Okinawan language

Okinawan language

Central Okinawan, or simply Okinawan , is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni, and a number of smaller peripheral islands...

, spoken in Okinawa Island

Okinawa Island

Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu Islands of Japan, and is home to Naha, the capital of Okinawa Prefecture. The island has an area of...

, was once the official language of the Ryukyuan Kingdom. At the time, documents were written in kanji

Kanji

Kanji are the adopted logographic Chinese characters hanzi that are used in the modern Japanese writing system along with hiragana , katakana , Indo Arabic numerals, and the occasional use of the Latin alphabet...

 and hiragana

Hiragana

is a Japanese syllabary, one basic component of the Japanese writing system, along with katakana, kanji, and the Latin alphabet . Hiragana and katakana are both kana systems, in which each character represents one mora...

, derived from Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. However, after Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 annexed the kingdom, the language was labeled as the "dialect

Japanese dialects

The comprise many regional variants. The lingua franca of Japan is called hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo , and while it was based initially on the Tokyo dialect, the language of Japan's capital has since gone in its own direction to become one of Japan's many dialects...

" of mainland Japanese

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...

. Nowadays, most mainland Japanese, as well as most Okinawans, tend to think of Okinawan as merely a dialect of mainland Japanese, even though the language is not mutually intelligible to main islands Japanese.

As a "dialect", modern Okinawan language is not written frequently. When it is, the Japanese writing system

Japanese writing system

The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...

 is generally used with an ad hoc manner. There is no standard orthography

Orthography

The orthography of a language specifies a standardized way of using a specific writing system to write the language. Where more than one writing system is used for a language, for example Kurdish, Uyghur, Serbian or Inuktitut, there can be more than one orthography...

 for the modern language. Nonetheless, there are a few systems announced by scholars and alike. None of them are widespread among the native speakers, but those systems can write the language with less ambiguity than the ad hoc conventions. The Roman alphabet in some form or another is used in some publications, especially those of an academic nature.

Council system

The system devised by the Council for the Dissemination of Okinawan Dialect (沖縄方言普及協議会). http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/spe/kotoba20010829.html

University of the Ryukyus system

The system devised by Okinawa Center of Language Study, a section of University of the Ryukyus

University of the Ryukyus

The , abbreviated to Ryūdai , is a national university of Japan. It is located in the town of Nishihara on Okinawa Honto in Okinawa Prefecture. There are also campuses in Nakagusuku and Ginowan. It is the westernmost national university of Japan and the largest public university in Okinawa Prefecture...

. Unlike others, this method is intended purely as a phonetic guidance, basically uses katakana

Katakana

is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji, and in some cases the Latin alphabet . The word katakana means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana scripts are derived from components of more complex kanji. Each kana represents one mora...

 only. For the sake of an easier comparison, corresponding hiragana are used in this article.

New Okinawan letters

新沖縄文字 (Shin Okinawa-moji), devised by , in his textbook Utsukushii Okinawa no Hougen (美しい沖縄の方言; "The beautiful Okinawan Language"; ISBN 4-905784-19-0). The rule applies on hiragana only. Katakana is used as in Japanese; just like in the conventional usage of Okinawan.

Basic syllables and kai-yōon (palatalized syllables)

