Talk:Ryukyuan languages

Number of speakers

The figures for the number of speakers of each language merely reflect the total population of each speech community. This is entirely unrealistic given that these are endangered languages, most of which are only spoken by the older generation. I would suggest that these figures be deleted until more precise evidence is provided, perhaps based on the population figures for people over a certain age. An even more accurate picture could be gained by providing a breakdown of the numbers of fluent speakers, semi-speakers, and those with limited speaking skills but good receptive skills in the languages. --Markusdow (talk) 23:48, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Article renamed

I've renamed this article from Ryukyuan languages to Ryūkyūan languages in accordance with the guidelines in the Manual of Style for Japanese articles. Bobo12345 12:00, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I have moved it back, as Ryukyuan is English and not Japanese. I don't think there will be much support for Ryukyugo, so it should likely be here. See the talk at MOS:JP. Dekimasu 05:40, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Proper noun?

"Nonetheless, proper noun in Okinawa still retains its uniqueness, ..." <-- What is this supposed to mean, please? Is it simply unclear grammar/style, or is it outright nonsense (vandalism)? Do you mean to say that places and the subjects of other proper nouns in Okinawa continue to be referred to by the Okinawan name, that they retain their original non-Japanese names? LordAmeth 16:54, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

Yes, that's what it means. It's just a poor grammer. As the sentence is rather ambiguous, I'm going to delete it. Kzaral 15:16, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

The title of this article

should reflect its contents. I suggest renaming it to "Dispute among two groups of wikipedians whether Ryukyuan is a language or a dialect". —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.132.146.66 (talk)

Language family dispute

All "Ryukyuan languages belong to Japonic language" statements rely on their similiarities or relations on voice. That means they (Ryukyuan languages) contain large numbers of cognates with Japonic languages. However, are they (those cognates) in basic vocabulary? If not, they were likely old loan words. So I added the Austronesian languages possibilities. --59.108.199.144 (talk) 11:26, 21 January 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, there is no disputing that the Ryukyuan languages are extremely close genetic relatives of Japanese. There is a fringe theory that Japonic itself is Austronesian, and a more respectable but very speculative theory that Japonic has an Austronesian substrate and an Altaic superstratum. But the lead of this article is not a place to discuss that theory. Kjaer (talk) 00:27, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Serious Issues

This article is written from a very politicized standpoint, and addresses the matter of whether the Ryukyuan dialects should be seen as dialects or separate languages in far too much depth. For linguists, such disputes are political, not linguistic.

This article needs a lot of attention by an expert. There is practically no description of the dialects as language at all - just a list of locally idiomatic words for thank you which is about as helpful as saying that while the Canadians say "hello," Americans say "howdy" and Australians say "g'day." This tells us nothing. If anyone knows an expert, please ask them to look at this article. Kjaer (talk) 00:34, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I certainly agree that there needs to be more linguistic description of the languages themselves. However, I don't believe that the political elements of the article are excessive or unnecessary. As a historian, I find all of this quite interesting, meaningful, and valuable, while I find the lengthy linguistic charts, tables, and explanations at, for example, Okinawan language, impenetrably impossible to understand. There is a ton of linguistic jargon and syllable/sound symbols that I can only assume are IPA, which I don't read/understand. LordAmeth (talk) 16:41, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

The IPA is your friend! It's not all that hard to learn. You would probably enjoy Anthony Burgess' A Mouthful of Air. I suppose my problem with the politics of the article is that it far outweighs the linguistics. Unfortunately I don't have the primary resources to be of help.

The article is somewhat political but as pointed out in the article, language and discussions of language and national identity often are! From a linguistics point of view, when a language becomes so different that speakers of one cannot understand speakers of another, then it is no longer a dialect but a separate language. However, by this definition countries such as Germany have many different languages, but most Germans will tell you that the various groups are "dialects" and not separate languages, because they generally see themselves as Germans. Similarly, Chinese has many "dialects" such as Cantonese and Fujianese which Mandarin speakers from the north cannot understand (nor could speakers of Cantonese understand Fujianese), but I met few Chinese who would consider them different languages, although from a linguistic point of view they are.

