The Ryukyuan language family is believed to have separated from the mainland Japanese language family sometime between the mid 3rd and 6th centuries AD, and is the only established sister language family to Japanese. Ryukyuan languages are completely unintelligible to Japanese speakers. The Ryukyu language family consists of two main branches with five mutually unintelligible sub-branches; Northern Branch (Amami and Okinawa), Southern Branch (Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni).
The Ryukyuan language family has been important to Japanese linguists for many years as it contains the ancient layer of vocabulary for the Japanese language family, shows systematic phonological developments, and interesting grammatical systems. Recently it has also attracted attention from a wider range of linguists, having been recognized by UNESCO as a group of endangered languages. The Ryukyuan languages, however, have not been generally accessible to the community of non-Japanese scholars. This workshop is, thus, a first attempt to break away from the insular nature of scholarship and to present recent developments in the Ryukyuan studies in a manner accessible to a wider audience.
The workshop should be of interest not only to Ryukyuan specialists, but also to those who study typology, phonology, grammatical structures, and historical developments. We also believe that Prof. Karimata’s general introduction to Ryukyuan (delivered in Japanese) will be a valuable contribution to anyone who is interested in Ryukyu studies in general.
Registration is free, so please join. If you have any questions, send your inquiry to Shoichi Iwasaki at iwasaki@humnet.ucla.edu.
Financial support for the work shop comes from the following organizations.
UCLA Terasaki Center for Japanese Studies ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies Global Center for Excellence for Reconstruction of the Intimate and the Public Spheres in the 21 Century Asia
We would also like to acknowledge the expert staff support from the Department of Asian Languages and Cultures, UCLA. |