「っきゃない」?

[FredKore]

So I went down a rabbit hole and came up with a Japanese question…

I saw this post, which led me to listen to a podcast, which made me look up a Snoopy translation in Japanese, which has a grammar structure that I’ve never seen before (see below for pic)…

Questions:
-What is ～っきゃない？What is it short for?
-And how do you translate the のさ？

(Btw, I get the gist but I want to understand the Japanese grammar.)

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@monkeytunes

@PhairynRose

and they are OBSESSED with Snoopy here

I couldn’t figure out why The Peanuts Movie would get a special, high-quality Japanese translation, but that’s a great point. I had heard about Japan’s interest with Snoopy from this episode of UnderUnderstood - The Most Popular Snoopy Quote in Japan - Underunderstood - but I didn’t put two-and-two together. I’ve never lived there, so I’ve never seen the obsession in action.

くばられたカードで
しょうぶするっきゃないのさ

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BONUS: Nice little blog post related to the quote.
dochiworks ドチワークス: RE; You play with cards you're dealt...配られたカードで勝負するっきゃないのさ

[nickyelkovan]

Looked up っきゃない and it appears to be a shortening of しかない as in “there is no other option/choice but.” I saw a bunch of references to やるっきゃない, which would equal やるしかない or “there is no choice but to do (it)”. More info on that actual grammar point is here しかない | Japanese Grammar SRS.

As for のさ, what’s the context? To me, it just seems like the explanatory の + the pretty much filler particle さ. You can find a technical definition of all those sentence enders somewhere, but often さ is just thrown in when thinking, like あのさ… からさ… It can really be used after anything.

EDIT: Wait the context is literally in the pic my bad. Pretty sure what I said above applies just the same though. To me this reads something like: “There’s nothing to do but play with the cards you’ve been dealt”

[mrnoone]

@FredKore

It is exactly like @nickyelkovan says.
っきゃない is informal (casual, and a bit anime-ish) variant of しかない. のさ is explanatory + particle さ (there actually is an example of this use),

So
「配られたカードで勝負するっきゃないのさ」＝＝
「配られたカードで勝負するしかないのだ」

Notice that I didn’t use the のださ, which is uncommon. I would say then のさ combination is roughly the same as のだ itself.
(Actually there is a character in anime black jack - Pinokio, that uses のださ frequently, it makes it sound cute)

I hope it helps,
Cheers

[FredKore]

Awesome! Thanks!
@nickyelkovan @mrnoone

Follow up questions:
I guess I never thought about what form you’d use when thinking. Because Snoopy is not talking. Does のさ still come across as explanatory even though no one can hear him?
How does it sound if he had said 〜っきゃないんだね?
(Probably some is just personal preference. There’s probably a discussion somewhere about the subtleties between all the different ending sounds.)

@mrnoone Can we get a note on the しかない grammar point about this casual contraction?

[mrnoone]

@FredKore
のさ (or のだ) here makes the conclusion (this statement) more confident here.
When ね is used then the speaker likely seeks confirmation, agreement from others or simply confirms something.

のだね sounds “inteligent” (since normally contraction of の, ん is used). I would say in this case it would mean something along confirmation:
“You (person I am playing with/the world/God/fortune/whatever) are telling me to not take new cards (play with what I have), aren’t you?”

@FredKore

@mrnoone Can we get a note on the しかない grammar point about this casual contraction?

Done