Shimoji, Michinori, and Thomas Pellard. An Introduction to Ryukyuan Languages. Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, 2010, (PDF) An introduction to Ryukyuan languages | Michinori Shimoji and Thomas Pellard - Academia.edu 

Ryukyuan languages: An Introduction

• Four major island groups: Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, and Yaeyama islands

• Amami belongs to Kagoshima prefecture, the rest belong to Okinawa prefecture.

• Each island group has varying phonology and grammar.

• Total population of Ryukyuan-spoken areas is 1,452,888 (counted in 2005)

  • 85,434 for Amami Region

  • 1,366,8534 for Okinawa Prefecture

• Proficient speakers are primarily from the older generation.

• It is believed that mainland Japonic speakers came to the northern parts of the Ryūkyū archipelago in the 2nd and 6th centuries or the 8th-9th centuries.

• Proto-Ryukyuan was spoken on south Kyūshū before proto-Ryukyuan speakers moved southward to the Ryūkyū Islands

• No significant and persistent socio-cultural contact between the Ryūkyū Islands and Mainland Japan until the 17th century

  • The Ryūkyū Islands were conquered by the Satsuma Domain from Kyūshū, the southernmost large island of Mainland Japan

• Ryukyuan phonological characteristics shared with Japanese.

  • Voicing opposition for obstruents (a sound produced by obstructing airflow)

  • Basic CV(C) structure

  • Moraic rhythm

  • Pitch accent

• Amami Ryukyuan: Existence of central vowels (high and mid) + significant number of glottalized consonants (these are phonemically analyzed as a laryngeal phoneme + C). 

• Southern Ryukyuan languages: primarily lack or have a limited number of glottalized consonants

  • Exception: Yonaguni

• Some Miyako Ryukyuan dialects have limited glottalized consonants.

• Ryukyuan clause structure

  • Verb-final language, like other Japanese languages

  • SV for intransitive clauses

  • AOV as an unmarked word order for transitive clauses

  • “Pro-drop” languages, so omission of core arguments/words is quite common.

Ura (Amami Ryukyuan)

• Seven vowels

  • Three central vowels

• 14 consonants

• Two past tense forms,

  •  “default” -ta and the marked -tɨ, 

  • -tɨ primarily appears in a subordinate clause, may be used in a main clause

• One of the North Ōshima dialects

• Most Ura speakers are 60+ years old.

  • Plenty have reached their 70’s!

• Most younger people choose to speak Japanese because it’s more widely spoken.

• Three major word classes: Nominal, Adnominal, Verb, and other

  • Criteria:

    • A) They have the ability to head an np 

    • B) They carry an np-modifying function 

    • C) They can be inflected

    • Note: NP means “noun phrase” or “nominal phrase” 

• Linguistics notes!

  • Noun: a word that only fills the head slot of an np

  • Adnominal: only fills the modifier slot of an np

  • Verb: inflects

Yuwan (Amami Ryukyuan) 

• Verb-final language

• Modifier-head constituent order

• Nominative-accusative case system

• Has a laryngeal phoneme

• Has special verbal suffixes that correlate with focused constituents in sentences.

  • Distinction between two types of questions

    • -ui (npst) / -tarui (pst) for yes-no questions

    • -u (npst) / -taru (pst) for wh-questions

• Spoken in Yuwan village.

  • Located in western district of Amami Ōshima.

  • Amami Ōshima in the northern part of the Ryūkyū archipelago but belongs to the Kagoshima prefecture.

• Northern Ryukyuan language

• Decreasing Yuwan native speakers

  • People over seventy years old can speak traditional Yuwan.

  • People in their 50’s and 60’s can speak decent traditional Yuwan.

  • Youth can’t speak or understand the traditional dialect, but can use some traditional expressions, e.g. wan ‘I’, ama ‘that place’, hagi ‘foot’.

• Three lexical pitch patterns

  • final mora high

  • final mora low

  • fall at the word boundary.

• Tone-bearing unit is the mora.

• Three major word classes: nominals, adnominals, and verbs

• More nominals and verbs and adnominals

• Yuwan has a special type of affix, the pc affix.

