoya, Tango and Okayama dialects, among others, although somewhat different from that of Tokyo. There are some differences depending on the area, however. For example, the usually flat kaze ga (かぜが) can be either kaze ga (かぜが), kaze ga (かぜが) or kaze ga (かぜが), and in Kamikitayama and Shimokitayama the pitch may re-occur within the same word after initially dropping off, e.g., kaze ga (かぜが). Within the part of the dialect area that neighbours Keihan-style speaking areas, a stretch of land from Tenkawa (excluding Dorogawa) to Sakamoto in Ono possesses a pitch accent intermediary to the Tokyo and Keihan-styles, with fluctuations in pitch accent between the villages of Tsubouchi, Wada, Shiono and Sakamoto, Ono.

Aside from the common merging of ei (えい) to a long i (いぃ), variations in diphthongs are rare in Kansai dialects. In the Okuyoshino dialect, however, the diphthongs ai (あい) and ui (うい) are also merged into long a (あぁ)’s and long i (いぃ)’s, respectively. For example, hayai (早い early) becomes hayaa (早あ) and akarui (明るい bright) becomes akarii (明りい). The characteristic lengthening of monomoraic nouns found in Kansai dialects (e.g., me (目 eye) → mee (目ぇ) is absent in the Okuyoshino dialect, in addition to the shortening of words like ikoka (行こか let’s go) (shortened from ikouka (行こうか)).

Across all of Nara Prefecture, there is an extremely high incidence of z-starting mora being replaced with d-starting mora (e.g., zabuton (ざぶとん cushion) is said dabuton (だぶとん)), with this being particularly extensive in Dorogawa, Tenkawa. Additionally, there is very occasional mixing of z- and d-starting mora with r-starting mora, e.g., kedo (けど but) is said kero (けろ).