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A Japanese friend, a woman in her seventies who comes from Sapporo and has long resided in Tokyo, and who does not speak in a strong Hokkaido dialect, writes several times in a letter to me the -て form of a verb followed by らっしせる. I've never seen this before. Examples in her letter: 近づけてらっしせる and 出かけてらっしせる. Is this some unusual form of the auxiliary or suffix adjective らしい, which means "like" or "appearing" or "seeming"? Thank you!

Cyclist
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  • I wonder if it's some sort of dialect. Maybe where she's from could be relevant. – Ringil Jun 02 '20 at 19:06
  • Thanks for your reply. This is my first question here as a new member. This woman comes from Sapporo. She and I both reside in Tokyo, in different parts of the city. During the coronavirus stay-at-home period, we have enjoyed a lively correspondence by postal mail, since she does not use a computer or e-mail. After many decades in Tokyo, she does not really speak with a Sapporo or Hokkaido accent. – Cyclist Jun 02 '20 at 19:08
  • @Cyclist: Please edit that into the question (or do you not have enough reputation to edit yet)? – istrasci Jun 02 '20 at 19:26
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    My mind goes to some variant of いらっしゃる over らしい; perhaps いらっしゃらせる? – Micah Cowan Jun 02 '20 at 19:38
  • Can you supply any more context? A full sentence, even a few sentences, would be most helpful. This might be a broken-down form of いらっしゃらせる, the causative of いらっしゃる. See the conjugation table here at Wiktionary for the regular conjugations. – Eiríkr Útlendi Jun 02 '20 at 21:25
  • @Eiríkr Útlendi Thank you for your reply note. Here is a sample sentence from the Japanese letter writer's handwritten letter. She wrote: 近づけてらっしせる姿を思い浮かべていました。My translation: "I was reminded of a figure that appeared to be approaching." (She was referring to the image in an artist's painting, which we had been discussing.) – Cyclist Jun 02 '20 at 21:45
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    ^ I think you misread ゃ as せ. 近づけてらっしゃる – chocolate Jun 02 '20 at 23:54
  • Thanks, Chocolate, but the way I wrote the quoted Japanese sentence, above, is exactly the way the letter-writer wrote it. I've noticed that her written kanji are sometimes a bit sloppy and hard to read. Respectfully stated, could this be the result of age and lack of attention to detail? Maybe she did intend to write 近づけてらっしゃる, but the last characters of her written word are definitely せる. Very confusing. – Cyclist Jun 03 '20 at 01:27
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    I also think this is らっしゃる. Could you upload the photo of the らっしせる part? Then I could comment on whether it's sloppy kana or beautiful 連綿. – naruto Jun 03 '20 at 02:34
  • Thanks, Naruto-san. Since I am a new user here, I must figure out how to upload a photo file showing an excerpt of the handwritten letter to which I have referred. – Cyclist Jun 03 '20 at 02:52
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    Lol, reading ゃ as せ is a way easier explanation than my convoluted "some weird variant of a word I can't really imagine using" ^_^ Especially since some writers' vertical stroke on a や can tend to curve. – Micah Cowan Jun 03 '20 at 05:49
  • probably 脱線 but where I live in Gifu, the honorific can be "らっせる" (食べらっせる) – Judas Dec 24 '20 at 07:44

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