The Okinawan language (, , , ) or Central Okinawan, is a Northern
Ryukyuan language
The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family.
A ...
spoken primarily in the southern half of the
island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of
Kerama,
Kumejima
is a town located in Shimajiri District, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. The town consists of the islands of Kume, Ōjima, Ōhajima, Torishima, and Iōtorishima. Among the islands, only Kumejima and Ōjima are populated. Kumejima is located approx ...
,
Tonaki,
Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the
Kunigami language
The Kunigami or Northern Okinawan language (), is a Ryukyuan language of Northern Okinawa Island in Kunigami District and city of Nago, otherwise known as the Yanbaru region, historically the territory of the kingdom of Hokuzan.
The Nakijin d ...
. Both languages are listed by
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
as
endangered
An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching and inva ...
.
Though Okinawan encompasses a number of local dialects, the
Shuri–
Naha
is the capital city of Okinawa Prefecture, the southernmost prefecture of Japan. As of 1 June 2019, the city has an estimated population of 317,405 and a population density of 7,939 persons per km2 (20,562 persons per sq. mi.). The total area i ...
variant is generally recognized as the ''de facto'' standard, as it had been used as the official language of the
Ryukyu Kingdom since the reign of King
Shō Shin
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the third ruler the second Shō dynasty. Shō Shin's long reign has been described as "the Great Days of Chūzan", a period of great peace and relative prosperity. He was the son of Shō En, the founder of the dyn ...
(1477–1526). Moreover, as the former capital of Shuri was built around the royal palace, the language used by the royal court became the regional and literary standard, which thus flourished in
songs and
poems
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in a ...
written during that era.
Today, most Okinawans speak
Okinawan Japanese
is the Japanese language as spoken by the people of Okinawa Islands. Okinawan Japanese's accents and words are influenced by the traditional Okinawan and Kunigami languages. Okinawan Japanese has some loanwords from American English due to t ...
, although a number of people still speak the Okinawan language, most often the elderly. Within Japan, Okinawan is often not seen as a language unto itself but is referred to as the or more specifically the . Okinawan speakers are undergoing
language shift
Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language assimilation, is the process whereby a speech community shifts to a different language, usually over an extended period of time. Often, languages that are perceiv ...
as they switch to Japanese, since language use in Okinawa today is far from stable. Okinawans are assimilating and accenting standard Japanese due to the similarity of the two languages, the standardized and centralized education system, the media, business and social contact with mainlanders and previous attempts from Japan to suppress the native languages. Okinawan is still kept alive in popular music, tourist shows and in theaters featuring a local drama called , which depict local customs and manners.
History
Pre-Ryukyu Kingdom
Okinawan is a
Japonic language
Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and ...
, derived from
Proto-Japonic
Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese–Ryukyuan is the reconstructed language ancestral to the Japonic language family.
It has been reconstructed by using a combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative metho ...
and is therefore related to
Japanese. The split between Old Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages has been estimated to have occurred as early as the 1st century AD to as late as the 12th century AD. Chinese and Japanese characters were first introduced by a Japanese missionary in 1265.
Ryukyu Kingdom era
Pre-Satsuma
was a much more popular writing system than
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
; thus, Okinawan poems were commonly written solely in or with little kanji. Okinawan became the official language under King
Shō Shin
was a king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the third ruler the second Shō dynasty. Shō Shin's long reign has been described as "the Great Days of Chūzan", a period of great peace and relative prosperity. He was the son of Shō En, the founder of the dyn ...
. The
Omoro Sōshi, a compilation of ancient Ryukyuan poems, was written in an early form of Okinawan, known as Old Okinawan.
Post-Satsuma to annexation
After Ryukyu became a vassal of
Satsuma Domain
The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871.
The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...
, kanji gained more prominence in poetry; however, official Ryukyuan documents were written in
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
. During this time, the language gradually evolved into Modern Okinawan.
