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In a sentence from the 犬夜叉 comic book, an old lady from ancient times is
speaking about her family. The context is that the speaker mentioned her
sister 桔梗 in the previous panel, but the listener didn’t know who she was
talking about.

> わしの姉は…桔梗といって **な** 、村を守る巫女だった。

The meaning of the sentence is quite clear to me, except for the な particle.
My tip would be that it marks an explanation, something like „you know“. But I
was unable to find any similar example attached to いって or て-form of any other
verb.

What is the role of the particle in that sentence?
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2020-06-17T05:36:04.937
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2020-06-17T08:44:57.453
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question
meaning particles manga sentence-final-particles particle-な
Role of な in といってな
This な is a masculine filler particle meaning nothing. If you know ね, さ or よ
used like this, this な works the same way.

Examples of filler-な:

  * [What is the にはな used for in the following sentence?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/72490/5010)
  * [Meaning of triple particle (?) のはな](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/30042/5010)
  * [What do 「はな」 and 「いうとな」 mean?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27999/5010)

Also related:

  * [What does さあ (saa) mean?](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/14922/5010)
  * [Use of さ as a filler](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/68203/5010)
  * [Spaces in children's books](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/27624/5010)
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2020-06-17T08:28:29.230
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2020-06-17T08:28:29.230
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answer
Final particles ([ね](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%AD/#jn-169590),
[よ](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%82%88/#jn-226011),
[な](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%AA/#jn-162229),
[さ](https://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/word/%E3%81%95/#jn-84242)) can be thrown in
the middle of a sentence in conversation as if fillers.

There are technically two types:

  1. follows the first word/chunk of the sentence

> それがね、本物のマツタケなんです _That one, see, is the real matsutake._

> もしもね、ゾンビに襲われたら _If, I mean if, you're attacked by zombies..._

It is used to emphasize and draw hearer's attention. This can be also combined
with sentence-initial interjections or conjunctions such as あのね, いやな, だけどさ
etc.

  2. used as many as needed between phrases

> 君はね、責任というものをね、もう少し自覚してほしいんだ  
>  _I think you should... be a bit more conscious... that you have a
> responsibility._

> それは少し違うね、タイプのゲーム機のね、話だと思いますが  
>  _You must be talking about... a kind of different... type of game
> console..._

This type is often heard while the speaker is giving a long story (or
explanation, persuasion etc.), like stopping at each corner to see if the
hearer is following you. I can't think of a suitable English translation for
this; close to "you see?" or "okay?" but much more lightweight to be used
repeatedly.

The in-sentence final particles have no preference of words it attaches to, so
you see it wherever after a noun phrase (i.e. after particles), a verbal
complex (i.e. fully conjugated chunk of simple or compound verbs) or a free
word. Though less revelant to Japanese learning, it is known that their
insertable points denote breaking of 文節, a syntactic word in Japanese.

Back to the original question, I think this な belongs the second usage I
described, and it has little grammatical meaning here except wanting to
impress her name more to the hearer, if any. The choice of な represents a old-
fashioned/rustic character, and it would sound rather blunt in everyday speech
today.
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answer