  • can derive a pc stem from a plain verbal stem.

  • two pc affixes, -cja ‘want’ and -cjagɨ ‘seem.

Tsuken (Okinawan) 

• Verb-final language

• SOV sentences for transitive clauses

• Instruments are encoded not only by instrumental case, but also by locative case and ablative case.

• Spoken on Tsuken island, southeast of the Yokatsu peninsula in central Okinawa.

• The Tsuken island community’s population was last counted in this research at 557 people.

• The Tsuken community subsists primarily off of fishing and farming, a big crop being carrots.

• Native speakers are limited to ages 70 and above.

• There are a total of five vowels: two high, two mid, two low.

• Mid vowels generally only occur in borrowed/loan words.

• Tsuken is considered an accent-less language.

• Clause-final lowering indicates multiple functions, such as affirmative/ negative, questions, and rhetorical questions.

• On the other hand, clause-final raising is rarely used in the language.

• There are thirteen case forms.

• One zero-case form

• There are two homophonous case forms: allative =si and instrumental =si, which have different historical origins.

• Negation is conveyed by suffixation of -an or -ran [Example: ure (this) maa-ku (delicious) n-an (NEG)]

• There are three active voices: Passive, causative, potential.

Heinrich, Patrick. Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages: History, Structure, and Use. De Gruyter, 2015. Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages : Patrick Heinrich, Shinsho Miyara, Michinori Shimoji : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

ん or ン represents a moraic nasal [N]. The Ryukyu islands operated under the Ryukyu Kingdom until its annexation by Japan in 1872. In 1879, the Meiji government established the Okinawa prefecture. Upon establishment, the kyūkan onzon policy, allowing 'tolerance of old customs' was instated; this meant Okinawa could operate under the Ryukyu Kingdom laws until the end of the 19th century. Being under Japan's occupation led to its neglect, leaving it without necessary resources for modernization as quickly as the mainland, despite being encouraged to learn the Japanese languages. The Ryukyuan languages were seen as a mix of Japanese and Chinese by the Japanese mainland, leading them to become the butt of many jokes, leading to the Japanese and Ryukyuan peoples viewing the Ryukyuan languages as "inferior". Following the outbreak of war with China in 1937, Japanese authorities singled out the Ryukyuan islands, attempting to indoctrinate Okinawans to being loyal to the emperor. Okinawa had been singled out for special attention, due to its close proximity to the war zone and military authorities were not only because the islands were closer to the war zone, but also due to the identity the Japanese government, particularly the military authorities, and had assigned military officials to the inhabitants of the prefecture. When the Okinawans presented resistance from loyalty to the emperor, they were deemed by the Japanese as lazy and immoral people. The United States also got itself involved in influencing Ryukyuan education with two different plans. One proposal was for English to replace Japanese as the main language taught in Okinawan schools, and another to introduce Ryukyuan textbooks, both of which were denied by Okinawan education authorities.

Anderson, Mark. “Studies of Ryukyu-substrate Japanese.” Routledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics, 5 June 2019, pp. 441–457, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315213378-28.

Zayasu’s (2017) monograph is the most recent study of Ryukyu- substrate Japanese. This study was done by interviewing three people from Tomigusuku in the southern part of island.  Interviews are a very popular way of getting data for research in the Ryukyuan languages because there are many different age groups and enough indigenous people to learn from. Most of Zayasu’s “middle- aged” participants were born in the 1950s, which is generally the age threshold where the Uchinaguuchi language link has been broken. Zayasu's elderly cohort were born around the 1930's. Although the current generation is Japanese-dominant (Japanese is their first language), many are still bilingual. Another researcher, Ōno held a 1994 survey conducted in collaboration with Hokama Minako to interview elderly people, middle- aged workers and high school students in Naha for their usage of Japanese vs Ryukyuan. Respondents used a mix of primarily Japanese and some Ryukyuan phrases.