In 1609, the Ryukyu Kingdom was colonized by the Satsuma Domain in the south of Japan. However, Satsuma did not fully invade the Ryukyu in fear of colliding with China, which had a stronger trading relationship with the Ryukyu at the time.
Japanese annexation to end of World War II
When Ryukyu was annexed by Japan in 1879, the majority of people on Okinawa Island spoke Okinawan. Within 10 years, the Japanese government began an assimilation policy of
Japanization
Japanization, Japanisation or Japanification is the process by which Japanese culture dominates, assimilates, or influences other cultures. According to ''The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language'', "To japanize" means "To make ...
, where Ryukyuan languages were gradually suppressed. The education system was the heart of Japanization, where Okinawan children were taught Japanese and punished for speaking their native language, being told that their language was just a "dialect". By 1945, many Okinawans spoke Japanese, and many were bilingual. During the
Battle of Okinawa
The , codenamed Operation Iceberg, was a major battle of the Pacific War fought on the island of Okinawa by United States Army (USA) and United States Marine Corps (USMC) forces against the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA). The initial invasion of ...
, some Okinawans were killed by Japanese soldiers for speaking Okinawan.
Language shift to Japanese in Ryukyu/Okinawa began in 1879 when the Japanese government annexed Ryukyu and established Okinawa Prefecture. The prefectural office mainly consisted of people from
Kagoshima Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located on the island of Kyushu and the Ryukyu Islands. Kagoshima Prefecture has a population of 1,599,779 (1 January 2020) and has a geographic area of 9,187 km2 (3,547 sq mi). Kagoshima Prefecture borders Kumamoto P ...
where the
Satsuma Domain
The , briefly known as the , was a domain (''han'') of the Tokugawa shogunate of Japan during the Edo period from 1602 to 1871.
The Satsuma Domain was based at Kagoshima Castle in Satsuma Province, the core of the modern city of Kagoshima, ...
used to be. This caused the modernization of Okinawa as well as language shift to Japanese. As a result, Japanese became the standard language for administration, education, media, and literature.
In 1902, the began the linguistic unification of Japan to Standard Japanese. This caused the linguistic stigmatization of many local varieties in Japan including Okinawan. As the discrimination accelerated, Okinawans themselves started to abandon their languages and shifted to Standard Japanese.
American occupation
Under American administration, there was an attempt to revive and standardize Okinawan, but this proved difficult and was shelved in favor of Japanese. General
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American military leader who served as General of the Army for the United States, as well as a field marshal to the Philippine Army. He had served with distinction in World War I, was C ...
attempted to promote Okinawan languages and culture through education. Multiple English words were introduced.
Return to Japan to present day
After Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty, Japanese continued to be the dominant language used, and the majority of the youngest generations only speak
Okinawan Japanese
is the Japanese language as spoken by the people of Okinawa Islands. Okinawan Japanese's accents and words are influenced by the traditional Okinawan and Kunigami languages. Okinawan Japanese has some loanwords from American English due to t ...
. There have been attempts to revive Okinawan by notable people such as
Byron Fija
Byron Fija ( ''Okinawan'': 比嘉 光龍, ''Fija Bairon;'' born 1 September 1969 in Naha) is an Okinawan linguist who practices Okinawan language and activist.
He is a radio and TV personality well known in his homeland Okinawa as a knowledgeabl ...
and
Seijin Noborikawa
, born in Uruma, Okinawa, was a master Okinawan musician and ''min'yō'' folk singer, and a headliner of the Utanohi music festival.
Biography
Noborikawa was born to a farming family in Misato Village (now Uruma) in the Nakagami District, ...
, but few native Okinawans know the language.
Outside of Japan
The Okinawan language is still spoken by communities of Okinawan immigrants in
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
. The first immigrants from the island of Okinawa to Brazil landed in the
Port of Santos in 1908 drawn by the hint of work and farmable land. Once in a new country and far from their homeland, they found themselves in a place where there was no prohibition of their language, allowing them to willingly speak, celebrate and preserve their speech and culture, up to the present day. Currently the Okinawan-Japanese centers and communities in the
State of São Paulo are a world reference to this language helping it to stay alive.