I would welcome input from someone who actually 1. has a good linguistics background and 2. knows the languages of the Ryuku islands who could comment on this - it is correct that an analysis of not only a lexicon (vocabulary) but also the grammar is important in order to understand the relationship of the language to modern Japanese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Nealmcgrath (talk • contribs) 15:08, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

I have a background in linguistics. Although I don't speak any ryukyuan languages, I do speak a bit of Japanese and I live in Kyushu, approximately where ryukyuan culture and "japanese" culture split.

The political issue is simple. The Japanese have not always been the shy, polite, peace-loving people they are today. They have a strongly racist thread in their cultural tapestry. Few of the japanese people you'd meet day to day know Okinawa wasn't always part of Japan; fewer still know Okinawan constitutes anything more than a handful of funny words. That isn't because they slept through history class, but rather they were simply never taught any Okinawan history from any reasonable point of view.

It was quite clearly a language that deviated from mainland Japanese ages ago, and then was crushed by Imperial Japan upon conquering Okinawa, and very nearly erased after being returned to Japan following WWII.

Modern Okinawan isn't a exactly dialect either, but more of a pigeon language in which Japanese and Okinawan have mixed, but the native language has lost prevalence to the dominating culture's.126.251.69.241 (talk) 16:48, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

This is pure BS. Everyone at school in Japan studies that the Ryukyu islands were for many centuries isolated from Japan, and that from the 15th to the 18th it became a separated kingdom. Not even one of the Japanese I've spoken to in many years would not know that.

124.35.178.162 (talk) 04:16, 24 May 2018 (UTC)

Kagoshima Ben and Ryukyuan

according to this article, http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/10125/3039/2/uhm_phd_4271_r.pdf Okinawan is similar to Kagoshima Ben in accent are Kagoshima Ben and other Kyushu dialects such as Nagasaki just influenced by Kanto and Kansai Ben but originally they are similar to the idioms in Ryukyu?--Kasumi-genx (talk)

The article you linked to mostly discusses prosody/pitch accent in various Japanese dialects, it doesn't really establish a comparison between the Kagoshima dialect and the Ryukyuan languages. But to answer your question, Japan is made up of a dialect-language continuum, meaning that regions closer to each other will be much more similar, and as the distance grows, mutual intelligibility drops. Kagoshima/Satsugu being the closest point to the Ryukyu islands, shares a number of characteristics in common, but at the same time, it shares the most in common with other Kyushu dialects and with the central dialects, while Nagasaki on the other hand is closer to Honshū, so it is inevitably much more influenced by the mainland dialects and Standard Japanese than Kagoshima. The Kyushu dialects though are neither Ryukyu nor Honshū: at some point later than Ryukyu they started diverging independantly from mainland Japan, but the proximity of mainland Japan has meant that both sides kept influencing each other. Historically, Kagoshima traded the most with the Ryukyu islands, which likely influenced the spoken language more than any other Japanese dialect.

So in a sense, they're like the Ryukyuan languages in that the Kyushu dialects have a number of traits that differ greatly from Honshu dialects. But at the same time, they remain intelligible due to the continuous interaction between both sides, unlike the Ryukyuan languages whose geographical isolation led to a wider array of mutually unintelligible dialects and languages. - Io Katai (talk) 16:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

I agree in that but according to this document http://sunzi1.lib.hku.hk/hkjo/view/26/2602773.pdf there is a dialect in hizen that preserved the /ɸ/ pronunciation of /h/ in the 19th century so there is really some continuum between Ryukyuan and Kyushu...-Kasumi-genx (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 14:24, 4 November 2009 (UTC).

One of the main theories is that Japanese originally arrived in Kyushu (likely Northeast Kyushu, or perhaps far western Honshu) sometime during the late Jōmon period or during the Yayoi period, and then spread almost immediately to all the other islands. The Ryukyuan branch would have thus split from the Kyushu branch during this time frame, and geographical isolation would have meant that the various dialects of this original Ryukyuan branch would have developped independantly due to much less communication with other areas, notably the mainland.

In light of this, the Kyushu dialects would be likely to preserve some features that would also co-occur in Ryukyuan. Frellesvig & Whitman do show a number of correspondances between Northeast Kyushu and Okinawan that no longer occur elsewhere. - I'll retract my earlier comment in that the Kyushu dialect started splitting later on, since it technically would have never split in the first place. But under the influence of the more centralized Honshu, the Kyushu dialects would have shared some language changes and borrowed certain features. This would have happened in waves though, so it's unsurprising that the closer you are to the capital, the more standard the dialect becomes. While limited contact with the Ryukyu islands would have left them mostly unaffected.

