What does this mean
 

what does sayoda mean? Is it like sayonara but with da instead of nara. My friend has been saying sayoda to me recently but I have no idea what it means.

Edit: I wasn't 100% sure of my previous answer so I did some research. I was certain that the the だ and なら were originally grammar particles, so I did a search on 小夜(さよ) and found that it means 'evening.' With this in mind I then concluded that these expressions could have come about when stopping work in rice fields or something to return home when it became dark.

For example:
小夜なら帰ろう。
sayo nara kaerou.
If it's evening, let's go home.

I assume that over time people got lazy and started dropping off the end, which may be how 'sayonara' came about as an expression for 'goodbye'.

That said, I believe the difference between 'sayonara' and 'sayoda' is simply that 'sayoda' is more blunt and less polite than 'sayonara'.

I have never heard "sayoda".
Is it a dialect thing?:confused:
where did you heard "sayoda"?

i guess that what you have heard isn't "sayoda".

Maybe he's been hearing 'saraba' - but that means all of my research was for nothing!

sorry for my taking a lot of time to reply.
Maybe it's "saraba" or "soizya" or ...

Is 'soizya' the same as 'sorezya' but shorter?

i think "soizya" is the same as "soredeha"

for example,
　 それでは、はじめます(soredeha hazimemasu) -> そいじゃ、はじめます(soizya hazimemasu)

soizya is not formal

Shinyo, you are right.
i found in my dictionary "soredeha" is the same as "sorezya" and "soizya"
i guess
soredeha -> sorezya -> soizya

"Sayou da" is a formal, old-sounding form of "sou da." It means "that is so."

But nobody says sayou da. Maybe he`s saying "sayoude"? It`s pretty common...

Perhaps we need more context in order to choose the right word. At present I'm assuming it's in the context of 'goodbye'.

After about 5 minutes of brainstorming with my husband... (Whose first question, by the way, was "Is the person saying it a native Japanese speaker? Or just some kid who knows a few words?") The only things we could come up with for use in parting were "それじゃ" or "それでは" - which could be shortened to そいじゃ and そいで.

Unless the context is totally different and it`s just being linked to bye because it sounded close to さようなら, it`s is most likely one of those.

Gorotsuki -- We need more info! D:

She says sayouda for like saying bye I think. She could be wrong though. Shes not a native speaker. Oh and nyororin can you please post what you said in alternatives in hiragana becuase the computer I am using can not see the symbols.