Classification
Okinawan is sometimes grouped with Kunigami as the Okinawan languages; however, not all linguists accept this grouping, some claiming that Kunigami is a dialect of Okinawan.
[Heinrich, P., Miyara, S., & Shimoji, M. (Eds.). (2015). ''Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages''. Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. Pp 598.] Okinawan is also grouped with Amami (or the Amami languages) as the Northern Ryukyuan languages.
Dialect of the Japanese language
Since the creation of Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawan has been labeled a dialect of Japanese as part of a policy of assimilation. Later, Japanese linguists, such as
Tōjō Misao Tojo may refer to:
Places
*Tōjō, Hiroshima, Japan, a town
*Tōjō, Hyōgo, Japan, a town merged with others to form the city of Katō
*Tōjō Station (Aichi), a railway station in Toyokawa, Aichi Prefecture, Japan
*Tōjō Station (Hiroshima), a r ...
, who studied the Ryukyuan languages argued that they are indeed dialects. This is due to the misconception that Japan is a homogeneous state (one people, one language, one nation), and classifying the Ryukyuan languages as such would discredit this belief. The present-day official stance of the Japanese government remains that Okinawan is a dialect, and it is common within the Japanese population for it to be called or , which means "Okinawa dialect (of
Japanese)". The policy of assimilation, coupled with increased interaction between Japan and Okinawa through media and economics, has led to the development of
Okinawan Japanese
is the Japanese language as spoken by the people of Okinawa Islands. Okinawan Japanese's accents and words are influenced by the traditional Okinawan and Kunigami languages. Okinawan Japanese has some loanwords from American English due to t ...
, which is a dialect of Japanese influenced by the Okinawan and Kunigami languages. Japanese and Okinawan only share 60% of the same vocabulary, despite both being Japonic languages.
Dialects of the Ryukyuan language
Okinawan linguist Seizen Nakasone states that the Ryukyuan languages are in fact groupings of similar dialects. As each community has its own distinct dialect, there is no "one language". Nakasone attributes this diversity to the isolation caused by immobility, citing the story of his mother who wanted to visit the town of
Nago but never made the 25 km trip before she died of old age.
Its own distinct language
Outside Japan, Okinawan is considered a separate language from Japanese. This was first proposed by
Basil Hall Chamberlain
Basil Hall Chamberlain (18 October 1850 – 15 February 1935) was a British academic and Japanologist. He was a professor of the Japanese language at Tokyo Imperial University and one of the foremost British Japanologists active in Japan during th ...
, who compared the relationship between Okinawan and Japanese to that of the
Romance languages
The Romance languages, sometimes referred to as Latin languages or Neo-Latin languages, are the various modern languages that evolved from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages in the Indo-European language fam ...
.
UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
has marked it as an endangered language.
Sociolinguistics
UNESCO listed six Okinawan language varieties as endangered languages in 2009. The endangerment of Okinawan is largely due to the shift to Standard Japanese. Throughout history, Okinawan languages have been treated as dialects of Standard Japanese. For instance, in the 20th century, many schools used "dialect tags" to punish the students who spoke in Okinawan. Consequently, many of the remaining speakers today are choosing not to transmit their languages to younger generations due to the stigmatization of the languages in the past.
There have been several revitalization efforts made to reverse this language shift. However, Okinawan is still poorly taught in formal institutions due to the lack of support from the Okinawan Education Council: education in Okinawa is conducted exclusively in Japanese, and children do not study Okinawan as their second language at school. As a result, at least two generations of Okinawans have grown up without any proficiency in their local languages both at home and school.
