As far as I can tell, most taiga dorama and samurai flicks use modern Japanese.
Please correct me if I'm wrong. ;) Are there any historical dramas that use archaic Japanese the way the samurai would have spoken? Does anyone know of on-line guides to Archaic Japanese?
It's true that modern Japanese is used in most Taiga Dorama but it's pretty cleverly mixed with Archaic Japanese. Basically the general public in Japan now can't follow the storyline if it's entirely in Archaic Japanese...even if they can it's very demanding on the audiences and it becomes too much of an effort for them to stay interested. Often in the dorama when people meet, have particularly scene setter or climactic moment they use the Archaic Japanese to present a real mega sense of authenticity!
There are dorama like Shinsengumi! which use quite a bit of Archaic Japanese but the modern is still incorporated basically so audiences can follow the plot.
Hell, I find it so hard to keep up anyway! I'm asking my mum vocab questions every 2 seconds!!! :doh:
When you say archaic do you just mean words not used often anymore or also the kanji? I've noticed words and kanji I don't know but figured that I just had a low vocabulary for Japanese.