Okinawan Japanese
Encyclopedia
is the Japanese language
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...

 as spoken by people of Okinawa Prefecture
Okinawa Prefecture
is one of Japan's southern prefectures. It consists of hundreds of the Ryukyu Islands in a chain over long, which extends southwest from Kyūshū to Taiwan. Okinawa's capital, Naha, is located in the southern part of Okinawa Island...

. Okinawan Japanese's accents and words are influenced by traditional Ryukyuan languages
Ryukyuan languages
The Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Ryukyu Islands, and make up a subgroup of the Japonic, itself controversially a subgroup of Altaic....

. Okinawan Japanese has some loanwords from American English
American English
American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

 due to the United States administration after the Battle of Okinawa
Battle of Okinawa
The Battle of Okinawa, codenamed Operation Iceberg, was fought on the Ryukyu Islands of Okinawa and was the largest amphibious assault in the Pacific War of World War II. The 82-day-long battle lasted from early April until mid-June 1945...

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Vocabulary and phrase

  • haisai (はいさい) - hello. from Ryukyuan.
  • ... (さー) - sentence final particle. from Japanese.
  • aga! (あがっ!) - ouch! from Ryukyuan.
  • dēji (でーじ) - very, terribly. from Ryukyuan.
  • shini (しに) - very. also shinikan (しにかん) in North Okinawa. new word by young Okinawan.
  • wajiru (わじる) - stream up. from Ryukyuan.
  • furā (ふらー) - foolish. from Ryukyuan.
  • -(sa)rin dō (さりんどー) - I will ... to you! from Japanese -(sa)reru zo "You will be ...ed".
  • wārā (ワーラー) - water. from English.
  • shāpu (シャープ) - shop. from English.
  • ritchā (リッチャー) - rich person. from English rich and Ryukyuan -ā "-ist"
  • dakara yō (だからよー) - that's it, yeah. from Japanese "because of".
  • -mashō ne (ましょうね) - I will ... from Japanese "Let's ..."
  • dāru (だある) - That's it. from Japanese dearu formal copula.
  • jōtō (じょーとー, 上等) - Good. from Japanese.
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