Phonology
Vowels
The Okinawan language has five vowels, all of which may be long or short, though the short vowels and are quite rare, as they occur only in a few native Okinawan words with heavy syllables with the pattern or , such as ''m
ensōrē'' "welcome" or
''tonfā''. The close back vowels and are truly rounded, rather than the
compressed vowels of standard Japanese.
Consonants
The Okinawan language counts some 20 distinctive segments shown in the chart below, with major allophones presented in parentheses.
The only consonant that can occur as a syllable coda is the archiphoneme . Many analyses treat it as an additional phoneme , the
moraic nasal
A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic''), ...
, though it never contrasts with or .
The consonant system of the Okinawan language is fairly similar to that of standard Japanese, but it does present a few differences on the
phonemic and
allophonic
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in ''s ...
level. Namely, Okinawan retains the labialized consonants and which were lost in
Late Middle Japanese
was a stage of the Japanese language following Early Middle Japanese and preceding Early Modern Japanese. It was a period of transition in which the language shed many of its archaic features and became closer to its modern form.
The period s ...
, possesses a glottal stop , features a voiceless bilabial fricative distinct from the aspirate , and has two distinctive
affricates
An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. ...
which arose from a number of different
sound processes. Additionally, Okinawan lacks the major allophones and found in Japanese, having historically fronted the vowel to after the alveolars , consequently merging ''tsu'' into ''chi'', ''su'' into ''shi'', and both ''dzu'' and ''zu'' into ''ji''. It also lacks as a distinctive phoneme, having merged it into .
Bilabial and glottal fricatives
The bilabial fricative has sometimes been transcribed as the cluster , since, like Japanese, allophonically labializes into before the high vowel , and does not occur before the rounded vowel . This suggests that an overlap between and exists, and so the contrast in front of other vowels can be denoted through labialization. However, this analysis fails to take account of the fact that Okinawan has not fully undergone the diachronic change → → as in Japanese, and that the suggested clusterization and labialization into is unmotivated. Consequently, the existence of must be regarded as independent of , even though the two overlap. Barring a few words that resulted from the former change, the aspirate also arose from the odd lenition of and , as well as words loaned from other dialects. Before the glide and the high vowel , it is pronounced closer to , as in Japanese.
Palatalization
The plosive consonants and historically palatalized and affricated into before and occasionally following the glide and the high vowel : → ''chiri'' "fog", and → ''chura-'' "beautiful". This change preceded vowel raising, so that instances where arose from did not trigger palatalization: → ''kī'' "hair". Their voiced counterparts and underwent the same effect, becoming under such conditions: → ''nnaji'' "eel", and → ''nukujiri'' "saw"; but → ''kagin'' "seasoning".
Both and may or may not also allophonically affricate before the mid vowel , though this pronunciation is increasingly rare. Similarly, the fricative consonant palatalizes into before the glide and the vowel , including when historically derives from : → ''shikē'' "world". It may also palatalize before the vowel , especially so in the context of
topicalization
Topicalization is a mechanism of syntax that establishes an expression as the sentence or clause topic by having it appear at the front of the sentence or clause (as opposed to in a canonical position further to the right). This involves a phrasal ...
: ''dushi'' → ''dusē'' or ''dushē'' "(''topic'') friend".
In general, sequences containing the palatal consonant are relatively rare and tend to exhibit depalatalization. For example, tends to merge with ( ''myāku'' → ''nāku'' "
Miyako"); has merged into and ( → ''rū'' ~ ''dū'' "dragon"); and has mostly become ( ''shui'' → ''sui'' "
Shuri").
Flapping and fortition
The voiced plosive and the flap tend to merge, with the first becoming a flap in word-medial position, and the second sometimes becoming a plosive in word-initial position. For example, ''rū'' "dragon" may be strengthened into ''dū'', and ''hashidu'' "door" conversely flaps into ''hashiru''. The two sounds do, however, still remain distinct in a number of words and verbal constructions.
