Ryukyuan languages
Encyclopedia
Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the , is a chain of islands in the western Pacific, on the eastern limit of the East China Sea and to the southwest of the island of Kyushu in Japan. From about 1829 until the mid 20th century, they were alternately called Luchu, Loochoo, or Lewchew, akin to the Mandarin...
, and make up a subgroup of the Japonic
Japonic languages
Japonic languages is a term which identifies and characterises the Japanese which is spoken on the main islands of Japan and the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. This widely accepted linguistics term was coined by Leon Serafim....
, itself controversially a subgroup of Altaic
Altaic languages
Altaic is a proposed language family that includes the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, and Japonic language families and the Korean language isolate. These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
.
The Ryukyuan languages and Japanese diverged "not long before the first written evidences of Japanese appeared, that is to say, at some point before the 7th century".
Current situation
In OkinawaOkinawa 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...
, standard 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...
is almost always used in formal situations. In informal situations, the de facto everyday language among Okinawans under the age of 60 is the Okinawa-accented mainland Japanese called ウチナーヤマトゥグチ (Uchinaa Yamatuguchi "Okinawan Japanese
Okinawan Japanese
is the Japanese language as spoken by people of Okinawa Prefecture. Okinawan Japanese's accents and words are influenced by traditional Ryukyuan languages. Okinawan Japanese has some loanwords from American English due to the United States administration after the Battle of Okinawa.- Vocabulary and...
"), which is often misunderstood to be 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...
proper, ウチナーグチ (Uchinaaguchi "Okinawan language"). Similarly, the everyday language on Amami island
Amami Oshima
is a semi-tropical island in the Amami Islands, which is part of the larger Nansei Islands in Japan. Ōshima literally means big island, and it is the largest of the Amami Islands. It lies roughly halfway between the islands of Okinawa and Kyūshū. Briefly part of the Ryūkyū Kingdom, in 1624 it was...
is not the Amami language
Amami language
The Amami language Shimayumuta) is spoken in the Amami Islands south of Kyūshū. The number of competent native speakers is not known, but native speakers can be found mostly among old people—as a result of Japanese language policy, the younger generations speaks mostly Japanese as their first...
proper, but the Amami-accented mainland Japanese, called トン普通語 (Ton Futsūgo "Potato Standard").
There are currently a little over a million native speakers of "traditional" Ryukyuan languages, but many of them are elderly. There are still some children learning Ryukyuan languages natively, but this is rare on mainland Okinawa and usually only happens when children live with grandparents. Native speakers of Okinawan under 20 are rare. The Ryukyuan languages are still used in traditional cultural activities, such as folk music, folk dance and folk plays. There is also a radio news program in the Naha dialect.
Varieties
There is general agreement among experts in the field that Ryukyuan varieties can be divided into 6 languages, conservatively.| Language | Geographic distribution | Standard dialect | Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Amami Amami language The Amami language Shimayumuta) is spoken in the Amami Islands south of Kyūshū. The number of competent native speakers is not known, but native speakers can be found mostly among old people—as a result of Japanese language policy, the younger generations speaks mostly Japanese as their first... |
Amami Islands Amami Islands The are a group of islands that is part of the Satsunan Islands, which are then part of the Nansei Islands. The islands are part of Kagoshima Prefecture, in the Kyūshū region of Japan... |
Naze Naze, Kagoshima Naze was a city located on Amami Ōshima in Kagoshima, Japan.On March 20, 2006 Naze was merged with the town of Kasari, and the village of Sumiyō, both from Ōshima District, to form the new city of Amami.... |
130 000 |
| Miyako Miyako language Miyako is a language spoken in the Miyako Islands, located southwest of Okinawa. The combined population of the islands is about 52,000 . Miyako is a Ryukyuan language, most closely related to Yaeyama... (Miyako: myaaku hutsi) |
