Yonaguni language

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Yonaguni is a language spoken by around 1800 people on the island of Yonaguni, in Japan, just east of Taiwan. It is a Ryukyuan language, most closely related to Yaeyama.

[edit] Phonology

The Yonaguni language, as well as Miyako, Yaeyama, and other Southern Ryukyuan languages, /b/ is cognate with Classical Japanese /w/ and Modern Japanese /ɰ/ (or zero in some dialects). Yonaguni also has /d/ where Japanese and other Ryukyuan languages have /j/.

Thus, for example, Yonaguni /dami(-n)/ ('to hurt, to ache') is cognate with the archaic or dialectal Japanese verb /jame(-ru)/ ('to hurt, to ache') rather than with Japanese /itam(-u)/ (same meaning). Yonaguni /d/ is probably a recent development from an earlier */j/, however, judging from the fact that even the */j/ in loanwords of Sinitic origin is pronounced as /d/ by speakers of the Yonaguni language.

Yonaguni language also exhibits intervocalic voicing of plosives.