Glottal stop
Okinawan also features a distinctive glottal stop that historically arose from a process of glottalization of word-initial vowels. Hence, all vowels in Okinawan are predictably glottalized at the beginning of words ( → ''ami'' "rain"), save for a few exceptions. High vowel loss or assimilation following this process created a contrast with glottalized approximants and nasal consonants. Compare → ''wa'' "pig" to ''wa'' "I", or → ''nni'' "rice plant" to → ''nni'' "chest".
Moraic nasal
The
moraic nasal
A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic''), ...
has been posited in most descriptions of Okinawan phonology. Like Japanese, (transcribed using the small capital ) occupies a full
mora
Mora may refer to:
People
* Mora (surname)
Places Sweden
* Mora, Säter, Sweden
* Mora, Sweden, the seat of Mora Municipality
* Mora Municipality, Sweden
United States
* Mora, Louisiana, an unincorporated community
* Mora, Minnesota, a city
* M ...
and its precise place of articulation will vary depending on the following consonant. Before other labial consonants, it will be pronounced closer to a
syllabic bilabial nasal
The voiced bilabial nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in almost all spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is m. The bilabial nasal occurs in ...
, as in ''nma'' "horse". Before velar and labiovelar consonants, it will be pronounced as a syllabic
velar nasal , as in ''
bingata
( ryu, 紅型, literally "red style") is a traditional stencilled resist dyeing technique originating in Okinawa Prefecture. typically features a busy pattern of repeating nature motifs such as fish, flowers and fauna in a number of bright co ...
'', a method of dying clothes. And before alveolar and alveolo-palatal consonants, it becomes a syllabic
alveolar nasal
The voiced alveolar nasal is a type of consonantal sound used in numerous spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents dental, alveolar, and postalveolar nasals is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is ...
, as in ''kanda'' "vine". Elsewhere, its exact realization remains unspecified, and it may vary depending on the first sound of the next word or morpheme. In isolation and at the end of utterances, it is realized as a velar nasal .
Correspondences with Japanese
There is a sort of "formula" for Ryukyuanizing Japanese words: turning ''e'' into ''i'', ''ki'' into ''chi'', ''gi'' into ''ji'', ''o'' into ''u'', and ''-awa'' into ''-ā''. This formula fits with the transliteration of ''Okinawa'' into ''Uchinā'' and has been noted as evidence that Okinawan is a dialect of Japanese, however it does not explain unrelated words such as ''arigatō'' and ''nifēdēbiru'' (for "thank you").
Orthography
![Tamaudun21bs4272](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/36/Tamaudun21bs4272.jpg)
The Okinawan language was historically written using an admixture of
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
and
hiragana
is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...
. The hiragana syllabary is believed to have first been introduced from mainland Japan to the Ryukyu Kingdom some time during the reign of king
Shunten
, also known as , was a legendary ruler of Okinawa Island. Shunten is the earliest chief in Okinawa for whom a name is known. He is said to have taken power after defeating an usurper to the throne by the name of Riyū who had overthrown the 25th ...
in the early thirteenth century. It is likely that Okinawans were already in contact with
''hanzi'' (Chinese characters) due to extensive trade between the Ryukyu Kingdom and China, Japan and Korea. However, hiragana gained more widespread acceptance throughout the Ryukyu Islands, and most documents and letters were exclusively transcribed using this script, in contrast to in Japan where writing solely in hiragana was considered "women's script". The ''
Omoro Sōshi'' (), a sixteenth-century compilation of songs and poetry, and a few preserved writs of appointments dating from the same century were written solely in Hiragana.
Kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...
were gradually adopted due to the growing influence of mainland Japan and to the linguistic affinity between the Okinawan and Japanese languages. However, it was mainly limited to affairs of high importance and to documents sent towards the mainland. The oldest inscription of Okinawan exemplifying its use along with Hiragana can be found on a stone
stele
A stele ( ),Anglicized plural steles ( ); Greek plural stelai ( ), from Greek , ''stēlē''. The Greek plural is written , ''stēlai'', but this is only rarely encountered in English. or occasionally stela (plural ''stelas'' or ''stelæ''), whe ...
at the
Tamaudun mausoleum, dating back to 1501.