Miyako Islands Miyako Islands The are a group of islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan, east of the Yaeyama Islands.-Islands grouping:*Japanese Archipelago**Nansei Islands***Ryūkyū Shotō****Sakishima Islands*****Miyako Islands-Inhabited islands:*Miyako Islands... |
Hirara Hirara, Okinawa , was a city located in Okinawa, Japan on the island of Miyako.On October 1, 2005 Hirara was merged with the towns of Gusukube, Irabu and Shimoji, and the village of Ueno, all from Miyako District, to form the new city of Miyakojima, Okinawa.... |
55,783 |
| Okinawan 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... (Okinawan: uchinaa guchi) |
southern and central of 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... and the surrounding minor islands |
traditionally Shuri, modern Naha | 900,000 |
| Kunigami Kunigami language The Kunigami language is an Okinawan language spoken largely in the north of Okinawa Island. Like other Okinawan languages, Kunigami is part of the Ryukyuan family... |
Kunigami (Yanbaru) district Kunigami District, Okinawa is a district located in Okinawa, Japan. Roughly translated, kunigami means "head of the country", referring to its northern location on the island of Okinawa. Compare this to Shimajiri District, Okinawa.... of Okinawa Island and the surrounding minor islands |
??? | |
| Yaeyama Yaeyama language Yaeyama is a Ryukyuan language that is spoken in the Yaeyama Islands, the southernmost inhabited island group in Japan, with a combined population of about 50,000 . The Yaeyama Islands are situated to the southwest of the Miyako area of the Ryukyus and to the east of Taiwan. Yaeyama is most... (Yaeyama: yaima munii) |
Yaeyama Islands Yaeyama Islands The Yaeyama Islands are a group of islands in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan.The isles are the remotest part of Japan from the main islands and contains Japan's most southern and most western inhabited islands.The islands form the southern part of the volcanic Nansei Islands... |
Ishigaki Ishigaki, Okinawa Ishigaki is an island west of Okinawa Hontō and the second-largest island of the Yaeyama Island group. It is within the City of Ishigaki in Okinawa Prefecture. The city functions as the business and transport center of the archipelago... |
44,650 |
| Yonaguni Yonaguni language Yonaguni is a Ryukyuan language spoken by around 800 people on the island of Yonaguni, in the Ryukyu Islands, just east of Taiwan. It is most closely related to Yaeyama..-Phonology:... (Yonaguni: dunan munui) |
Yonaguni Island in the Yaeyama district | Yonaguni Yonaguni, Okinawa -History:Presently, the oldest confirmed ruins are the Tuguru Beach ruins. Due to the southern style stone tools found, it is thought that a culture influenced by Southeast Asia existed here at one time.... |
1,800 |
Each Ryukyuan language is generally unintelligible to others in the same family. There is a wide diversity between them. For example, Yaeyama has only three vowels, while Amami has 14, including longer vowels. Below is a table showing simple phrases in each language.
| Language | Thank you | Welcome |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Japanese | Arigatō | Yōkoso |
| Amami | Arigatesama ryoota | Imoorii |
| Kunigami | Mihediro | Ugamiyabura |
| Okinawan | Nifeedeebiru | Mensooree |
| Miyako | Tandigaatandi | Nmyaachi |
| Yaeyama | Miifaiyuu | Ooritoori |
| Yonaguni | Fugarasa | Wari |
Many speakers of the Amami, Miyako, Yaeyama, or Yonaguni languages will also know Okinawan. Many Yonaguni speakers also know Yaeyama. Since Amami, Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni are less urbanised than the Okinawan mainland, their languages are not declining as quickly as that of Okinawa proper, and children continue to be brought up in these languages. The proportion of adults to children in speakers of Okinawan is much more uneven than with the other languages: it is quickly losing ground as a native language, while the other Ryukyuan languages are losing ground more gradually.
Ryukuyan official documents were historically written in classical Chinese, while poetry and songs were often written in the Shuri dialect of Okinawan
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...
. The modern Japanese influence on Ryukyuan languages can be said to stretch back only about 130 years, to the annexation of Ryukyu into Japan as Okinawa Prefecture and part of Kagoshima Prefecture and the introduction there of Japanese national public education.
