The Tsugaru dialect is spoken in the northernmost district in Japanese Mainland. This dialect is,. therefore, worth notice as representing the northernmost aspect of the Japanese dialects.
The Tsugaru dialect with its novel characters and peculiarities is well contrasted with the southernmost Japanese dialect, i. e. the Kagoshima dialect, with its own peculiarities. To study each of these two polar dialects, comparing one another, is very important for the explanation of the whole status of the Japanese dialects.
Now, standing on such a large viewpoint, the present writer has been occupied in the study of this northernmost Japanese dialect. The Tsugaru dialect is very difficult to understand for the common Japanese people. Why is it so difficult to understand? To answer this question, the present writer describes in this paper the various peculiarities of this dialect. He treats them from the sides of 1) pronunciation, 2) vocabulary, and 3) grammar, and finally 4) he lays emphasis on "the entire sonority of dialect expression". He also divides each item into some smaller sections to explain the facts better.
Thus occupying himself in the elucidation of the Tsugaru dialect, the present writer thinks that dialect study must be the study of dialect as a phonetic language. The field of dialect is entirely the field of phonetic expression. Dialect researchers must always explore scrupulously the field with the delicate spoken sound.
Dialect must be studied as a purely phonetic language. To promote scientifically the task of analyzing the purely phonetic language is indeed our central subject. The more, however, one looks hard at the dialect as purely phonetic language, the better one will acknowledge that arbitrary analysis is never permissible.