After the invasion of Okinawa by the
Shimazu clan
The were the ''daimyō'' of the Satsuma han, which spread over Satsuma, Ōsumi and Hyūga provinces in Japan.
The Shimazu were identified as one of the '' tozama'' or outsider ''daimyō'' familiesAppert, Georges ''et al.'' (1888). in contrast ...
of Satsuma in 1609, Okinawan ceased to be used in official affairs. It was replaced by standard Japanese writing and a form of Classical Chinese writing known as
kanbun
A is a form of Classical Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period to the mid-20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for official and intellectual works throughout the period. A ...
. Despite this change, Okinawan still continued to prosper in local literature up until the nineteenth century. Following the
Meiji Restoration
The , referred to at the time as the , and also known as the Meiji Renovation, Revolution, Regeneration, Reform, or Renewal, was a political event that restored practical imperial rule to Japan in 1868 under Emperor Meiji. Although there were ...
, the Japanese government abolished the
domain system and formally annexed the Ryukyu Islands to Japan as the
Okinawa Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi).
Naha is the capital and largest city o ...
in 1879. To promote national unity, the government then introduced standard education and opened Japanese-language schools based on the
Tokyo dialect. Students were discouraged and chastised for speaking or even writing in the local "dialect", notably through the use of "
dialect card
A was a system of punishment used in Japanese regional schools in the post-Meiji period to promote standard speech.
During the Edo period under the Tokugawa shogunate most Japanese people could not travel outside of their home domain. As a resul ...
s" (). As a result, Okinawan gradually ceased to be written entirely until the American takeover in 1945.
Since then, Japanese and American scholars have variously transcribed the regional language using a number of ad hoc romanization schemes or the
katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived fr ...
syllabary to demarcate its foreign nature with standard Japanese. Proponents of Okinawan tend to be more traditionalist and continue to write the language using hiragana with kanji. In any case, no standard or consensus concerning spelling issues has ever been formalized, so discrepancies between modern literary works are common.
Syllabary
Technically, they are not syllables, but rather
morae
A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic'') ...
. Each mora in Okinawan will consist of one or two kana characters. If two, then a smaller version of kana follows the normal sized kana. In each cell of the table below, the top row is the kana (hiragana to the left, katakana to the right of the dot), the middle row in rōmaji (
Hepburn romanization), and the bottom row in IPA.
Grammar
Okinawan follows a
subject–object–verb
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
word order and makes large use of particles as in Japanese. Okinawan dialects retain a number of grammatical features of
classical Japanese
The classical Japanese language ( ''bungo'', "literary language"), also called "old writing" ( ''kobun''), sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese" is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa pe ...
, such as a distinction between the terminal form () and the attributive form (), the genitive function of ''ga'' (lost in the Shuri dialect), the nominative function of ''nu'' (Japanese: ''no''), as well as honorific/plain distribution of ''ga'' and ''nu'' in nominative use.
One etymology given for the ''-un'' and ''-uru'' endings is the continuative form suffixed with ''uri'' (Classical Japanese: ''wori'', ''to be; to exist''): ''-un'' developed from the terminal form ''uri''; ''-uru'' developed from the attributive form ''uru'', i.e.:
* ''kachuru'' derives from ''kachi-uru'';
* ''kachun'' derives from ''kachi-uri''; and
* ''yumun'' (Japanese: ''yomu'', ''to read'') derives from ''yumi'' + ''uri''.
A similar etymology is given for the terminal ''-san'' and attributive ''-saru'' endings for adjectives: the stem suffixed with ''sa'' (nominalises adjectives, i.e. high → height, hot → heat), suffixed with ''ari'' (Classical Japanese: ''ari'', ''to exist; to have''), i.e.:
* ''takasan'' (Japanese: ''takai'', ''high; tall'') derives from ''taka-sa-ari'';
* ''achisan'' (Japanese: ''atsui'', ''hot; warm'') derives from ''atsu-sa-ari''; and
* ''yutasaru'' (''good; pleasant'') derives from ''yuta-sa-aru''.
