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The estimated time of separation between Ryukyuan and mainland Japanese is a matter of debate due to methodological problems; older estimates (1959–2009) varied between 300 BCE and 700 CE, while novel (2009–2011) around 2nd century BCE to 100 CE, which has a lack of correlation with archeology and new chronology according to which Yayoi ...
The Ryukyuan languages (琉球語派, Ryūkyū-goha, also 琉球諸語, Ryūkyū-shogo or 島言葉 in Ryukyuan, Shima kotoba, literally "Island Speech"), also Lewchewan or Luchuan (/ l uː ˈ tʃ uː ə n /), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago.
Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan (Japanese: 日琉語族, romanized: Nichiryū gozoku), sometimes also Japanic, [1] is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands.
Today, Ryukyuan languages mainly persist among elderly inhabitants, with the majority of younger Ryukyuans being monolingual in Japanese. [ 4 ] [ 5 ] As a result of language mixing between Standard Japanese and a Ryukyuan substrate, new varieties of Japanese have arisen in the Ryukyu Islands.
Their languages comprise the Ryukyuan languages, [11] one of the two branches of the Japonic language family (the other being Japanese and its dialects). [12] The Ryukyuans have a distinct culture with some matriarchal elements, native religion , and cuisine which had fairly late (12th century) introduction of rice .
Proto-Japonic, Proto-Japanese, or Proto-Japanese–Ryukyuan is the reconstructed language ancestral to the Japonic language family.It has been reconstructed by using a combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative method to Old Japanese (both the central variety of the Nara area and Eastern Old Japanese dialects) and the Ryukyuan languages. [1]
The ancestry of the modern-day Ryukyuan people is disputed. One theory claims that the earliest inhabitants of these islands crossed a prehistoric land bridge from modern-day China, with later additions of Austronesians, Micronesians, and Japanese merging with the population. [4]
The 1950s saw a rise in Catholic missionary activity in the Ryukyuan islands, resulting in a high conversion rate amongst the Ryukyuan people. The ratio of conversion to Catholicism in the Ryukyuan islands became the highest among the Japanese Prefectures at the time. This was made possible by the blending of existing Ryukyuan religious ...