桜桜ーいざや and ゆかん meanings


In 桜桜 what do "いざや" and "見に行かん" mean, or rather _why_ do they mean what they
mean. I've never heard a term like いざや, and I've never seen 行く written as ゆく,
nor have I seen an あん ending unless it was going to be あない.




Kohsuke Kawaguchi already answered your question, but I want to add a little
bit of detail about ゆかん.

You wrote the following:

> nor have I seen an an ending unless it was going to be あない.

This stem of the verb is called the
[未然形{みぜんけい}](http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%9C%AA%E7%84%B6%E5%BD%A2) in
traditional Japanese grammar, and several things can attach to it besides the
auxiliary
[ない](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%AA%E3%81%84&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=114427600000).
Historically, there was an auxiliary called
[む](http://kobun.weblio.jp/content/%E3%82%80), and this is what the ん
represents in ゆかん in this song.

As an aside, the modern auxiliary
[う](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%86&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=1&pagenum=11&index=101437500000)
(as in だろう) is derived from む, and it attaches to the 未然形{みぜんけい} as well, so
you'd expect a form like ゆかう. However, over time the pronunciation of the
vowels changed from /au/ to /o:/, and the modern Japanese spelling was changed
to ゆこう to reflect this change. (Although it only partially reflects it, since
the う is part of the long vowel /o:/. I wonder why they didn't change the
spelling of う as well!)

Back on topic, an "an" ending can also represent the 未然形{みぜんけい} plus the
negative auxiliary
[ぬ](http://dic.yahoo.co.jp/dsearch?enc=UTF-8&p=%E3%81%AC&dtype=0&dname=0ss&stype=0&pagenum=1&index=115059700000),
which functions much like the auxiliary ない. (See [this
question](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/q/235/1478) for some discussion.)
Since this ぬ can be contracted to ん, you'll see forms like 知らん and いかん. (In
fact, this is also the ん in ありません.)

If you see an ending like this in modern Japanese, it's much more likely to be
the negator ぬ than the historical auxiliary む, because the latter isn't part
of the modern language. (Except, I think, in a few fossilized expressions like
[言わんばかり](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/a/2767/1478).)

