Okinawan, spoken in

Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. The island is approximately long, an average wide, and has an ...

, was once the official language of the

Ryukyu Kingdom The Ryukyu Kingdom, Middle Chinese: , , Classical Chinese: (), Historical English names: ''Lew Chew'', ''Lewchew'', ''Luchu'', and ''Loochoo'', Historical French name: ''Liou-tchou'', Historical Dutch name: ''Lioe-kioe'' was a kingdom in the ...

. At the time, documents were written in

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are still used, along with the subsequen ...

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 contras ...

, derived from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Although generally agreed among

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

to be a distinct language, most Japanese, as well as some Okinawans, tend to think of Okinawan as merely a regional dialect of

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, even though it is not intelligible to monolingual Japanese speakers. Modern Okinawan is not written frequently. When it is, the Japanese writing system is generally used in an ''

ad hoc Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning literally 'to this'. In English, it typically signifies a solution for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a generalized solution adaptable to collateral instances. (Compare with ''a priori''.) Com ...

'' manner. There is no standard

orthography An orthography is a set of conventions for writing a language, including norms of spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. Most transnational languages in the modern period have a writing system, and mos ...

for the modern language. Nonetheless, there are a few systems used by scholars and laypeople alike. None of them are widely used by native speakers, but represent 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.

Systems

Conventional usages

The modern conventional ''ad hoc'' spellings found in Okinawa.

Council system

The system devised by the Council for the Dissemination of Okinawan Dialect
沖縄方言普及協議会

University of the Ryukyus system

This system was devised b

a section of

University of the Ryukyus The , abbreviated to , is a Japanese national university in Nishihara, Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Established in 1950, it is the westernmost national university of Japan and the largest public university in Okinawa Prefecture. Located in the S ...

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

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 fro ...

. 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 Hōgen'' (美しい沖縄の方言; "The beautiful Okinawan Dialect"; ). The rule applies to hiragana only. Katakana is used as in Japanese; just like in the conventional usage of Okinawan.

Basic syllables and kai-yōon (palatalized syllables)

: 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 , , , , and い, う, いぇ, お (イ, ウ, イェ, オ) for , , , , respectively.

Gō-yōon (labialised syllables)

Others

: ³: Hatsuon (moraic ''n'') : ⁴:

Sokuon The is a Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana '' tsu''. In less formal language it is called or , meaning "small ''tsu''". It serves multiple purposes in Japanese writing. Appearance In both hiragana and katakana, t ...

( geminated consonants) : ⁵: Chōon ( longer vowels): In conventional usages, longer vowels are sometimes spelled like in mainland Japanese as well; "ou" (おう) for ''ō'', doubled kana for others. (e.g. うう for ''ū''.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okinawan Writing System Ryukyuan languages Japanese writing system Writing systems