Set Phrases and Old Forms in Japanese Folktales: むかしむかし, じゃ, おった
Hiroki Obara · Developer
November 4 is the birthday of Kusuyama Masao, born in 1884 and died in 1950. His retellings of Japanese folktales for children, including Momotarō, Urashima Tarō and The Tongue-Cut Sparrow, are free to read on Aozora Bunko.
Folktales are often recommended as a first real book in Japanese. Once you start, though, you meet phrasing your textbook never showed you. This post goes through the set phrases and old forms of Japanese folktales, with examples from Kusuyama’s text.
How a folktale begins
Momotarō opens like this:
むかし、むかし、あるところに、おじいさんとおばあさんがありました。
(桃太郎, Kusuyama Masao)
That one sentence holds three things typical of folktales.
むかし、むかし (mukashi, mukashi). The Japanese “once upon a time.” Repeating むかし, “long ago,” gives the sense of a time too far back to date. Some tales begin with a single むかし.
あるところに (aru tokoro ni), “in a certain place.” The place is left vague on purpose. Not always, though. Urashima Tarō begins “むかし、むかし、丹後の国水の江の浦に,” naming an old province and bay (浦島太郎). Some folktales sit close to local legend and say exactly where they happened.
おじいさんとおばあさんがありました, “there were an old man and an old woman.” In modern Japanese, you use いる for people and animals: いました. Older Japanese often used ある for people too. It is not a mistake, just an older usage. Kusuyama uses ありました for animals and people alike: 猿とかにがありました, “there were a monkey and a crab,” and 金太郎という強い子供がありました, “there was a strong child called Kintarō.”
Issun-bōshi starts differently: 難波という所に、夫婦の者が住んでおりました, “in a place called Naniwa there lived a husband and wife” (一寸法師). おりました is a polite form of いました. It gives the feeling of a narrator speaking to listeners.
Moving the story along
After the opening, the phrase you meet next is usually ある日 (aru hi), “one day.” A sentence or two describe daily life, and then ある日 something happens.
〜ますと. おばあさんが、川のそばで、せっせと洗濯をしていますと, “as the old woman was busily washing by the river” (Momotarō). Here ます comes before the conjunction と. Modern written Japanese would say 洗濯をしていると. It can be read as the storyteller’s spoken politeness carried into the sentence. If you look up していますと, take off ますと and you are left with している.
〜ものですから. 子供がないものですから, “since they had no children” (The Tongue-Cut Sparrow, text). から gives the reason; adding もの makes it sound like an explanation of circumstances. This one is still used in conversation today.
How a folktale ends
Many learners know めでたし、めでたし (medetashi, medetashi) as the folktale ending. It is in the dictionary as a set phrase, and JMdict glosses it as “and they all lived happily ever after.”
There are other folktale endings too:
- The Snail’s Rise in the World ends with 末ながく栄えましたと、さ, “and they prospered ever after, so they say” (たにしの出世). とさ means “so I hear,” marking the story as something passed on.
- The Lucky Tea Kettle ends with 今日まで伝わっているそうです, “it is said to have been handed down to this day” (文福茶がま). そうです marks hearsay in the same way.
Folktales were told aloud, person to person, long before they were written down, and these endings can be seen as a trace of that. Regional storytelling has its own closing words too, such as どんとはれ in Iwate.
じゃ, おった, わし
Three common forms are じゃ, おった and わし, as in an old man saying わしは知っておるんじゃ, “I know, you see.”
| Form | Standard modern Japanese | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| じゃ | だ | is (plain copula) |
| おる, おった | いる, いた | to be (animate), was |
| わし | 私, 僕 | I (older man) |
| 〜のう | 〜ねえ | sentence ending, like “isn’t it” |
In The Lucky Tea Kettle, a showman calls out 評判じゃ、評判じゃ, “the talk of the town.” This じゃ means だ.
The Japanese linguist Kinsui Satoshi named this kind of speech yakuwarigo, “role language”: a way of speaking that brings a particular type of character to mind. Hearing わしが知っておる, you picture an old man (Japan Foundation, in Japanese). Real elderly people don’t all talk like that. It is better understood as the speech picture books, anime and manga give to the folktale grandfather.
At the same time, in some dialects of western Japan, じゃ and おる are everyday words used by people of any age. Speech that sounds like a stage old man in Tokyo is ordinary speech somewhere else.
Songs and sounds
Folktales also contain words meant to be said aloud. In Kusuyama’s Momotarō, the peach floats down the river not with the どんぶらこ of modern picture books, but with ドンブラコッコ、スッコッコ. When the old woman sings あっちの水は、かあらいぞ, “the water over there is salty,” the words みず and からい are stretched out the way you would sing them: みいず, かあらい.
Stretched forms like these are not in the dictionary. If you can’t find a word, try removing the extra vowel: かあらい is からい, ああまい is あまい.
Can you use these in conversation?
Phrase by phrase:
- むかしむかし: still used, half joking, when telling an old story. “むかしむかし、私がまだ学生だったころ” (“Once upon a time, when I was still a student”) will get a smile.
- 〜がありました for people: not used in conversation. Say いました.
- 〜ものですから: fine to use. It sounds a little humble, as when explaining your circumstances.
- じゃ, わし, おった: in standard Japanese conversation you will sound like you are imitating a folktale grandfather. It works as a joke, but it does not fit everyday Japanese.
- とさ: rarely heard in conversation now.
Starting with folktales
Folktales help because you already know the plot, or can guess it. Retellings for children have furigana on almost every kanji, are short, and use simple sentences. That is why a folktale can be a good choice for a first book.
The thing to keep in mind is that folktale language is not quite modern Japanese. For ありました and 〜ますと, understanding them when you read is enough. For your own speaking, newer books and the Japanese you hear around you make better models. Which folktales to start with is in 30 Easy Japanese Classics on Aozora Bunko for Learners, and what to read after them is in How to Start Extensive Reading in Japanese, Level by Level.
Reading folktales in Niho
I make Niho, a free reading app for iPhone and iPad that lets you read Aozora Bunko books with a built-in dictionary. It has no ads and no in-app purchases.
The Discover tab has a Folk tales shelf, which includes the Kusuyama tales in this post. Search for his name to see all his works together. Momotarō, Issun-bōshi, Urashima Tarō and a few others are also on the Start here shelf of short, easy classics. Furigana is shown exactly as in the Aozora Bunko text, so some tales have more than others.
Long-press an unfamiliar phrase and tap Look up. In Niho’s dictionary, むかしむかし is there as 昔々, “once upon a time”; めでたしめでたし as the set ending; わし as 儂, a male first-person pronoun; and とさ as a marker of hearsay. おる appears as 居る, marked as humble. ありました is taken back to ある before it is looked up.
In Chat view, a chapter arrives one sentence at a time in speech bubbles, with dialogue in quotation marks on the right. Folktales have a lot of dialogue, so this view makes it easy to follow who is speaking. Getting Started with Niho walks through your first book.
