Okinawan, spoken in

Okinawa Island , officially , is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu Islands, Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five Japanese archipelago, main islands of Japan. The island is ...

. Documents in Ryukyu Kingdom were written in

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, 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 are ...

and

hiragana is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' means "common" or "plain" kana (originally also "easy", ...

, derived from

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

. Although generally agreed among

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds and equivalent gestures ...

to be a distinct language, most Japanese, as well as some Okinawans, tend to think of Okinawan as merely a regional dialect of Japanese, even though it is not intelligible to monolingual Japanese speakers. Modern Okinawan is not written frequently. The Japanese writing system is used in Okinawan scripts.

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, Japan. Established in 1950, it is the westernmost national university of Japan and the largest public university in Okinawa Prefecture. Located in the Senbaru ne ...

. 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 fr ...

. 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 typographic symbols, Japanese symbol in the form of a small hiragana or katakana , as well as the various consonants represented by it. In less formal language, it is called or , meaning "small ". It serves multiple purposes ...

( 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

External links

沖縄県における「しまくとぅば」の表記について
(Trans.: ''About the notation of "Shimakutuba" in Okinawa Prefecture''), March 2020. Department of Culture, Tourism and Sports, Okinawa Prefecture. {{DEFAULTSORT:Okinawan Writing System Ryukyuan languages Japanese writing system