Okinawan (, , , ), or more precisely Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages are listed by UNESCO as endangered.

Though Okinawan encompasses a number of local dialects, the Shuri–Naha variant is generally recognized as the de facto standard, as it had been used as the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom since the reign of King Shō Shin (1477–1526). Moreover, as the former capital of Shuri was built around the royal palace, the language used by the royal court became the regional and literary standard, which thus flourished in songs and poems written during that era.

Today, most Okinawans speak Okinawan Japanese, although a number of people still speak the Okinawan language, most often the elderly. Within Japan, Okinawan is often not seen as a language unto itself but is referred to as the , or more specifically the . Okinawan speakers are undergoing language shift as they switch to Japanese, since language use in Okinawa today is far from stable. Okinawans are assimilating and accenting standard Japanese due to the similarity of the two languages, the standardized and centralized education system, the media, business and social contact with mainlanders and previous attempts from Japan to suppress the native languages, similar to policies historically seen in regions such as Tohoku region and main land Kyushu region. Okinawan is still kept alive in popular music, tourist shows and in theaters featuring a local drama called , which depict local customs and manners.

History

Pre-Ryukyu Kingdom

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. Chinese and Japanese characters were first introduced by a Japanese missionary in 1265.

Ryukyu Kingdom era

Pre-Satsuma

was a much more popular writing system than kanji; thus, Okinawan poems were commonly written solely in or with little kanji. Okinawan became the official language under King Shō Shin. The Omoro Sōshi, a compilation of ancient Ryukyuan poems, was written in an early form of Okinawan, known as Old Okinawan.

Post-Satsuma to annexation

In 1609, the Ryukyu Kingdom came under the control of the Satsuma Domain and consequently came under even stronger influence from Kyushu dialects. As part of its policies, the Satsuma Domain required the use of kanji in Ryukyu, and kanji also came to play a more important role in poetry. In addition, official documents in Ryukyu came to be written in Classical Chinese, as in Japan. During this period, the Ryukyuan language gradually developed into modern Okinawan.

Japanese annexation to end of World War II

Language shift to Japanese in Ryukyu/Okinawa began in 1879 when the Japanese government annexed Ryukyu and established Okinawa Prefecture. The prefectural office mainly consisted of people from Kagoshima Prefecture where the Satsuma Domain used to be. This caused the modernization of Okinawa as well as language shift to Japanese. As a result, Japanese became the standard language for administration, education, media, and literature.

In 1902, the began the linguistic unification of Japan to Standard Japanese. This caused the linguistic stigmatization of many local varieties in Japan including Okinawan. This policy of integration into Standard Japanese was implemented throughout Japan. In regions such as Satsuma and Hyūga, the Tōhoku region, and Okinawa,"dialect tags" (hōgen-fuda) were used to punish those who spoke local dialects. Even in the Kantō region, dialect suppression education was carried out in Kanagawa under what was called the "Ne-Sa-Yo Movement," in which students who spoke dialects were forced to stand in the hallway, and papers containing dialect expressions were burned collectively. As the discrimination accelerated, Okinawans themselves started to abandon their languages and shifted to Standard Japanese.

American occupation

Under American administration, there was an attempt to revive and standardize Okinawan, but this proved difficult and was shelved in favor of Japanese. General Douglas MacArthur attempted to promote Okinawan languages and culture through education.

Return to Japan to present day

After Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty, Japanese continued to be the dominant language used, and the majority of the youngest generations only speak Japanese. There have been attempts to revive Okinawan by notable people such as Byron Fija and Seijin Noborikawa, but few native Okinawans know the language.

Outside of Japan

The Okinawan language is still spoken by communities of Okinawan immigrants in Brazil. The first immigrants from the island of Okinawa to Brazil landed in the Port of Santos in 1908 drawn by the hint of work and farmable land. Currently the Okinawan-Japanese centers and communities in the State of São Paulo are a world reference to this language helping it to stay alive. Courses in Okinawan language and literature are offered at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and books in Uchinaaguchi have been published in Hawaii.

