The New Linguistic Atlas of Tokyo and Spoken Japanese Language

Abstract

Population of Tokyo has been increasing as well as the transportation system, and residents are overflowing to the Grand Tokyo metropolitan area. Language is also changing from Tokyo dialect to the Grand Tokyo metropolitan dialect. The New Linguistic Atlas of Tokyo has been edited mainly by Mariko Kuno and her students, and, so far, Phonology edition, Accent edition, and Grammar edition are completed and published. The discussion will be main features of phonology, accent, and grammar of Tokyo dialect, comparing older generation and younger generation, based on these Atlases. The older generation maintain the traditional stratum but the younger generation lost large part of the old stratum. The old generation of Tokyo keeps some grammatical phenomenon unique to Kanto dialect and younger generation keeps a part of it.