Modern history
The Okinawan language is only 71% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese. Even the southernmost Japanese dialect (Kagoshima dialect) is only 72% lexically similar to the northernmost Ryukyuan language (Amami). The Kagoshima dialect of Japanese, however, is 80% lexically similar to Standard Japanese.Since the beginning of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, most mainland Japanese have regarded the Ryukyuan languages as a dialect or group of dialects of Japanese. During World War II, in an effort to build consciousness in people as subjects of the Japanese Empire, not only Ryukyuan, but also Korean
Korean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, Palauan
Palauan language
Palauan is one of the two nationally recognized official languages spoken in the Republic of Palau...
, and various other languages were referred to as "dialects" of Japanese. This was a political usage of the term dialect, but only Ryukyuan languages, which are genetically related to Japanese, are still called dialects.
After the Ryukyuan kingdom lost its independence, the languages, degraded as the "dialects", were severely suppressed in school education. This was different from the other parts of the empire, such as Korea or Taiwan, where the local languages were still briefly taught until the cultural assimilation policy was enforced later. In Okinawa, when a student spoke in a Ryukyuan language, he had to wear a dialect card (方言札), a necklace with a card stating he spoke in dialect (thus is a bad student). This punishment was taken from the 19th French language policy
Language policy in France
France has one official language, the French language. The French government does not regulate the choice of language in publications by individuals but the use of French is required by law in commercial and workplace communications...
of Vergonha
Vergonha
La vergonha is what Occitans call the effects of various policies of the government of France on its citizens whose mother tongue was a so-called patois, specifically langue d'oc...
, especially by Jules Ferry
Jules Ferry
Jules François Camille Ferry was a French statesman and republican. He was a promoter of laicism and colonial expansion.- Early life :Born in Saint-Dié, in the Vosges département, France, he studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris in 1854, but soon went into politics, contributing to...
, where the regional languages such as Occitan (Provençal), Catalan
Catalan language
Catalan is a Romance language, the national and only official language of Andorra and a co-official language in the Spanish autonomous communities of Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and Valencian Community, where it is known as Valencian , as well as in the city of Alghero, on the Italian island...
, or Breton
Breton language
Breton is a Celtic language spoken in Brittany , France. Breton is a Brythonic language, descended from the Celtic British language brought from Great Britain to Armorica by migrating Britons during the Early Middle Ages. Like the other Brythonic languages, Welsh and Cornish, it is classified as...
were suppressed in favor of French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
; see also Welsh Not
Welsh Not
The Welsh Not or Welsh Note was a punishment system used in some Welsh schools in the late 19th and early 20th century to dissuade children from speaking Welsh...
, for a similar system in Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The same system was also used in other parts of Japan, such as the Tōhoku region
Tohoku region
The is a geographical area of Japan. The region occupies the northeastern portion of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region consists of six prefectures : Akita, Aomori, Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi and Yamagata....
.
Although a form of linguicide, the dialect card system was often supported by Okinawan parents, who hoped their children would be able to work in mainland Japan. The system lasted as late as the 1960s during the US administration.
Nowadays, in favor of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
, preserving Ryukyuan languages has become the policy of Okinawan Prefectural government
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...
. However, the situation is not very optimistic, since the vast majority of Okinawan children are now monolingual in Japanese.
Writing system
Older Ryukyuan texts are often found on stone inscriptions. Tamaudun-no-Hinomon (玉陵の碑文 "Inscription of Tamaudun
Tamaudun
is a mausoleum in Shuri, Okinawa, built for Ryūkyūan royalty in 1501 by King Shō Shin, the third king of the second Shō dynasty a short distance from Shuri Castle....
tomb") (1501), for example. Within the Ryukyuan Kingdom, official texts 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. However, this was a sharp contrast from Japan at the time, where classical Chinese
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese or Literary Chinese is a traditional style of written Chinese based on the grammar and vocabulary of ancient Chinese, making it different from any modern spoken form of Chinese...
writing was mostly used for official texts, only using hiragana for informal ones. Classical Chinese writing was sometimes used in Ryukyu as well, read in kundoku
Kanbun
The Japanese word originally meant "Classical Chinese writings, Chinese classic texts, Classical Chinese literature". This evolved into a Japanese method of reading annotated Classical Chinese in translation . Much Japanese literature was written in literary Chinese using this annotated style...