Classification

Okinawan is sometimes grouped with Kunigami as the Okinawan languages; however, not all linguists accept this grouping, some claiming that Kunigami is a dialect of Okinawan. Okinawan is also grouped with Amami (or the Amami languages) as the Northern Ryukyuan languages.

Dialect or language

There is ongoing debate over whether the Ryukyuan languages should be regarded as dialects of Japanese or as independent languages. Mutual intelligibility between Okinawan and Standard Japanese is often difficult, and this has been cited as grounds for considering Ryukyuan an independent language. On the other hand, it has also been pointed out that linguistic differences between regions and social classes within Japan were historically extremely large, and that mutual unintelligibility alone cannot serve as a definitive criterion for distinguishing a language from a dialect.

During the Edo period, regional linguistic variation is said to have been even greater than it is today. In the first volume of Shikitei Sanba's Kyōgen Inaka Ayatsuri (1811), it is stated that speech would already differ only 20 chō (about 2 kilometers) outside Edo, and that at a distance of one ri (about 3.9 kilometers), the language would become entirely different from that of Edo. In addition, linguistic differences existed not only between regions but also between social classes, such as the speech of the Yamanote elite, court nobles, and the downtown commoners. Interpreters were reportedly not uncommon between regions. For this reason, there are limits to using "whether people can understand one another" as an absolute criterion for distinguishing a language from a dialect.

Within Japanese and Okinawan linguistics, several terms have been used to refer to the speech of Okinawa, including "Ryukyuan language," "Ryukyuan dialect," and "Okinawan dialect." At present, the term "dialect" is the more commonly used designation. Consequently, the term "Ryukyuan language" is not necessarily familiar to the general public. The linguist Ferdinand de Saussure stated that "it is difficult to determine where the difference between a language and a dialect lies. Even a dialect may be called a language if literature is written in it." Likewise, the linguist Katsuhiko Tanaka argued that whether a form of speech is considered an independent language or a dialect subordinate to another language is determined by the political circumstances and aspirations of its speakers, and cannot be decided unequivocally through natural-scientific objectivism.

The Ryukyus possess an indigenous literary tradition, including works such as the Omoro Sōshi, and from this perspective there are positions that regard Ryukyuan as an independent language. On the other hand, the peoples of Japan and Okinawa shared the Jōmon cultural sphere in ancient times, are believed to possess a common ancestral language and genetic connections, and Okinawa has historically been incorporated into the Japanese state for more than 500 years since the medieval period. Furthermore, within Okinawan society itself, the recognition of these speech forms as "dialects" is widespread. For these reasons, many researchers continue to use the term "Okinawan dialect."

Thus, whether Ryukyuan should be classified as a "language" or a "dialect" is not merely a linguistic question, but one deeply connected to history, politics, culture, and identity.

Dialects of the Ryukyuan language

Okinawan linguist Seizen Nakasone states that the Ryukyuan languages are in fact groupings of similar dialects. As each community has its own distinct dialect, there is no "one language". Nakasone attributes this diversity to the isolation caused by immobility, citing the story of his mother who wanted to visit the town of Nago but never made the 25km trip before she died of old age.

The contemporary dialects in Ryukyuan language are divided into three large groups: Amami-Okinawa dialects, Miyako-Yaeyama dialects, and the Yonaguni dialect. All of them are mutually unintelligible. Amami is located in the Kagoshima prefecture but it belongs to the Ryukyuan group linguistically. The Yonaguni dialect is very different in phonetics from the other groups but it comes closest to the Yaeyama dialect lexically.

Sociolinguistics

UNESCO listed six Okinawan language varieties as endangered languages in 2009. The endangerment of Okinawan is largely due to the shift to Standard Japanese. Throughout history, Okinawan languages have been treated as dialects of Standard Japanese. For instance, in the 20th century, many schools used "dialect tags" to punish the students who spoke in Okinawan. Consequently, many of the remaining speakers today are choosing not to transmit their languages to younger generations due to the stigmatization of the languages in the past.

