Ryukyuan languages
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Ryukyuan | ||
|---|---|---|
| Spoken in: | Japan (Okinawa Prefecture) | |
| Total speakers: | over 1.000.000 | |
| Language family: | Japonic Ryukyuan |
|
| Official status | ||
| Official language of: | none | |
| Regulated by: | no official regulation | |
| Language codes | ||
| ISO 639-1: | none | |
| ISO 639-2: | ||
| ISO/FDIS 639-3: | — | |
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. See IPA chart for English for an English-based pronunciation key. | ||
The Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Ryūkyū Islands and make up a subfamily of the Japonic family. Some disagree as to how these languages should be divided. However there is a consensus among Ryukyuanists that there are 6 different groups.
Contents |
[edit] Types of Ryukyuan
- Amami Spoken: islands of the Amami district; Standard: Naze; Speakers: 130,000
- Miyako (Miyako: myaaku hutsi) Spoken: islands of the Miyako district; Standard: Hirara; Speakers: 55,783
- Okinawan (Okinawan: uchinaaguchi) Spoken: southern and central districts of the Okinawan mainland and the surrounding minor islands; Standard: traditionally Shuri, modern Naha; Speakers: 900,000
- Kunigami Spoken: the Yanbaru district of the Okinawan mainland as well as the surrounding minor islands; Standard: Kunigami; Speakers: ???
- Yaeyama (Yaeyama: yaima munii) Spoken: islands of the Yaeyama district; Standard: Ishigaki; Speakers: 44,650
- Yonaguni Spoken: Yonaguni island in the Yaeyama district; Standard: Yonaguni; Speakers: 1,800
In many cases, speakers of the Amami, Miyako, Yaeyama, or Yonaguni languages will also know Okinawan. Many Yonaguni speakers also know Yaeyama. Since Amami, Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni are less urbanised than the Okinawan mainland, their languages are not declining as quickly as that of Okinawa proper, and children continue to be brought up in these languages. The proportion of adults to children in speakers of Okinawan is much more uneven than with the other languages: it is quickly losing ground as a native language, while the other Ryukyuan languages, although they are losing ground, are slipping only gradually.
[edit] Grammar
Ryukyuan and Japanese are said to differ more in vocabulary and grammar than do English and German. The Okinawan language is only 71% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese. Even the southernmost Japanese dialect (Kagoshima dialect) is only 72% lexically similar to the northernmost Ryukyuan language (Amami). The Kagoshima dialect of Japanese, however, is 80% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese. Other Ryukyuan languages such as Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni are even further from Tokyo Japanese.
Since the beginning of World War II, most Mainland Japanese, and even many Ryukyuans, have regarded the Ryukyuan languages as a dialect or group of dialects of Japanese. Experts, however, regard them as separate languages. Before the annexation of the Ryukyuan Kingdom to Japan in the late 1800s, nobody would have questioned the status of Ryukyuan languages as independent from Japanese. However, during World War II, in an effort to build consciousness in people as subjects of the Japanese Empire, not only Ryukyuan, but also Korean, Palauan, and various other languages were referred to as "dialects" of Japanese.[citation needed] This was a political usage of the term dialect, but now, only Ryukyuan, which is genetically related to Japanese, still is called a dialect.
Nowadays, there are a little over 1 million native speakers of Ryukyuan languages, but many of them are elderly (a significant percentage are even centenarians[citation needed]). There are still some children learning Ryukyuan languages natively, but this is rare on mainland Okinawa and usually only happens when children live with grandparents. Native speakers of Okinawan under 20 are rare.
