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貯金も確かにありやな！！ お金があったら何でも出来るし. I'm definitely into saving money too! If you have money you can do anything.

My young friend wrote this to me. Would someone be kind enough to explain the やな for me?

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Are you really just expecting explanation for やな? Then, あり would be irrelevant. Or, do you rather want to know what あり means? – sawa Feb 11 '12 at 16:56
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@sawa. It doesn't hurt to over-answer a question I guess. – Flaw Feb 11 '12 at 17:01
I answered both, but the title should at least be corrected. あり is not a variation of 有り得る. And やな is not a slang. – sawa Feb 11 '12 at 17:12
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sorry , i thought ありやな was related to ありえない, which i thought was related to 有り得る. if this あり (in the question) is unrelated to 有り, does it have another kanji origination? – yadokari Feb 11 '12 at 17:29
They are related in the sense that 有難い or 或る are related to 有る or 在る. But they have evolved into different words. They are not variants of a same word. – sawa Feb 11 '12 at 17:35

1 Answer

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や is the copula in Kansai dialect. Its counterpart in standard Japanese is だ. な is a sentence final particle expecting agreement (to oneself or to other person). It is similar to ね except that it is masculine.

Added upon Flaw's suggestion: あり used here is a slang term meaning "an acceptable idea", "can be dealt with", or "cool". Another slang expression with a similar meaning is いける. The slang なし is the negation of あり. For usages of these, you can do a search with phrases like ありかなしか.

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や is not only in Kansai Japanese. About half the country uses it. – Ian Feb 12 '12 at 1:48
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Since when are あり and なし slang ? – oldergod Feb 12 '12 at 11:10
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Ah but ありや（な） is not standard Japanese nor Tokyo-ben... – Chocolate Feb 12 '12 at 14:57
@oldergod The words あり and なし themselves are never slangs, because they are the classical forms of ある and ない. Only this usage あり+copula is slangy. – Gradius Jul 3 '12 at 10:17
@Gradius read the conversation again then. Because I know they are not. Sawa said so. – oldergod Jul 3 '12 at 22:28
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