There have been several revitalization efforts made to reverse this language shift. However, Okinawan is still poorly taught in formal institutions due to the lack of support from the Okinawan Education Council: education in Okinawa is conducted exclusively in Japanese, and children do not study Okinawan as their second language at school. As a result, at least two generations of Okinawans have grown up without any proficiency in their local languages both at home and school.

Okinawan language is 71% lexically similar to, or cognate with, standard Japanese. Even the southernmost Japanese dialect (Kagoshima dialect) is only 72% cognate with the northernmost Ryukyuan language (Amami). The Kagoshima dialect of Japanese, however, is 74% lexically similar to Standard Japanese.

Phonology

Vowels

The Okinawan language has five vowels, all of which may be long or short, though the short vowels and are quite rare, as they occur only in a few native Okinawan words with heavy syllables with the pattern or , such as mensōrē "welcome" and tonfā. The close back vowels and are truly rounded, rather than the compressed vowels of standard Japanese.

Pitch accent

Pitch accent varies greatly between dialects. In Shuri dialect, there are two word tones, which are lexically determined: flat (accentless) and falling (accented). The scope of the accent is the word plus an attached grammatical particle. Accentless words are high tone throughout, whereas accented words have a drop in pitch after the second mora (or after the first in bimoraic words).

The difference can be illustrated with:

• 'flower', nominative

• 'nose', nominative

and

• 'fire', nominative

• 'day', nominative

Consonants

The Okinawan language counts some 20 distinctive segments shown in the chart below, with major allophones presented in parentheses.

IPA chart of Okinawan consonants

The only consonant that can occur as a syllable coda is the archiphoneme . Many analyses treat it as an additional phoneme , the moraic nasal, though it never contrasts with or .

The consonant system of the Okinawan language is fairly similar to that of standard Japanese, but it does present a few differences on the phonemic and allophonic level. Namely, Okinawan retains the labialized consonants and which were lost in Late Middle Japanese (though they are retained in a handful of Modern Japanese dialects), possesses a glottal stop , features a voiceless bilabial fricative distinct from the aspirate , and has two distinctive affricates which arose from a number of different sound processes. Additionally, Okinawan lacks the major allophones and found in Japanese, having historically fronted the vowel to after the alveolars , consequently merging tsu into chi, su into shi, and both dzu and zu into ji. It also lacks as a distinctive phoneme, having merged it into .

Bilabial and glottal fricatives

The bilabial fricative has sometimes been transcribed as the cluster , since, like Japanese, allophonically labializes into before the high vowel , and does not occur before the rounded vowel . This suggests that an overlap between and exists, and so the contrast in front of other vowels can be denoted through labialization. However, this analysis fails to take account of the fact that Okinawan has not fully undergone the diachronic change → → as in Japanese, and that the suggested clusterization and labialization into is unmotivated. Consequently, the existence of must be regarded as independent of , even though the two overlap. Barring a few words that resulted from the former change, the aspirate also arose from the odd lenition of and , as well as words loaned from other dialects. Before the glide and the high vowel , it is pronounced closer to , as in Japanese.

Palatalization

The plosive consonants and historically palatalized and affricated into before and occasionally following the glide and the high vowel : → chiri "fog", and → chura- "beautiful". This change preceded vowel raising, so that instances where arose from did not trigger palatalization: → kī "hair". Their voiced counterparts and underwent the same effect, becoming under such conditions: → nnaji "eel", and → nukujiri "saw"; but → kagin "seasoning".

Both and may or may not also allophonically affricate before the mid vowel , though this pronunciation is increasingly rare. Similarly, the fricative consonant palatalizes into before the glide and the vowel , including when historically derives from : → shikē "world". It may also palatalize before the vowel , especially so in the context of topicalization: dushi → dusē or dushē "(topic) friend".

In general, sequences containing the palatal consonant are relatively rare and tend to exhibit depalatalization. For example, tends to merge with ( myāku → nāku "Miyako"); has merged into and ( → rū ~ dū "dragon"); and has mostly become ( shui → sui "Shuri").