		i	u	e	o	ya	yu	yo
(Initial) 1		[i] [ji]	[u] [wu]	[e] [je]	[o] [wo]	[ja]	[ju]	[jo]
(Elsewhere)		(Not used) 2
Conventional		い	う をぅ	え いぇ	お を うぉ	や	ゆ	よ
Council		ゆぃ	をぅ	ゆぇ	を
Ryukyu Univ.		ゐ		え
New Okinawan		い゙		え゙
'	'a a	'i i	'u u	'e e	'o o	'ya	'yu	'yo
(Initial) 1	[ʔa]	[ʔi]	[ʔu]	[ʔe]	[ʔo]	[ʔja]	[ʔju]	[ʔjo]
(Elsewhere)	[a]	[i] [ji]	[u] [wu]	[e] [je]	[o] [wo]
Conventional	あ	い	う	え いぇ	お うぉ	や	ゆ	よ
Council				え	お	っや	っゆ	っよ
Ryukyu Univ.				いぇ		いゃ	いゅ	いょ
New Okinawan				え
k	ka	ki	ku	ke	ko	kya
	[ka]	[ki]	[ku]	[ke]	[ko]	[kja]
	か	き	く	け	こ	きゃ
g	ga	gi	gu	ge	go	gya
	[ɡa]	[ɡi]	[ɡu]	[ɡe]	[ɡo]	[ɡja]
	が	ぎ	ぐ	げ	ご	ぎゃ
s	sa	shi si	su	she se	so	sha sya	shu syu
	[sa]	[ʃi]	[su]	[ʃe]	[so]	[ʃa]	[ʃu]
Others	さ	し	す	しぇ	そ	しゃ	しゅ
Ryukyu Univ.		し すぃ		しぇ せ
z	za	zi	zu	ze	zo
	[dza]	[dzi] [dʐi]	[dzu]	[dze]	[dzo]
Others	ざ	じ	ず	ぜ	ぞ
Ryukyu Univ.		づぃ	ず づ
j	ja	ji	ju	je	jo
	[dʒa]	[dʒi]	[dʒu]	[dʒe]	[dʒo]
Others	じゃ	じ	じゅ	じぇ	じょ
Ryukyu Univ.	じゃ ぢゃ	じ ぢ	じゅ ぢゅ	じぇ ぢぇ	じょ ぢょ
t	ta	ti	tu	te	to
	[ta]	[ti]	[tu]	[te]	[to]
Others	た	てぃ	とぅ	て	と
New Okinawan
d	da	di	du	de	do
	[da]	[di]	[du]	[de]	[do]
Others	だ	でぃ	どぅ	で	ど
New Okinawan
ch c	cha ca	chi ci	chu cu	che ce	cho co
	[tʃa]	[tʃi]	[tʃu]	[tʃe]	[tʃo]
	ちゃ	ち	ちゅ	ちぇ	ちょ
ts		tsi	tsu
		[tsi] [tʂi]	[tsu]
Ryukyu Univ.		つぃ	つ
n	na	ni	nu	ne	no	nya	nyu
	[na]	[ɲi]	[nu]	[ne]	[no]	[ɲa]	[ɲu]
	な	に	ぬ	ね	の	にゃ	にゅ
h	ha	hi	fu hu	he	ho	hya	hyu	hyo
	[ha]	[çi]	[ɸu]	[çe]	[ho]	[ça]	[çu]	[ço]
	は	ひ	ふ	へ	ほ	ひゃ	ひゅ	ひょ
b	ba	bi	bu	be	bo	bya	byu	byo
	[ba]	[bi]	[bu]	[be]	[bo]	[bja]	[bju]	[bjo]
	ば	び	ぶ	べ	ぼ	びゃ	びゅ	びょ
p	pa	pi	pu	pe	po	pya	pyu
	[pa]	[pi]	[pu]	[pe]	[po]	[pja]	[pju]
	ぱ	ぴ	ぷ	ぺ	ぽ	ぴゃ	ぴゅ
m	ma	mi	mu	me	mo	mya	myu	myo
	[ma]	[mi]	[mu]	[me]	[mo]	[mja]	[mju]	[mjo]
	ま	み	む	め	も	みゃ	みゅ	みょ
r	ra	ri	ru	re	ro
	[ɾa]	[ɾi]	[ɾu]	[ɾe]	[ɾo]
	ら	り	る	れ	ろ

¹: At the beginning of a word.

²: University of the Ryukyus system is an exception, always using ゐ, をぅ, え, を (ヰ, ヲゥ, エ, ヲ) for [i], [u], [e], [o], and い, う, いぇ, お (イ, ウ, イェ, オ) for [ʔi], [ʔu], [ʔe], [ʔo], respectively.

Gō-yōon (labialised syllables)

	wa	wi	we
	[ɰa]	[ɰi]	[ɰe]
Conventional	わ	うぃ	うぇ
Council
Ryukyu Univ.		ゑぃ	ゑ
New Okinawan		ゐ
'	'wa	'wi	'we
	[ʔɰa]	[ʔɰi]	[ʔɰe]
Conventional	わ	うぃ	うぇ
Council	っわ	っうぃ	っうぇ
Ryukyu Univ.	うゎ	うゐ	うぇ
New Okinawan
k	kwa qua	kwi qui	kwe que
	[kʷa]	[kʷi]	[kʷe]
Conventional	くぁ くゎ	くぃ	くぇ
Council	くゎ
Ryukyu Univ.		くゐ
New Okinawan
g	gwa	gwi	gwe
	[ɡʷa]	[ɡʷi]	[ɡʷe]
Conventional	ぐぁ ぐゎ	ぐぃ	ぐぇ
Council	ぐゎ
Ryukyu Univ.		ぐゐ
New Okinawan
h	fa hwa	fi hwi	fe hwe
	[ɸa]	[ɸi]	[ɸe]
Conventional	ふぁ	ふぃ	ふぇ
Council
Ryukyu Univ.	ふゎ
New Okinawan

Others

	n 3	4	5
	ん	っ	ー
'	'n
Conventional	ん
Council	っん
Ryukyu Univ.
New Okinawan

³: Hatsuon

N (kana)

ん, in hiragana, or ン in katakana, is one of the Japanese kana, which each represent one mora. ん is the only kana that does not end in a vowel sound . The kana for mu, む/ム, was originally used for the n sound as well, while ん was originally a hentaigana used for both n and mu...

 (moraic n)

⁴: Sokuon

Sokuon

The is a Japanese symbol consisting of a small hiragana or katakana tsu. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "little tsu". Compare to a full-sized tsu:The sokuon is used for various purposes...

 (geminated consonants)

⁵: Chōon

Choon

The , also known as ', ', or Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark by the Unicode Consortium, is a Japanese symbol which indicates a chōon, or a long vowel of two morae in length. Its form is a horizontal or vertical line in the center of the text with the width of one kanji or kana character...

 (longer vowels

Vowel length

In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived duration of a vowel sound. Often the chroneme, or the "longness", acts like a consonant, and may etymologically be one, such as in Australian English. While not distinctive in most dialects of English, vowel length is an important phonemic factor in...

): In conventional usages, longer vowels are sometimes spelt like in mainland Japanese as well; "ou" (おう) for ō, doubled kana for others. (e.g. うう for ū.)