The /ɸ/ to /h/ sound change though did not occur until sometime after Late Middle Japanese, and it's possible that this change originated around Kyoto (though feel free to correct me). As such, it shouldn't come as a surprise if Kyushu is one of the last affected regions. If no longer an independant phoneme, [ɸ] may remain preserved in a number of words in these dialects. Some examples from Kagoshima include futotsu for hitotsu, fai for hari, chenofara for tenohiri, fuyeme (enkame), faye for hare, etc. - Io Katai (talk) 04:23, 6 November 2009 (UTC)

According to this document by Diego Collado, http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17713 At many places in japan during the early 17th century the /ɸ/ to /h/ sound change had already completed,perhaps he was talking about Honshu Idioms like Edo and Kyoto, /ɸ/ to /h/ sound change is currently occurring in the surviving Ryukyu Idioms....---Kasumi-genx (talk)

Kasumi-genx, Ryukyuan languages are full languages with far more differences from standard Japanese than just the preservation of ɸ and p (note that these features do not even exist in every Ryukyuan variety). As is stated on the page, there is a clear and abrupt linguistic division between mainland Japan and Ryukyu - Amami language and Kagoshima dialect are only about 70% similar, despite their proximity, while Kagoshima dialect and Tokyo dialect are ~85% similar, despite their difference. Essentially, no two mainland dialects are less than 80% similar (approximately), and no Ryukyuan variety is more than about 70% similar with any mainland dialect. (Ryukyuan languages approach 80% similarity with each other, but are nonetheless mostly mutually unintelligible). So this is for a number of reasons. Here are a few examples of Yonaguni to illustrate my point:

maduɴ kagu means "Let's all write together"/一緒に書こう

di: katibusaɴ means "I want to write the character"/字を書きたい

ndaŋa katitaja anuja kaganuɴ means "If you write, I will not write"/君が書いたら私は書かない

So clearly this is unlike any Kagoshima dialect. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 19:01, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Are you aware that so called "Japanese" was invented after Meiji restoration? Does a claim that Ryukyuan being a language rest on an existence of something which is merely a century old? It is pretty stupid to insist on absolute standard of language/dialect. Ryukyuan being languabe rest on relative and not absolute standard. By European standard (Italian/spanish, German/Dutch, etc) Ryukyuan as well as other Japanese dialects are language. By Oriental standard (most notably mainland China), Ryukyuan is a Japanese dialect and Italian and Spanish are latin dialects. Vapour (talk) 23:39, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Language or dialect dispute

I'd like to point out that Shibatani (1990), if I recall correctly, states that the Ryūkyūan dialects are not more divergent from Standard Japanese than the mainland dialects, and that there is no basis for postulating a binary split Ryūkyūan-Japanese. This means, essentially, that in this view, Ryūkyūan is paraphyletic and the most recent common ancestor of the Ryūkyūan dialects is not different from the most recent common ancestor of the mainland Japanese dialects. (Instead, he points to the Hachijō dialect group as the most divergent one, and the probable descendant of the "eastern dialect" of Old Japanese mentioned here.) I'm pretty sure this still reflects academic consensus, and the burden of proof is rather on those who claim that Ryūkyūan forms a valid node of its own. If Ryūkyūan is paraphyletic, it doesn't really make a lot of sense to call it a "language" of its own, as its ancestor is simply proto-Japanese, and "Japonic" is not different from Japanese, either. As I do not have Shibatani's book, perhaps someone else can find the reference and include the information in the article.

I do realise that the issue tends to get heavily politicised, but we should not allege that Shibatani has unscientific motives; to modern linguists, the dialect/language dichotomy has no ulterior significance, anyway, and they do not tell people how to talk or write. In fact, fundamentally, every linguistic system is equally important to them, and Ryūkyūan is investigated both historically and synchronically. Florian Blaschke (talk) 01:04, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

This definitely does not reflect academic consensus. A recent article in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: [1] not only refers to them as languages, but establishes separate common origins for Japanese dialects and Ryukyuan languages and places the divergence of Ryukyuan languages from Japonic much earlier than the divergence of any Japanese dialect, including Hachijo. Also note, as it says in the article, Kagoshima dialect is 80% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese but only ~70% similar to Amami language, in spite of proximity. This fact alone - that two distant Japanese dialects are more closely related than two nearby varieties - should be enough to prove that Ryukyuan languages form a separate branch of Japonic, and this has in fact been proven elsewhere before and is the current academic consensus. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 19:07, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