Important references:

• Kuwae (1930)

• Nagata (1996: 158)

• (Yabiku 1987: 122) 

• Motonaga (1979) 

• (a) The Motonaga School: quantitative research documenting changes in substratal effects as well as the use of and attitudes towards substrate- influenced Japanese by means of cross-generational survey questionnaires (Ōno 1995; Nohara 1996, 1998; Kinjō and Shō 2000; Shō, Sasaki and Karimata 2013; Shō and Sasaki 2015).

•  (b) The Yabiku School: theoretical classification and description of different types of contact phenomena (Karimata 1994, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2012; Takaesu 1992, 1994, 2002, 2004, 2005).

• c) The Nagata School: qualitative research documenting geographical differences in substratal influence from various Ryukyuan languages by means of cross- generational survey interviews (Nagata 1996; Long 2013; Zayasu 2017). 

• (d) The Conversation Analysis School: detailed analysis of substratal effects and code- switching in context using conversation analysis methods (Anderson 2009, 2015; Miyahira and Petrucci 2014; Sugita 2014). 

Ryukyuan Phonology

1. Howard, Michael. “Fumbling.” Fly Me to the /​Ksks​/: A Brief Look at Southern Ryūkyūan Phonology · FumbLing, fumbling.it/posts/fly-me-to-the-ksks/. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024. Fly me to the /​ksks​/: A brief look at Southern Ryūkyūan phonology · FumbLing

A quick sketch of the social context

The Ryukyuan languages descend from proto-Ryukyuan, which is considered to be a sister language of Japanese. The linguistic split from proto-Japanese is estimated to have occurred in the first CE centuries. Proto-Ryukyuan was spoken from the mainland for centuries before migrating to the Ryukyu islands around 1,000 years ago. Ryukyuan is not intelligible with Japanese, but the Japanese government has deemed the Ryukyuan languages to be dialects of Japanese.

The languages

Five major languages have been identified in the Ryukyu islands so far. From north to south, the languages are: Amami, Okinawan, Miyako, Yaeyama, and Dunan (Yonaguni). The greatest differences are seen when comparing Northern and Southern languages. Geography seems to have contributed to the divergence; the greatest distance between two island groups is the separation of the north and the south.

Echoes from the past

Some proto-Japanese features have been preserved in Ryukyuan but not in Japanese! The Ryukyuan languages still have phonological distinctions that disappeared from Old Japanese (8th century C.E); while Old Japanese merged *i with *e and *o with *u, Ryukyuan kept their distinctions.

Syllabic fricatives!

Syllabic fricatives are prominent in Ōgami and Irabu (Miyako Ryukyuan). Fricatives like /​ʋ/ and nasals can form the nucleus of a syllable. In Irabu, the retroflex lateral approximant /​​ɭ/​ can also be a nucleus. Syllabic fricatives/nasals/approximants are found everywhere in the Ryukyuan languages. 

Syl

2. Aronow, Robin. “Home.” Linguistics Network, 12 Sept. 2015, www.linguisticsnetwork.com/the-basics-on-syllabic-structure/. The Basics on Syllabic Structure (linguisticsnetwork.com) 

The Sonority Sequencing Principle and the Sonority Hierarchy

A syllable is a unit of sonority. Sonority is the level of airflow obstruction when the vocal cords produce sounds. The hierarchy of sounds from most sonorous to least sonorous is low Vs – mid Vs – hi Vs and glides–  liquids – nasals – fricatives – stops/affricates. Voiced obstruents rank higher in sonority than voiceless obstruents. Round vowels are ranked higher in sonority than unrounded vowels.

Syllable Structure 

The nucleus and coda right-branch, forming the ‘rime', which is the most common branching across languages. There are still many exceptions such as Japanese and Korean, which have a primarily left-branching structure instead, wich leads to the onset and the nucleus forming a body.

Onset (CVC)

The onset leads the syllable boundary and is in the strongest consonantal position. The importance of the onset varies depending on the language; some deem it as necessary, some deem it optional, and some even restrict the use of onsets. Onsets are generally preferred to codas in all languages. For example, a CVCV structure would be syllabified as CV.CV, and not as CVC.V. 

Nucleus (CVC)

Nuclei generally contain syllables. The only syllable a vowel can take the place of is the nucleus. If a vowel were to be in onset or coda position, the nucleus would need to have very specific criteria: containing a sound more sonorous than a standard vowel.