Flapping and fortition

The voiced plosive and the flap tend to merge, with the first becoming a flap in word-medial position, and the second sometimes becoming a plosive in word-initial position. For example, rū "dragon" may be strengthened into dū, and hashidu "door" conversely flaps into hashiru. The two sounds do, however, still remain distinct in a number of words and verbal constructions.

Glottal stop

Okinawan also features a distinctive glottal stop that historically arose from a process of glottalization of word-initial vowels. Hence, all vowels in Okinawan are predictably glottalized at the beginning of words ( → ami "rain"), save for a few exceptions. High vowel loss or assimilation following this process created a contrast with glottalized approximants and nasal consonants. Compare → wa "pig" to wa "I", or → nni "rice plant" to → nni "chest".

Moraic nasalMoraic nasal

The moraic nasal has been posited in most descriptions of Okinawan phonology. Like Japanese, (transcribed using the small capital ) occupies a full mora and its precise place of articulation will vary depending on the following consonant. Before other labial consonants, it will be pronounced closer to a syllabic bilabial nasal , as in nma "horse". Before velar and labiovelar consonants, it will be pronounced as a syllabic velar nasal , as in bingata, a method of dying clothes. And before alveolar and alveolo-palatal consonants, it becomes a syllabic alveolar nasal , as in kanda "vine". In some varieties, it instead becomes a syllabic uvular nasal . Elsewhere, its exact realization remains unspecified, and it may vary depending on the first sound of the next word or morpheme. In isolation and at the end of utterances, it is realized as a velar nasal .

Correspondences with Japanese

Correspondences between Japanese and Okinawan

Orthography

The Okinawan language was historically written using an admixture of kanji and hiragana. The traditional script of Okinawa is called 古文書. Before the Satsuma Invasion in 1609, was used like in Japanese. The hiragana syllabary is believed to have first been introduced from mainland Japan to the Ryukyu Kingdom some time during the reign of king Shunten in the early thirteenth century. It is likely that Okinawans were already in contact with hanzi (Chinese characters) due to extensive trade between the Ryukyu Kingdom and China, Japan and Korea. However, hiragana gained more widespread acceptance throughout the Ryukyu Islands, and most documents and letters were exclusively transcribed using this script, in contrast to in Japan where writing solely in hiragana was considered "women's script". The Omoro Sōshi (), a sixteenth-century compilation of songs and poetry, and a few preserved writs of appointments dating from the same century were written solely in Hiragana. Kanji were gradually adopted due to the growing influence of mainland Japan and to the linguistic affinity between the Okinawan and Japanese languages. However, it was mainly limited to affairs of high importance and to documents sent towards the mainland. The oldest inscription of Okinawan exemplifying its use along with Hiragana can be found on a stone stele at the Tamaudun mausoleum, dating back to 1501.

After the invasion of Okinawa by the Shimazu clan of Satsuma in 1609, Okinawan ceased to be used in official affairs. It was replaced by standard Japanese writing and a form of Classical Chinese writing known as kanbun. Despite this change, Okinawan still continued to prosper in local literature up until the nineteenth century. Following the Meiji Restoration, the Japanese government abolished the domain system and formally annexed the Ryukyu Islands to Japan as the Okinawa Prefecture in 1879. To promote national unity, the government then introduced standard education and opened Japanese-language schools based on the Tokyo dialect. Students were discouraged and chastised for speaking or even writing in the local "dialect", notably through the use of "dialect cards" (). As a result, Okinawan gradually ceased to be written entirely until the American takeover in 1945. Since then, Japanese and American scholars have variously transcribed the regional language using a number of ad hoc romanization schemes or the katakana syllabary to demarcate its foreign nature with standard Japanese. Proponents of Okinawan tend to be more traditionalist and continue to write the language using hiragana and kanji. In any case, no standard or consensus concerning spelling issues has ever been formalized, so discrepancies between modern literary works are common.

