Throughout the whole of Japan, there are countless ways of telling others to be quiet or that they're being a nuisance, as can be seen in JLect's category on Annoyance . Two of them that stand out, however, are the Kyushu expressions せからしか sekarashika and やじょらしか yajorashika, and their numerous variations:

Sekarashika

• Sekarashii
• Sekarashi

Yajorashika

• Yajoroshi
• Yazoroshi
• Yazeroshi
• Yazerashii
• Yajoroshika
• Yazerashika
• Yajerashika
• Yajirashika
• Yazekurashika
• Yagurashika

Ignoring the adjectival ending -ka or -i, the main recurring theme is that both terms incorporate the suffix -rashi-, which functions more or less like the suffix "-like" in English. For example, 女らしい onna-rashii could be translated as "ladylike" or "womanly". Thus, given that it turns another word into an adjective, we would expect the roots seka- and yajo- (or variants thereof) to be connected to something else. But what could they be related to?

After a doing a search in a standard Japanese dictionary, I happened to come up with the following two possibilities that are semantically related:

• せいか【生家】 "one's parents' home"
• やじょう【耶嬢】 "father and mother"

Could it be possible that both expressions allude to one's parents or parents' home? And thus, by saying sekarashika or yajorashika, one would literally be telling another that they're "acting like (one's) parents"? It's an interesting possibility and I don't think it's impossible if we were to assume a semantic shift from "bossy/demanding"or "always yammering" to "annoying".

Hm, I don't have access to the Nippo Jisho, but assuming you're correct in the historical meaning given, then it may be likely that せからしい sekarashii is related to the Japanese adjectives せわしい【忙しい】 sewashii and いそがしい【忙しい】 isogashii "busy; hectic", especially considering that いそぐ【急ぐ】 isogu "to hurry" apparently becomes せぐ segu in some dialects like Aomori . In fact, judging from this website , I'm now thinking that やぞらしい yazorashii and its variants could be cognate with sekarashii. Perhaps the historical form goes back to something like *yasokurashii or *yesokurashii? Just a thought.

Hmm, I'm still not sure what to think. It looks like seku "to be busy" exists in most dictionaries and is the most common form dialectally, not segu, which may be a voiced form. This confirms a shift from *seku-rashii to sekarashii, sewashii and other variants. However, for isogu, it seems that it's possible it could stem from the expression いきせく【息急く】 ikiseku (いきをせく【息を急く {?咳く}】 iki o seku) "to run out of breath; to pant; to gasp", by way of *ikiseku > *ikisoku > *iisoku > *isogu.

If this is true, then the adjective yazorashii and its variants wouldn't be directly cognate with sekarashii, though it may contain a prefix: *ya-sekurashii. At least, this idea explains why the second syllable (-ze-, -zo-, -jo-, etc.) becomes voiced. Perhaps the prefix / initial morpheme is related to いや・や【嫌】 iya / ya?

Do you happen to have a citation of *isos[ik]- and *isof-? I can't seem to find anything on them.


As a side note, This site suggests a link with 直ぐ sugu "immediately", but I'm not sure about that connection:

[い]そぐ(急ぐ)＝せく(急く)＝すぐ(直ぐ)。

A few other forms to add are えそぐ esogu , used in Suzaka City (Nagano); へぐ hegu , used in Tsugaru (Aomori); and せける sekeru , used in Ayabe (Kyoto).

In the same light, for *yazokurashii, I've also found the form えぞくらしい ezokurashii "annoying" (Gifu), as well as えぞくらしい ezokurashii (Nagoya), えぞくるしい ezokurushii (Kyoto) and えづくろしい edzukurushii (Kansai) labelled by the Nihon Jiten as meaning "unsightly; ugly". I don't know if these last three are related, but it was worth mentioning.

Thank you! I found いそし(き) in Weblio's Kobun dictionary here . It looks like it meant "(working) diligently", which is semantically parallel to 勤しむ "to work diligently" and isn't far off from 急ぐ "to hurry" (perhaps: 'work diligently' > 'work fast' > 'hurry/rush').

According to this site , いそはく meant 勤しむ・励む. I'm curious if all these different forms mean that いそ was originally a separate noun?

Do you know if せく【急く】 is attested anywhere? I wonder if it really is related to 急ぐ, or if that's really just a coincidence.