What does "知らざった" mean?

Recently I was reading on this forum website about the difference between 子供 and 子ども, and one of the comments in response was:

ええっ!知らざった!

I feel like it’s somehow related to 知らず and the --ず(に) grammar.
Based on the context, I have the general impression that this means “oh, I didn’t know that!”, but I’ve never seen anything like that, and was wondering if anyone knew what it means and why.

Thanks :slight_smile:

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Well, it looks like ざる, which is the “verb” form of ず. It’s not used in modern Japanese except in some very formal settings/ set phrases, such as 言わざるを得ない.
Then put in the past tense, which does make “I didn’t know that”.
I guess the person was trying on purpose to sound dated?

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Ok thank you so much! I wasn’t even aware that that was a thing :joy:

Found a blog introducing some Hita dialect (日田弁):

They list しらざった there among the examples. I’m pretty sure you can find other dialects that use this. Internet slang usually is a combination of various dialects, abbreviations, and standard Japanese so idk :man_shrugging::woman_shrugging:, it’s hard to follow message boards for that reason.

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We had a somewhat technical discussion about ざる over in the Aria book club last week if you’re interested.

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