Tana family documents (田名家文書), which are letters of rank appointment issued by the Shuri Royal Government, are written in 候文(Japanese Epistolary style). However, after the Satsuma invasion, Japanese culture was banned as part of the policy of exoticizing Ryukyu, and under the policy of Haneji Ōji Chōshū, documents within Ryukyu also began to be written in classical Chinese.

Comparison of official documents of Tana family documents in 1523 and 1647.

Syllabary

Technically, they are not syllables, but rather morae. Each mora in Okinawan consists of one or two kana characters. If there are two, then the first kana is followed by a smaller version of the second kana. In each cell of the table below, the top row is the kana (hiragana to the left, katakana to the right of the dot), the middle row in rōmaji (Hepburn romanization), and the bottom row in IPA.

Grammar

Okinawan follows a subject–object–verb word order and makes large use of particles as in Japanese. Okinawan retains a number of Japonic grammatical features also found in Old Japanese but lost (or highly restricted) in Modern Japanese, such as a distinction between the terminal form () and the attributive form (), the genitive function of ga (lost in the Shuri dialect), the nominative function of nu (cf. Japanese: no), as well as honorific/plain distribution of ga and nu in nominative use.

Okinawan conjugation, for comparison in the framework of Classical Japanese

One etymology given for the -un and -uru endings is the continuative form suffixed with uri ("to be; to exist", cf. Classical Japanese: wori): -un developed from the terminal form uri; -uru developed from the attributive form uru, i.e.:

• kachuru derives from kachi-uru;

• kachun derives from kachi-uri; and

• yumun ("to read", cf. Japanese: yomu) derives from yumi + uri.

A similar etymology is given for the terminal -san and attributive -saru endings for adjectives: the stem suffixed with sa (nominalises adjectives, i.e. high → height, hot → heat), suffixed with ari ("to be; to exist; to have", cf. Classical Japanese: ari), i.e.:

• takasan ("high; tall", cf. Japanese: takai) derives from taka-sa-ari;

• achisan ("hot; warm", cf. Japanese: atsui) derives from atsu-sa-ari; and

• yutasaru ("good; pleasant", cf. Japanese: 豊かな yutakana "abundant; plentiful") derives from yuta-sa-aru.

Parts of speech

Nouns (名詞)

Nouns are classified as independent, non-conjugating part of speech that can become a subject of a sentence

Pronouns (代名詞)

Pronouns are classified the same as nouns, except that pronouns are more broad.

Okinawan pronouns

Adverbs (副詞)

Adverbs are classified as an independent, non-conjugating part of speech that cannot become a subject of a sentence and modifies a declinable word (用言; verbs, adverbs, adjectives) that comes after the adverb. There are two main categories to adverbs and several subcategories within each category, as shown in the table below.

あなた の 三味線 の 皮 は 大変、 上等 ですね。Anata no shamisen no kawa wa taihen, jōtō desune.The leather of your shamisenshamisen is expensive.

Kunu umi nji e īruku, uijundō.

• この海では、良く、泳ぐよ。

Kono umi de wa, yoku, oyoguyo.

• I often swim in this ocean.

Chinū ya niriruka, nī, kayāchan.

• 昨日は、うんざりするほど、荷を運んだ。

Kinō wa, unzarisuruhodo, ni wo hokonda.

• I carried luggage to a sickening degree yesterday.

Jirā ga chukutaru shorui ya kachō ga wajiruka, bappētōtan.

• 次郎が作った書類は課長が怒るほど、間違っていた。

Jirā ga tsukutta shorui wa kachō ga okoruhodo, machigetteita.

• The documents that Jira made had so many errors that the department chief got irritated.

Wannē aiyuka, wata nu yadi, hirakitōtan.

• 私はとても、お腹が痛くて、しゃがんでいた。

Watashi wa totemo, onaka ga itakute, shagandeita.

• I had a very bad stomach ache and was squatting down.

Ittā yatchī ya yukun, chijiduyaru.

• 君達の兄は余計、駄目だ。

Kimitachi no ani wa yokei, dame da.

• Your brother is even worse.

Jikan nu tachīnē, ari ga yanmē ya tatta, wassanayundō.

