LogFAQs > #980276015

I would describe it as , Jidaigeki speak. It's like the fake old English as some posters have said. It's sort of this standardized way to pretend you are speaking old Japanese. It isn't always used on period pieces, but most of the time it is. It is much, much, much more similar to modern Japanese than the actual language spoken at the time.

Just to add onto other people's comments. It's not just words (like for instance not using modern loanwords and using more native Japanese words instead of Chinese-style Japanese words formed in the 1800s [using matsurigoto instead of seifu for government]), but much more so grammar. They like to use a fake old school Japanese grammar style, especially for verb conjugations. It's also not accurate to the actual style of the time, but it's the single most noticable aspect and what you mimic if you want to pretend to speak like that for comedy or role-playing.