Editing Kansai dialect (section)

== History ==
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| video1 = [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnALwCUp_Mk   Taxi (YouTube)]<br />An example of a skit in Osaka dialect performed by [[Nakagawake]].
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The Kansai dialect has over a thousand years of history. When [[Kinai]] cities such as [[Heijō-kyō]] ([[Nara, Nara|Nara]]), [[Naniwa-kyō]] (Osaka) and [[Heian-kyō]] (Kyoto) were Imperial capitals, the Kinai dialect, the ancestor of the Kansai dialect, was the ''de facto'' standard Japanese. It had an influence on all of the nation including the [[Edo]] dialect, the predecessor of modern Tokyo dialect. The literature style developed by the intelligentsia in Heian-kyō became the model of [[Classical Japanese language]].

When the political and military center of Japan was moved to [[Edo]] under the [[Tokugawa Shogunate]] and the [[Kantō region]] grew in prominence, the Edo dialect took the place of the Kansai dialect. With the [[Meiji Restoration]] and the transfer of the imperial capital from Kyoto to Tokyo, the Kansai dialect became fixed in position as a provincial dialect. See also [[Early Modern Japanese]].

As the Tokyo dialect was adopted with the advent of a national education/media standard in Japan, some features of the Kansai dialect have diminished and changed. However, Kansai is the second most populated urban region in Japan after Kantō, with a population of about 20 million, so Kansai dialect is still the most widely spoken, known and influential non-standard Japanese dialect. The Kansai dialect's idioms are sometimes introduced into other dialects and even standard Japanese. Many Kansai people are attached to their own speech and have strong regional rivalry against Tokyo.<ref>Fumiko Inoue (2009). {{nihongo||関西における方言と共通語|Kansai ni okeru hōgen to Kyōtsūgo}}. {{nihongo||月刊言語|Gekkan gengo}} 456 number. Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.</ref>

Since the [[Taishō period]], the {{Transliteration|ja|[[manzai]]}} form of Japanese comedy has been developed in Osaka, and a large number of Osaka-based comedians have appeared in Japanese media with Osaka dialect (See also [[Yoshimoto Kogyo]]). Because of such associations, Kansai speakers are often viewed as being more "funny" or "talkative" than typical speakers of other dialects. Tokyo people even occasionally imitate the Kansai dialect to provoke laughter or inject humor.<ref>Masataka Jinnouchi (2003). ''Studies in regionalism in communication and the effect of the Kansai dialect on it''.</ref>