Parts of speech
Nouns (名詞)
Nouns are classified as independent, non-conjugating part of speech that can become a subject of a sentence
Pronouns (代名詞)
Pronouns are classified the same as nouns, except that pronouns are more broad.
Adverbs (副詞)
Adverbs are classified as an independent, non-conjugating part of speech that cannot become a subject of a sentence and modifies a declinable word (用言; verbs, adverbs, adjectives) that comes after the adverb. There are two main categories to adverbs and several subcategories within each category, as shown in the table below.
Prenominal adjectives (連体詞)
Conjunctions (接続詞)
Interjections and exclamations (感動詞)
Verbs (動詞)
Verbs are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows movements. The conclusive form ends in .
Adjectives (形容詞)
Adjectives are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows property or state. The conclusive form ends in .
(存在動詞)
存在動詞 are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows existence or decision of a certain thing. attaches to a substantive.
Adjectival verbs (形容動詞)
Adjectival verbs are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows the state of existence of events. attaches to words that shows state.
Auxiliary verbs (助動詞)
Particles (助詞)
Prefixes (接頭語)
Suffixes (接尾語)
Others
Copula
Question words (疑問詞)
Syntax
The basic word order is
subject–object–verb
Subject ( la, subiectus "lying beneath") may refer to:
Philosophy
*'' Hypokeimenon'', or ''subiectum'', in metaphysics, the "internal", non-objective being of a thing
**Subject (philosophy), a being that has subjective experiences, subjective con ...
.
Okinawan is a
marked nominative language
In linguistic typology, marked nominative alignment is an unusual type of morphosyntactic alignment similar to, and often considered a subtype of, a nominative–accusative alignment. In a prototypical nominative–accusative language with a ...
(with the accusative being unmarked) that also shows minor
active–stative variation in intransitive verbs relating to existence or emergence. In existence or emergence verbs, the subject may be optionally unmarked (except for pronouns and proper names, which must be marked with ''ga''), and marked human subjects cannot use ''ga'' anymore, but rather always with the often-inanimate marker ''nu''.
Example
Sample text in Standard Okinawan (Shuri-Naha dialect)
In Kanji
人間ー誰ん生まりやぎーなー自由やい、また、胴大切に思ゆる肝とぅ胴守らんでぃる肝ー、誰やてぃんゆぬ如授かとーるむんやん。人間ー元からいー矩ぬ備わとーくとぅ、互ーに兄弟やんでぃる考ーさーに事に当たらんだれーならん。(without ruby)
ーんまりやぎーなーやい、また、にゆるとぅらんでぃるー、やてぃんゆぬかとーるむんやん。ーからいーぬわとーくとぅ、ーにやんでぃるーさーににたらんだれーならん。(with ruby)
Transliteration
''Ninjinō tā n 'nmariyagīnā jiyu yai, mata, dū tēshichi ni umuyuru chimu tu dū mamurandiru chimō, tā yatin yunugutu sajakatōru mun yan. Ninjinō mūtu kara īka ni nu sunawatōkutu, tagē ni chōdēyandiru kangēsā ni kutu ni atarandarē naran.''
(
UDHR Article 1)
See also
*
Okinawan Japanese
is the Japanese language as spoken by the people of Okinawa Islands. Okinawan Japanese's accents and words are influenced by the traditional Okinawan and Kunigami languages. Okinawan Japanese has some loanwords from American English due to t ...
, the language most commonly spoken in Okinawa today
Notes
References
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External links
首里・那覇方言概説(首里・那覇方言音声データベース)うちなあぐちby Kiyoshi Fiza, an Okinawan language writer.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Okinawan Language
Ryukyuan languages