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Traffic safety slogan signs in Kin, Okinawa, written in Japanese (center) and Okinawan (left and right).. 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 ...
It is considered that contemporary people older than 85 exclusively use Ryukyuan, between 45 and 85 use Ryukyuan and standard Japanese depending on family or working environment, younger than 45 are able to understand Ryukyuan, while younger than 30 mainly are not able to understand nor speak Ryukyuan languages. [149] Only older people speak ...
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 .
Okinawan is a Japonic language, derived from Proto-Japonic and is therefore related to Japanese.The split between Old Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages has been estimated to have occurred as early as the 1st century AD to as late as the 12th century AD.
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 number of competent native speakers is not known; as a consequence of Japanese language policy which refers to the language as the Yaeyama dialect (八重山方言, Yaeyama hōgen), reflected in the education system, people below the age of 60 tend to not use the language except in songs and rituals, and the younger generation exclusively ...
Speaking a Ryukyuan language was deemed an unpatriotic act; by 1939, Ryukyuan speakers were denied service and employment in government offices, while by the Battle of Okinawa in 1945, the Japanese military was commanded to consider Ryukyuan speakers as spies to be punished by death, with many reports that such actions were carried out.
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. In Okinawa, this is known as Uchinaa-Yamatoguchi ...