Coda (CVC)

Most languages don't require a coda in a word. In fact, they're sometimes even restricted or prohibited. For example, Old Bulgarian prohibits codas in their word structure. Other languages such as Persian don't allow complex onsets but do allow complex codas. Syllables without codas are otherwise known as open syllables, and syllables with codas are called closed syllables accordingly.

Popular

1. “Okinawan (ウチナーグチ / Uchināguchi).” Okinawan Language, Alphabet and Pronunciation, www.omniglot.com/writing/okinawan.php. Accessed 10 Apr. 2024. Okinawan language, alphabet and pronunciation (omniglot.com)

Okinawan is a Ryukyuan language spoken by roughly 977,000 people. It is spoken in the south of Okinawa Island and the Aguni, Kerama, Kumejima, and Tonaki islands; on the other hand, northern Okinawa speaks "Okinawan Japanese", which is considered a dialect of Japanese. Okinawan shares a lot of common vocabulary and grammar with Japanese but is mostly incomprehensible to Japanese speakers otherwise. Okinawan's honorific system is also more complex than the Japanese honorific system. There are four dialects of Okinawan: Shuri, Naha, Torishima and Kudaka. Although Okinawan's writing system is the same as Japanese, Hiragana and Katakana are used to produce more sounds than Japanese traditionally allows. Currently, there is no standard way of writing the language; some people write in Katakana, and others write in Hiragana and Kanji.

2. “Japanese, Ryukyuan, and the 51st State.” Department of Linguistics, 3 May 2022, www.colorado.edu/linguistics/2022/04/24/japanese-ryukyuan-and-51st-state.

Japanese and Ryukyuan are both SOV (subject-object-verb) languages; in a sentence, the subject goes first, then the object, and the verb goes last. Unlike English, both of these languages can contain "existential phrases", which ties directly to how they're "pro-drop" languages. For example, in English, you would have to say "there is a dog", but in Japanese and Ryukyuan, the direct translation of that sentence would be "is a dog", as filler words aren't required. In fact, it's quite common to drop subjects in certain contexts if the subject in question was recently identified.

3. “Ryukyuan Languages.” The Reader Wiki, Reader View of Wikipedia, thereaderwiki.com/en/Ryukyuan_languages. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024. Ryukyuan languages - WikiMili, The Best Wikipedia Reader 

The Okinawan language is lexically 71% similar to Japanese. Although generally considered a separate language from Japanese as a whole, a lot of mainland Japanese people have considered Okinawan a dialect of Japanese since the beginning of WWII. Internationally, linguistic experts agree that Ryukyuan can separate into six different languages. In addition, linguistic experts agree the Ryukyuan languages can be separated into Northern and Southern groups by region, as the biggest linguistic differences between languages are demonstrated by the oceanic barrier between the Northern and Southern languages. Amami, Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonagumi are experiencing slower decline than Okinawan due to less urbanization of their respective islands compared to Okinawa. Ryukyuan languages are unique due to their usage of animacy heirarchy (using language depending on how 'alive' something is). Miyako is unique in having stand-alone adjectives, either formed by reduplication of the root, (e.g. Irabu Miyako imi- "small" → imii-imi "small (adj.)"), or compounded with a grammaticalized noun (munu "thing", e.g. Irabu imi-munu 'small (thing)' ).

Scholarly (cont.)

1. Anderson, Mark Robert. Emergent Language Shift in Okinawa, University of Sydney, 2009. (PDF) Emergent Language Shift in Okinawa (researchgate.net) 

A language shift occurs when a language gradually displaces another language in a culture over time. More and more speakers of the initial language shift to speaking the new one, which leads to unstable bilingualism in the community, and can lead to language death if unmanaged. Language death is when the last speaker of a language dies. Language shift in Okinawa has come in three phases: "displacement" phase, "tip" phase, and the "moribund" phase. During the displacement phase, they "acquire" the new language, after they acquired Uchinaaguchi (Okinawan) as a first language. In the tip phase, more and more parents chose to teach Japanese to their children instead of Uchinaaguchi. By the moribund phase, more and more children are being born without ever learning Uchinaaguchi in the first place.

