Question regarding 「と」in dialect (probably 九州弁)

Question

Taken from the fifth’s episode of Zombieland Saga 「あの… 何しとるとですか？」

The show takes place in 佐賀県 and sometimes the characters throw in some bits of dialect (mostly 九州弁 and what I assume is 博多弁)

I am pretty sure that the sentence above means the same as 「何しているんですか？」and I am basically only wondering about the bold 「と」in the sentence. Is it just the equivalent to 「の」or「ん」in phrases like that? I was able to find explanations of most other dialectical insertions of this show on the internet, but can’t seem to find any regarding this problem.

Are there other phrases that uses this 「と」, or rather how does this 「と」work in general?

Answer 1

You are correct in your assumption, it is used like 「の」 in standard dialect. And like 「の」, it can be use in questions and answers.

Q: 何ばしよっと？ → 何をしてるの？
A: ご飯作っとーと。 → ご飯作っているの。

Just be careful not to confuse it with the 「とー」 in the middle, which means 「ている」.

You can find plenty of info in Japanese (like here or here) on the basics of Hakata dialect. which as you know, share similarities with the Saga dialect. Nowadays, there are even lessons on Youtube about it!

Answer 2

I'm glad you picked up on this topic. In short, 「と」here doesn't mean anything. It's just a custom used in 九州弁 or 博多弁 when asking a question.

My grandma lives in Fukuoka for a long time and I feel like she usually says 「何しとると (ね)?」or something like that. It's attached at the end of the sentence to form a question.