Recently I stumbled upon this sentence:
許さん? Is this a common way of saying ない in タメ語? Or are there only particular verbs where this way of saying ない is utilized?
Thanks!
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I don’t know how accurate the answers are for it, but I found a Stack Exchange article that talks a bit about the origins of this: slang - Is verb ending ない shortened to ん? - Japanese Language Stack Exchange
This is anecdotal, but I’ve been told by Japanese friends in the past that this is more common in Kansai, especially with words like 知らん、わからん.
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Now that you mention 知らん and 分からん it makes more sense. I somehow didn’t make the connection between them and 許さん, but now I get it. Thanks so much for your reply!!
BTW, the PlayStation YouTube channel just released a new Tekken 8 video and the character being revealed literally used 許さん. A pleasant coincidence. Here’s the video:
He says 許さん twice at around the 1:25 mark and then almost immediately after that, if anyone is curious.
Thanks again!
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Also, that article that @nminer posted above is SUPER interesting, especially if you’ve already been introduced to ぬ, which is the classical version of ない.
いいじゃん
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I live in Kansai and it is common although certain words are more likely to take へん instead of the ん negative. Most common ん ones I hear (literally daily) are:
おらん
わからんけど
知らんけど
However without けど attached generally I am more likely to hear わからへん (先生ぇ、めっちゃムズよ、これできへん、英語わからへぇん). へん is more common where I live generally (or just ない but basically never the anime ねえ unless they’re deliberately imitating that style of speech).
Tangentially, my favourite weird mix of keigo and dialect that I sometimes hear is おられへんわ instead of いらっしゃらないよ
Also obligatory mention of ええやん (I personally use やん fairly often with friends)
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I used to live in Kobe, and can confirm the おられへんわ. First time I heard it I was like “. . .wait, what?”
I agree with the ones you listed though. I can’t recall specifically hearing any other words that used ん instead of へん, at least not in daily conversation.
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Very interesting!
Even though some of my Japanese friends are from Osaka (the others are from Chiba) I never see them type へん. I hear them say わかんない more often. It could be because they live in Tokyo, or perhaps because I’m a 外人 
. Either way, it’s good to know these things, so I appreciate the input.
Thanks a lot guys!!
Third Osaka-adjacent chiming in: I definitely hear a lot of the stuff folks above mentioned with らん and へん・ひん usages (also often from my kids telling me they don’t understand, lol), and I’m pretty sure I’ve heard the おられへん too when the kids are asking for a specific teacher. Gotta love that kansai-ben experience.
It actually took me longer to make the connection with ね・ねえ usage in manga and anime than it did for ん, cuz I hear ん so much more often 
I do wonder if that’s maybe a typing vs speech thing? I don’t know if へん is used in text as well or just said verbally.
But yeah, I’ve kinda hit a point where if I hear something finish with ん in a way that doesn’t initially make sense, I mentally check if it’s was the negative stem (the 許さ of 許さない from the original question, or the 知ら of 知らない) with an ん tacked on, and then ask if it would make sense if it were in ない form. Same general tactic for ね・ねえ.
…This has solved a considerable number of confusing reading/listening moments, personally.
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Until a native knows that I understand/can use kansaiben they will normally not use it (and I understand why they don’t since especially as a beginner it is probably totally incomprehensible). It is also fairly casual so in general people won’t suddenly use it when talking to you if they don’t know you (old people, especially men, are an exception to this though). I’m not going to post my LINE chats but it is also normal to use when messaging although my friends who are men are far more prone to use it. Although I have one friend who is from Osaka but lived in Tokyo for a number of years and now he doesn’t really use kansaiben as much - it’s definitely a thing to reduce your dialect when moving. I also have a friend from up north who lives in Osaka and she totally avoids using her dialect. If she suddenly started using it when talking to me I’d probably struggle to understand what she was saying so, again, it makes sense why. This has been my experience, at least.
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In Tokyo I heard my high school students use it all the time, since I moved to Kobe I haven’t heard anyone use it. I also hear it all the time in anime. So, I think it’s probably Tokyo slang.
They tend to say 分かんない in the Tokyo area but 分からへん in Kansai. I’m not sure about the rest of the country but I guess a lot of places have their own varients of this.
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That makes sense. Now that you say that, I remember one of my Chiba friends showing me a LINE conversation full of slang, but it was just gibberish to me (especially back then, when I was maybe N4 level), so I don’t remember what it looked like. She was showing me how they actually speak amongst themselves.
Anyway, once I finish N1, which has been surprisingly easy so far (basically permutations of previously learned grammar), I will tackle the 関西弁 deck. Hopefully that’ll give me a deeper insight into their dialect.
Right, that’s what I’m more familiar with. That same friend from Chiba I mentioned above showed me a video of a Japanese TV show where they were interviewing people from all over Japan. It was interesting to hear the different dialects, but again it was way too soon for me to really appreciate the differences. Heck! It might still be too soon for me now, given I’m still getting used to 関東弁 as it is. That said, I really like learning about this amazing language!
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I was (jokingly) horrifying a friend recently who’s not as far along in her studies by showing her dialogue from 服部平次(はっとりへいじ) in Detective Conan, who speaks with…very distinct 関西弁 at pretty much all times. Man uses へん・ひん, 分からん、知らん、ほんま、ちゅうわけ and ゆう, and probably half a dozen other things that are going over my head too, and my friend was sitting here like “oh my god what” while we went through them. It’s great, I love it, can’t wait to see the new movie and trip over like 30% of what he says XD
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Veering off topic but this is a good chance to share one of my favourite videos:
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Oh now I live in fear
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Hilarious! 
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The anime ねえ, or more generally the あい・あえ・おい・いえ → ええ monophthongization, originates in the Tokyo Shitamachi dialect (the other Tokyo dialect that did not become standard Japanese), so it makes sense that speakers in the Kansai region wouldn’t use it when speaking casually in their dialect.
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I was trying to be funny 
Probably shouldn’t have mixed it in with a serious post though
During immersion you might come across this sort of ending to express volition (like 〜う・〜よう), for example
我は汝…汝は我は…
汝、ここに新たなる契りを得たり
契りは即ち、
囚われを破らんとする反逆の翼なり
…
https://www.hello-school.net/haroajapa009010.htm
It’s quite archaic though, so most instances will be negation.
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It also comes up in like 言わんばかりに which I’m pretty sure is actually negation (ぬ). This pattern (んばかり) is a lot more common than んとする although 言わんとすること is still a used collocation. I’ve never seen んとする outside of that phrase, actually, although I’ve never read anything written before the war.
I actually learnt originally that the ん in んとする comes from ぬ although I later read in a Japanese dictionary that it comes from む (classical volitional auxiliary) so I’ve personally got no idea of the true etymology…
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