(Ryukyuan) or in Chinese. In Ryukyu, 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...
was hardly used.
Commoners did not learn kanji. Omorosōshi (1531–1623), a noted Ryukyuan song collection, was mainly written in hiragana. Other than hiragana, they also used Suzhou numerals
Suzhou numerals
The Suzhou numerals or huama is a numeral system used in China before the introduction of Arabic numerals.-History:The Suzhou numeral system is the only surviving variation of the rod numeral system. The rod numeral system is a positional numeral system used by the Chinese in mathematics...
(suuchuuma すうちゅうま in Okinawan), derived from China. In Yonaguni
Yonaguni
is one of the Yaeyama Islands. It is the westernmost inhabited island of Japan and lies from the east coast of Taiwan, between the East China Sea and the Pacific Ocean proper....
island in particular, there was a different writing system called Kaidā logogram
Kaidā logogram
Kaidā script is a writing system of unknown provenance once used in the Yaeyama islands and on Yonaguni, the southwestern-most of the Ryukyu Islands in Japan. They were primarily used along with Suzhou numerals for economic records: taxes, business transactions, crop and fishery yields, and the...
(カイダー字 or カイダーディー). Under Japanese influence, all of those numerals became obsolete.
Nowadays, perceived as "dialects", Ryukyuan languages are not often written. When they are, Japanese characters
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses three main scripts:*Kanji, adopted Chinese characters*Kana, a pair of syllabaries , consisting of:...
are used in an ad hoc manner. There are no standard orthographies for the modern languages. Sounds not distinguished in the Japanese writing system, such as glottal stop
Glottal stop
The glottal stop, or more fully, the voiceless glottal plosive, is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. In English, the feature is represented, for example, by the hyphen in uh-oh! and by the apostrophe or [[ʻokina]] in Hawaii among those using a preservative pronunciation of...
s, are not properly written.
Sometimes local kun'yomi are given to kanji, such as agari (あがり "east") for 東, iri (いり "west") for 西, thus 西表 is Iriomote
Iriomote
Iriomote is the largest of the Yaeyama Islands and the second largest in Okinawa Prefecture after Okinawa Island itself....
.
Further reading
- Sanseido (1997). 言語学大辞典セレクション：日本列島の言語 (Selection from the Encyclopædia of Linguistics: The Languages of the Japanese Archipelago). "琉球列島の言語" (The Languages of the Ryukyu Islands).
- Ashworth, D. E. (1975). A generative study of the inflectional morphophonemics of the Shuri dialect of Ryukyuan. Thesis (Ph. D.)--Cornell University, 1973.
- Heinrich, Patrick (2004): Language Planning and Language Ideology in the Ryūkyū Islands, in: Language Policy 3.2, (2004): 153-179.
- Serafim, L. A. (1985). Shodon: the prehistory of a Northern Ryukyuan dialect of Japanese. [S.l: s.n.
- Shimabukuro, Moriyo. 2007. The accentual history of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages: a reconstruction. Languages of Asia series, v. 2. Folkestone, Kent: Global OrientalGlobal OrientalGlobal Oriental is an imprint of the Dutch publishing house Brill . It used to be trade publishing company based in Kent, United Kingdom. It is the publisher of scholarly books on Japan and East Asia in fields such as History, Martial Arts, Arts and Literature...
. ISBN 9781901903638 - Uemura, Yukio, and Wayne P. Lawrence. 2003. The Ryukyuan language. Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim (Series), A4-018. Osaka, Japan: ELPR.