2. Anderson, Mark, and Patrick Heinrich. Language Crisis in the Ryukyus. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014. 978-1-4438-6651-4-sample.pdf (cambridgescholars.com) 

In Okinawa, Uchinaaguchi has not been been taught as a medium in schools. If taught, it is generally taught as a second language in weekly lunchtime classes. Depending on the school, they have different methods for involving the students in Uchinaaguchi education. Some schools don't require teaching the language a requirement at all, but will rather play recordings of monologues and folklore, and others put more emphasis on the culture surrounding the language. There are many reasons as to why there's so little emphasis on Uchinaaguchi education; many teachers don't have the resources (textbooks aren't readily available), many teachers are unable to speak the language, and there are plenty of disagreements by school on which variety should be taught.

3. Anderson, Mark. “Revitalization Attempts and Language Attitudes in the Ryukyus.” Research Gate, www.researchgate.net/publication/329656065_Revitalisation_Attempts_and_Language_Attitudes_in_the_Ryukyus. Accessed 16 Apr. 2024. (PDF) Revitalisation Attempts and Language Attitudes in the Ryukyus (researchgate.net)

Okinawan research is often poured into descriptive work. On the other hand, there is very little Okinawan research on sociolinguistics. Although there is a significant problem that's come with the language shift, the solution to the problem is highly disputed among experts. Karimata Shigehisa of the University of the Ryukyus suggests a widespread "benefit" should be created for Uchinaaguchi speakers in order to encourage learning and maintenance of the language.

4. Antonov, Anton. “Verbal Allocutivity in Ryukyuan.” Academia.Edu, 24 May 2014, www.academia.edu/2275877/Verbal_allocutivity_in_Ryukyuan. 

Allocutivity is a phenomenon when, if the speaker uses the term "hi" or given "familiar treatment", they are encoded in main clause conjugated verb forms despite not being the subject of the verb. The term was coined by Louis-Lucien Bonaparte (Bonaparte 1862) after observing allocutivity in most Basque dialects. Although there are various degrees of usage and different grammaticalization, many languages possess a similar property, such as Beja (Cushitic), Mandan (Siouan), Japanese, Korean, and Ryukyuan.

4. Jarosz, Aleksandra. “Adjectives and Adjectival Derivates in Miyako-Ryukyuan.” (PDF) Adjectives and Adjectival Derivates in Miyako-Ryukyuan | Aleksandra Jarosz - Academia.Edu, 15 Nov. 2017, www.academia.edu:443/35155877/Adjectives_and_adjectival_derivates_in_Miyako-Ryukyuan.

Miyakoan is a Ryukyuan language spoken in the Miyako islands by roughly 12,000-22,000 people. There are very few records of the language from before the WWII period, hence why there's so much trouble in finding details on the language's history. Miyakoan is a predominantly agglutinative, agentive, postpositional language. It follows the usual Japonic language sentence order (subject-object-verb). It has a very diverse set of sounds compared to other Japonic languages; It has moraic/syllabic consonants (in Hirara these are /f/, /v/, /s/, /z/, /m/ and /n/) which can also take the coda slot of a syllable (kam ‘god’, in ‘dog’, niv ‘to sleep’, uz ‘to be’). In addition, it can form consonant clusters (fmu ‘cloud’, azsu ‘those who are/have’).

5. Jarosz, Aleksandra. “Japonic languages: An overview.” Silva Iaponicarum, 2017, https://doi.org/10.14746/sijp.2017.41/42.3.

The Japonic languages can be split into three major groups: Mainland, Ryukyuan and Hachijō. Japanese is currently the only recognized language in the area, and all of the Japonic languages except Japanese are considered endangered languages. There's an estimated total of 122,056,940 native speakers of any Japonic languages as of 2014. No genetic evidence for proof of anyone living outside of Japan for this language family is currently available.