• 時間が経てば、彼の病気は余計、悪くなるよ。

Jikan ga tateba, kare no byōki wa yokei, warukunaruyo.

• If you wait longer, his illness will be even worse.

Munō nā, chufāra, kadan.

• 食事はもう、一杯、食べた。

Shokuji wa mō, ippai, tabeta.

• I have already had enough food

Sū ya sanshin ya ansukā, jōji earan.

• お父さんは三味線はそれほどは、上手ではない。

Otō-san wa shamisen sorehodowa jōzu dewanai.

• Father is not so good at shamisen.

Kuma nu mangurā chinchintu du, yā yātaru.

• この辺りは散り散りに家がなった。

Kono atari wa chirijirini ie ga natta.

• Houses were scattered in this area.

Chū ya hēku, sutiturashiyō.

• 今日は早く、集まってくれよ。

Kyō wa hayaku, atsumattekureyo.

• Please gather quickly today.

Munō awatiran'youi, younnā, kamē.

• 食事は慌てず、ゆっくり、食べよ。

Shokuji wa awatezu, yukkuri, tabeyo.

• Don't rush when you eat, eat slowly.

Tōnainē, nankuru, jinbunmen njitichūsani.

• いざとなれば、自ずと、知恵も出てくるだろう。

Iza to nareba, onozuto, chie mo detekuru darō.

• When the time comes, ideas will automatically come to our minds.

Kā nu ui nu hata kara magi mumu nu yuttaikwattai, rūritichan.

• 川の上の方から大きな桃がどんぶらこと、流れて来た。

Kawa no ue no hō kara ōkina momo ga donburakoto, nagaretekita.

• A giant peach came floating down the river.

Nagurinaguritu, wakari nu ēsachi sun.

• なごりなごりと、別れの挨拶をする。

Nagorinagorito, wakare no aisatsu wo suru.

• We said goodbye reluctantly.

Shinjintu, fushiuta yatin, utatinda.

• しみじみと、節歌でも、歌ってみよう。

Shimijimito, fushiuta demo, utattemiyō.

• Let's sing a traditional song nostalgically.

Tidā irī nkai shidēshidē, utitīchun.

• 太陽は西へ次第に、沈んで行く。

Taiyō wa nishi he shidaini, shizundeiku.

• The sun gradually sets to the west.

Garasā nu chiribukuru, churāsa, kizāchinēran.

• 烏がゴミ袋を、残らず、漁ってしまった。

Karasu ga gomibukuro, nokorazu, asatteshimatta.

• The crows completely rummaged through the garbage bags.

Duku, yukushi bikē, shīnē, bachi, kanjun.

• あまりにも、嘘ばかりついたら、罰が当たる。

Amarinimo, uso bakari tsuitara, batsu ga ataru.

• If you tell too many lies, you will incur divine punishment.

Nā fansō nu utu o dandandandan, mashinatōn.

• あなたの笛の音は段々、良くなっている。

Anata no fue no oto wa dandan, yokunatteiru.

• You are gradually becoming better at playing flute.

Igaroun, shidēni, tushi, tutan'yā.

• 我々も次第に歳を取ったね。

Wareware mo shidaini toshi wo totta ne.

• We have gradually gotten old.

Dukudara, himichi shīnē, isa nkai mishirandē.

• ひどく、せき込んだら、医者に診せないと。

Hidoku, seki kondara, isha ni misenaito.

• If you start to cough badly, you have to go see a doctor.

Kuma kara ama nkai massugu, ichīnē, umi nkai njiyun.

• ここからあそこへ、まっすぐ、行くと、海に出る。

Koko kara asoko he, massugu, ikuto, umi ni deru.

• If you go straight from there, you will see the ocean.

Nā ya uchināguchē mattouba, chikariyō.

• 君は沖縄語を正しく使ってよ。

Kimi wa okinawago wo tadashiku tsukatteyo.

• Please use Okinawan correctly.

Yā ya dattidu, chukuyundō.

