Lore Panel just happened at PAX West and one of the questions to come up was whether Hingan and Doman were separate languages and if speaking Hingan would basically be like speaking straight up Japanese.
First of all Koji says that Oda confirmed Hingan is definitely another language* and a completely separate language from the common tongue. Furthermore, Koji confirmed Hingan and Doman are both dialects of the same language. He likened it to the difference between American and British English, very small differences but still the same language overall (essentially to make a more Japanese-centric reference, it'd be like the difference between a Kansai regional dialect and a Tokyo regional dialect).
*EDIT: Watched it back to be sure I had everything written properly. Koji and Oda both acknowledge that due to the Japanese version obviously already speaking Japanese in all regions it's hard to equate Hingan/Doman to being "Japanese" specifically, however for simplicity's sake it /would/ essentially be a different language altogether.
Image below is the slide from the lore panel.
First of all Koji says that Oda confirmed Hingan is definitely another language* and a completely separate language from the common tongue. Furthermore, Koji confirmed Hingan and Doman are both dialects of the same language. He likened it to the difference between American and British English, very small differences but still the same language overall (essentially to make a more Japanese-centric reference, it'd be like the difference between a Kansai regional dialect and a Tokyo regional dialect).
*EDIT: Watched it back to be sure I had everything written properly. Koji and Oda both acknowledge that due to the Japanese version obviously already speaking Japanese in all regions it's hard to equate Hingan/Doman to being "Japanese" specifically, however for simplicity's sake it /would/ essentially be a different language altogether.
Image below is the slide from the lore panel.
![[Image: 0c43fb59502291d8b43c3696f1bf6c54.jpg]](https://i.gyazo.com/0c43fb59502291d8b43c3696f1bf6c54.jpg)