6. Jarosz, Aleksandra. “Miyako-Ryukyuan and Its Contribution to Linguistic Diversity.” JournaLIPP, lipp.ub.uni-muenchen.de/lipp/article/view/192. Accessed 15 Apr. 2024. Jarosz_Miyako-Ryukyuan.pdf (altaica.ru) 

The Ikema dialect of Miyako-Ryukyuan is estimated to have 2,000 speakers, which most are in at least their 50's. Miyako as a whole is rarely taught in schools. Miyako-Ryukyuan is special for many reasons, but its so-called “apical” vowel stands out. It is conventionally marked with the non-standard symbol <ɿ> in Ryukyuan studies, due to the nonexistence of an appropriate character to denote this sound in the standard IPA chart.

7. Hammine, Madoka. “Framing indigenous language acquisition from within: An experience in learning and teaching the Yaeyaman language.” The Language Learning Journal, vol. 48, no. 3, 20 Feb. 2020, pp. 300–315, https://doi.org/10.1080/09571736.2020.1720786.

The author states that the traditional speakers' lack of their own multilingual awareness is a barrier for learning and teaching Yaeyaman (and other Ryukyuan languages) The Ryukyuan languages have been treated as hōgen [dialect of Japanese] (Heinrich 2012) for decades due to the language shift beginning in the 1950s (Anderson 2014b). During the initial assimilation into standard Japanese, Ryukyuan children were punished for using dialect tags (Kondō 2008; Murakami 2008). This in turn has caused a widespread generational belief among indigenous peoples which deem the Ryukyuan languages as 'less valuable'.

8. Hammine, Madoka. “Speaking My Language and Being Beautiful – Decolonizing Indigenous Language Education in the Ryukyus with a Special Reference to Sámi Language Revitalization.” Etusivu, fi=Lapin yliopisto|en=University of Lapland|, 1 Jan. 1970, lauda.ulapland.fi/handle/10024/64121. Speaking my Language and Being Beautiful – Decolonizing Indigenous Language Education in the Ryukyus with a Special Reference to Sámi Language Revitalization (ulapland.fi) 

There are no higher academic opportunities in Japan for Yaeyaman speakers, which systematically assimilates students to the Japanese language and contributes to the endangerment of the language. The author writes about the opportunities of education, stating educational policies in Japan need to be completely rethought and encourage educational programs to learn the language. Not only is this supposed to help with an increase in speakers but also encourage indigenous peoples to accept their identity.

9. Heinrich, Patrick. “hōgen ronsō: The great ryukyuan languages debate of 1940.” Contemporary Japan, vol. 25, no. 2, Aug. 2013, pp. 167–187, https://doi.org/10.1515/cj-2013-0008.

The Great Ryukyuan Languages Debate of 1940 describes a debate held in Japan meant to question the status and utility of the Ryukyuan languages.This debate was highly rooted in power equalities between Japanese mainland and the Ryukyuan islands, so it was primarily used with the goal of oppressing Ryukyuan communities. Critics of this debate pointed out the high cultural value of the Ryukyuan languages.

10. Sensui, Hidekazu. Vernacular Okinawa: Identity and Ideology in Contemporary Local Activism. 2000. (PDF) Vernacular Okinawa : identity and ideology in contemporary local activism | Hidekazu Sensui - Academia.edu

Right now, most activism for the Okinawan culture is through its art, history and performances. Okinawan theatre is very often practiced. Handicrafts are promoted and history is taught. Tourism had potential but last century, many Okinawans resisted any investments from the Japanese government.

11. Topping, Matthew. “Topics in the Grammar of Sika Yaeyaman.” Academia.Edu, 9 Sept. 2020, www.academia.edu/44051998/Topics_in_the_Grammar_of_Sika_Yaeyaman.

Sїka (pronounced sɨ̥ka) is a dialect of the Yaeyama language spoken on the Ishigaki Island, the main island of the Yaeyama archipelago. Although it is the main dialects, there are many dialects spoken all over Ishigaki island. Its name comes from the term sïka mura, ‘the four villages’. Supposedly, sïka mura began in the 1670’s, ever since the villages of Ishigaki and Tonoshiro were founded. The populations were growing significantly by the 1750's which prompted the construction of new villages: Ōkawa (once part of Tonoshiro) and Arakawa (once part of Ishigaki).