• 家はちゃんと、作るんだよ。

Ie wa chanto, tsukurundayo.

• You must build a house properly.

Anmā ya chū ya daten, sugatōn.

• 母は今日はきちんと、身なりを整えている。

Haha wa kyō wa kichinto, minari wo totonoeteiru.

• My mother has dressed neatly today.

Danpachi sāni, sappattu, sōn.

• 散髪をして、さっぱりしている。

Sanbatsu wo shite, sappari shiteiru.

• Looking fresh after a haircut.

Uya nu yushi, shikattu, chichoukiyō.

• 親の言うことをしっかり、聞いておけよ。

Oya no iukoto wo shikkari, kiiteokeyo.

• Listen to your parents carefully.

Anshin, shikennō, ukattuo, ukiraran.

• それでも、試験はうかつには受けられない。

Soredemo, shiken wa ukatsuniwa ukerarenai.

• You cannot take the exam thoughtlessly.

Unu yanmē ya nijīnē, tatta, wassanayundō.

• その病気は我慢すると、余計、悪くなるよ。

Sono byōki wa gaman suru to, yokei, warukunaruyo.

• If you endure your illness too much, it will get even worse.

Masaka chūya umachī ndē umāntan

• まさか、今日はウマチーとは思わなかった。

• I had no idea that today was the festival day.

Okinawan adverbs

Prenominal adjectives (連体詞)

Prenominal adjectives (連体詞)

Conjunctions (接続詞)

Conjunctions (接続詞)

Interjections and exclamations (感動詞)

Interjections and exclamations (感動詞)

Verbs (動詞)

Verbs are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows movements. The conclusive form ends in .

Adjectives (形容詞)

Adjectives are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows property or state. The conclusive form ends in .

(存在動詞)

存在動詞 are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows existence or decision of a certain thing. attaches to a substantive.

Adjectival verbs (形容動詞)

Adjectival verbs are classified as an independent, conjugating part of speech that shows the state of existence of events. attaches to words that shows state.

Auxiliary verbs (助動詞)

Auxiliary verbs (助動詞)

Particles (助詞)

Particles (助詞)

Prefixes (接頭語)

Suffixes (接尾語)

Others

Copula

Question words (疑問詞)

Syntax

The basic word order is subject–object–verb.

Okinawan is a marked nominative language (with the accusative being unmarked) that also shows minor active–stative variation in intransitive verbs relating to existence or emergence. In existence or emergence verbs, the subject may be optionally unmarked (except for pronouns and proper names, which must be marked with ga), and marked human subjects cannot use ga anymore, but rather always with the often-inanimate marker nu.

Example

Sample text in Standard Okinawan (Shuri-Naha dialect)

In Kanji

人間ー誰ん生まりやぎーなー自由やい、また、胴大切に思ゆる肝とぅ胴守らんでぃる肝ー、誰やてぃんゆぬ如授かとーるむんやん。人間ー元からいー矩ぬ備わとーくとぅ、互ーに兄弟やんでぃる考ーさーに事に当たらんだれーならん。(without ruby characters)

ーんまりやぎーなーやい、また、にゆるとぅらんでぃるー、やてぃんゆぬかとーるむんやん。ーからいーぬわとーくとぅ、ーにやんでぃるーさーににたらんだれーならん。(with ruby characters)

Transliteration

Ninjinoo taa n 'nmariyagiinaa jiyu yai, mata, duu teeshichi ni umuyuru chimu tu duu mamurandiru chimoo, taa yatin yunugutu sajakatooru mun yan. Ninjinoo muutu kara iika ni nu sunawatookutu, tagee ni choodeeyandiru kangeesaa ni kutu ni atarandaree naran. (UDHR Article 1)

See also

• Okinawan Japanese, the language most commonly spoken in Okinawa today

Notes

References

External links

• 首里・那覇方言概説（首里・那覇方言音声データベース）

• うちなあぐち by Kiyoshi Fiza, an Okinawan language writer.

• JLect – Okinawa Language-Dialect Dictionary (definitions and meanings)