1658
Someone ended their sentence with やいな. What dialect is this? What does やい
mean? I assume that な means the same thing as in standard Japanese?

**Update:** the original sentence was 「もう出来あがり？仕事はやいな～」.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-30T16:19:52.553
1657
2012-07-20T17:14:12.857
2012-07-20T17:14:12.857
69
question
meaning dialects
What does やい mean?
**Update** : This is not an instance of やい, but rather 速い【はやい】, so the
information in my original answer is not actually applicable in this case.

* * *

[Wikipedia](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8D%9A%E5%A4%9A%E5%BC%81) suggests
that at the very least, this is a feature of **Hakata dialect** (though it is
also likely a feature of other dialects as well, as suggested by my comment
above). In Hakata dialect, it is used as a light suggestion/command, like the
～て form of verbs in other dialect:

>   * 「やい」(軽い命令)  
>  動詞の連用形に接続。「やれ」の転化したもの。  
>  例  
>
>     * 「ちょっとあそこを見て」→「ちいとあすこば見やい」
>

な would then be the same as in standard Japanese, as you assumed.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-30T16:52:13.910
1658
2011-06-30T23:45:26.510
2011-06-30T23:45:26.510
290
384
1657
answer
When used not as a suffix, but as a stand-alone word, やい is a (rude)
attention-getter among children, like the British "Oi", but specific to kids.
(Adults would use おい！)

Kids: やい、俺のガンダムを勝手にいじるな！ (Hey, don't mess with my Gundam toy!)

Adults: おい、おれの新車に触るんじゃねえ！ (Hey, don't touch my new car!)

I believe the above is the most common usage (標準語) usage of やい, though as
others have noted, some dialects have their own uses for the word.

PS: I thought I'd answer the question as asked in the title, ignoring the fact
that it was inspired by a mis-parsed "速い" :)
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-07-06T23:21:22.213
1781
2011-07-07T03:36:10.697
2011-07-07T03:36:10.697
448
448
1657
answer