The people of Kakuda speak not only maintstream Japanese (the Tokyo dialect), but also their own dialect, referred to as Kakuda-ben. It is especially common among the older generation. Legend has it that the local dialect evolved out of necessity. Kakuda is located in northern Japan (roughly of equivalent latitude to Greenfield) where the winters are suprisingly long and harsh making talking rather difficult. So the sounds that cause people to open their mouths to a great deal were gradually altered to sounds requiring very little opening. Supposedly, Kakuda-ben has been spoken for thousands of years.

Over the past year or so, Ive learned a great deal of Kakuda-ben which I intend to share on my blog with other posts.

Todays word is toumini (toumorokoshi) which means corn.