Dialogue and politeness level in 風の又三郎 I have two questions regarding the style of the classic story by . (Full text available on ) 1) Most of the characters use a dialect which I believe is , which comes from the author's home region. Is this dialogue still spoken today in much the same form, or has it aged/evolved over several centuries? Also, would this dialogue in that era (around 1930s) be spoken by country people, city people, or both? 2) The book is written with a surprising level of politeness I haven't seen before. For example, most descriptive text uses , even to the extent where is used mid-sentence (i.e. ......). Also, the teacher's speech when speaking to children is overly polite (ex: ”" instead of ”"). Is there a cultural/historical/regional reason for this extra politeness?

1) I'm not good at at all, but like any other dialects in Japan, is rather quickly disappearing. I believe only old people in rural areas of Tohoku region can speak fluent today. Even in this novel written more than 80 years ago, is used as a role-language that represents country kids ( uses standard Japanese).

2) Fairy tales and folklore (e.g., , ) are usually conveyed in this style. is more like a than a , so I think this writing style was natural to him. People may intentionally choose this writing style when they write an allegorical story or children's story (for example, see by ).