Kunigami language

Kunigami
Kunjan
Native to	Japan
Region	Northern Okinawa Island
Native speakers	5,000  (2004)[1]
Language family	Japonic Ryukyuan Northern Ryukyuan Okinawan Kunigami
Language codes
ISO 639-3	xug
Northern Okinawan (Kunigami)

The Kunigami language (ヤンバルクトゥーバ, Yanbaru Kutuuba) is an Okinawan language spoken largely in the north of Okinawa Island in the Kunigami or Yanbaru region. Like other Okinawan languages, Kunigami is part of the Ryukyuan family. The number of competent native speakers of the language is not known - as a result of Japanese language policy, the younger generation mostly speaks Japanese as their first language. It is often referred to as the Nakijin dialect of the Okinawan language, in comparison with the central Okinawan which is also called the dialect of Shuri and Naha. Dialects of the Kunigami language are also spoken on Okinoerabujima and Yoronjima.

In Japan, the Ryukyuan language family does not have national recognition as a language but are considered dialects despite the lack of mutual intelligibility with Japanese. As a result, the Kunigami language is referred to as the Okinoerabu-Yoron-Northern Okinawa dialects (沖永良部与論沖縄北部諸方言, Okinoerabu Yoron Okinawa Hokubu Sho Hōgen).

Phonology

The Kunigami language presents some unique phonological characteristics that set it apart from other Japonic languages. One of the most notable characteristics of Kunigami phonology is the existence of a full series of "tensed" or "glottalized" consonants, including stops, nasals, and glides. Kunigami is also notable for the presence of an /h/ phoneme separate from /p/, which is believed to be the historical source of /h/ in modern dialects of the Japanese language. Thus, for example, the Nakijin dialect of Kunigami has /haʔkáí/ (a light, a lamp, lamplight; a shōji, a translucent paper screen, a translucent paper sliding door), which is cognate with Japanese /akárí/ (light, bright light, a ray of light, a beam of light; a light, a lamp, lamplight); the Kunigami form is distinguished from its Japanese cognate by the initial /h/, glottalized /ʔk/, and elision of Proto-Japonic *r before *i. The Kunigami language also makes distinctions in certain word pairs, such as Nakijin dialect /ʔkumuú/ (cloud) and /húbu/ (spider), which both appear as /kúmo/ in Japanese (accented vowels indicate morae pronounced with a high tone).

Vocabulary

The Kunigami language has some words of unclear etymology, such as Nakijin dialect shintsun (/ʃíntʃún/), which is an intransitive verb meaning "to sink." This word has often been compared with the Old Japanese and Classical Japanese verb しづく shidzuku, which appears in ancient poetry with the sense of "to be sunk at the bottom of a body of water, to rest on the bottom; to be seen through water." However, if Nakijin sincun is ultimately cognate with Old Japanese shidzuku, the two forms must have descended from different Proto-Japonic dialectal variants, because the phonological correspondence between the Nakijin form and the Old Japanese form is irregular.

Morphology

One notable difference in the use of certain morphological markers between Kunigami language and Standard Japanese is the use of the /-sa/ form as an adverb in Kunigami: e.g. Nakijin dialect /tuusá panaaɽíʔtun/, which is equivalent to Standard Japanese toókú hanárete irú ("It is far away"). In Standard Japanese, the /-ku/ form is used adverbially, while the /-sa/ form is used exclusively to derive abstract nouns of quality ("-ness" forms) from adjectival stems.

References