Talk:だ

Does だ have a -ず form? Millie 14:31, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

No. The negative form of だ is ではない or じゃない。―Gliorszio 14:56, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

formality/usage differences in different forms

Is there any difference in how the different forms (for example, "de wa nai" and "ja nai") are used? Are they at different formality levels, or used by different populations of speakers? -- Creidieki 16:01, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

As it is explained in w:Japanese language#Politeness, basically you can classify them by the politeness. "Da" is in the plain form, and "desu" is the equivalent in the polite form. Both "de wa nai" and "ja nai" are in the plain form, but the former is a bit more formal than the later, which can be said as the euphonically changed form of it. It's the same thing as "are not" and "aren't." --Tohru 17:14, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

ref: ではない vs でない

https://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/nichigen/menu7_folder/symposium/pdf/11/07.pdf -- Huhu9001 (talk) 12:41, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

@Huhu9001: Cool paper, thanks for linking!

For other readers, the URL above links through to an academic paper in Japanese: 『「デナイ」「デハナイ」の語形による使い分け─『現代日本語書き言葉均衡コーパス』を使用した予備的調査─』. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 07:52, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

Quote translation

@Fish bowl --

Re: diff, seems like my misparsing is caused by missing quotation marks then.  :) I still think it needs a tweak -- how's this?

• な、だだば　通(つう)じなければ　偽息子(にせむすこ)

  na, da daba tsūjinakereba nise-musuko

  (Tsugaru and standard Japanese) If [Tsugaru dialect for] "so, who're you?" doesn't come across, that's not your son

Also, the "standard Japanese" below the usex might need a tweak too -- 息子を語る人 reads to me more like "a person who is telling a story about your son", rather than "a person who is pretending to be your son". I'm not familiar with 語る having any inherent "untruth" sense, as opposed to だます or 似せる or 見せかける.

• • 〔津軽弁での〕「お前誰だ」とは通じなければ、息子のように見せかける詐欺犯人 (standard Japanese, loose translation)

いかがでしょうか。 ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 21:21, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

@Eirikr: OK, I've added a parenthetical similar to your proposal. Does it look good? Also, な here means "you" ( https://www.weblio.jp/content/な#TGRGJ ), if that's what the "so" in your translation was trying to convey. I suspect the comma is just to make the word boundary clearer. (It seems like Tsugaru has very spartan pronouns :) )

BTW, the 標準語意訳 is unmodified from the original source (and I believe it can be argued that it shouldn't even be on the entry). I think 語る＝騙る？ —Fish bowl (talk) 23:23, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

• "OK, I've added a parenthetical similar to your proposal. Does it look good?"

Looks great, thank you!

• "Also, な here means "you" ( https://www.weblio.jp/content/な#TGRGJ ), if that's what the "so" in your translation was trying to convey. "

Wow, fascinating the differences even just between nearby neighbors Tsugaru and Iwate -- I was certain that the initial な was just the allophone of ね, getting someone's attention at the beginning of an utterance -- hence my rendering using "so" to start. Very interesting that Tsugaru is so conservative as to still carry over the OJP 汝 (na). I didn't know that any modern dialects still used this.

• "I suspect the comma is just to make the word boundary clearer."

Ya, the commas I added in the 標準語 part were just for clarity. I'm fine with removing the 標準語意訳 -- it's not really necessary as the only real deviation from 標準語 is the first な、だだば bit (which we show translated into English anyway), and the typo of 語る for 騙る is distracting and confusing. And the way they added the 話 part doesn't seem entirely 標準語 to me either... I just went ahead and removed it. If you object, please revert me.  :)

Cheers! ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │^{Tala við mig} 00:30, 31 August 2023 (UTC)