More interesting question is whether other Japanese dialect before Meiji era can be regarded as language. If Spanish and Italian are separate language and not Latin dialect then other Japanese dialect certainly are/were language. But if one adopt Chinese standard where Cantonese is merely a dialect of Mandarin Chinese, then these japanese tongues are/were merely dialect. As stated in the article, Kagoshima dialect is only 80% lexically similar to the standard Japanese while Okinawan is 71% similar. Who says 75% is the scientific line which distinguish language from dialect?

I have no problem with assertion that Ryukyuan is a language. I do have a problem when identity politics insist on a falsehood that the rest of Japan spoke a single separate language. Whether Ryukyu is a separate nation/ethnicity is a matter or politics not linguistic Vapour (talk) 23:05, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

I should also point out that the controversy is slightly Eurocentric. In China as well as Japan, common "tongue" is/was not the issue, common "letter" is/was. It is taken for granted that people spoke in different tongue. What important was that people wrote in one common language. From this point of view, Ryukyuan were part of Japanese irrespective of how they spoke. They used kanji/hiranaga hybrid and wrote in Bungo grammar like elsewhere. Vapour (talk) 23:14, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

If they wrote in the same language as everyone else, why can't any bungo specialist read Omoro Sōshi? Answer: because it's written in a different language. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 21:30, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Vapour, your ideas can be seen as revisionist. Linguistics is a science based on evidence and experimentation, not random musings about history. Ryukyuan languages and Japanese are considered two discrete entities, not because anyone says "75% is the scientific line which distinguish language from dialect", but rather because all Ryukyuan languages have similar cognate percentages with all Japanese dialects, while all Japanese dialects have higher cognation percentages with each other:

• Kagoshima dialect is 80% similar to Hyo-jungo
• Amami language is 71% similar to Hyo-jungo
• Amami language is only 72% similar to Kagoshima dialect.

More detailed evidence, including recent research on organization of Japanese dialects, has proven conclusively that Ryukyuan languages are a discrete group and that Japanese dialects form a sort of chain with several nodes branching off. If Amami was part of the same "dialect chain" as Kagoshimaben and Hyo-jungo, it would be expected to have a higher cognation percentage with Kagoshimaben than with Hyo-jungo due to the difference in distance. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 22:20, 20 September 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, linguistic is not a science, especially not an experimental science. Secondly, it is true that difference between Ryukyu variation of dialects and mainland variation are more well understood. However that understand says nothing about where the line between language and dialect is to be drawn. Therefore, while it is true that ryukyuan are "relatively" more distinct, that does not say anything about their status as language. Furthermore, your musing about "Ryukyuan languages and Japanese" only show your bias. More appropriate typology in Japanese academia is to categorise everything as hogen while correctly identifying Hondo hogen and Ryukyu hogen as the two major groups. [2]. In Japanese, the word "hogen" literally mean "local/regional tongue/language". Hence the assertion that "Ryukyuan is a langage(s) and not a dialect" is a debate over English semantic. Vapour (talk)

Sorry, as a linguist and a scientist I have to disagree with you. Linguistics is a science and especially an experimental science, which essentially invalidates everything else you said. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 23:44, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

The term 方言 hougen isn't exactly equivalent to regional tongue in Japanese, as it also carries a pejorative nuance akin to the term brogue. Though even if we considered it such, the term 'regional tongue' isn't used in English as a functional descriptor. This considered, Japanese classification must be considered independently from English classification, as the two languages are wholly different, and our perception of reality differs. In English, the term language may apply to forms of speech that are very much related and in heavy contact: consider the case of French vs Spanish, and their intermediaries Occitan, Catalan, and so on. They're all Western Romance languages, which are in turn Romance languages with a very close linguistic affinity. Here, "Western Romance" or "Romance" doesn't refer to a single language or even their historical ancestor, it simply refers to a grouping of related languages. Likewise, "Ryukyuan languages" is pluralized, thus signalling a group of related varieties.

Wikipedia's general policy is to go by the most common appellation (cf. WP:COMMONNAME). If this were the Japanese Wiki, I'd say sure, let's call them all 方言, since that's the most common literary variant in Japanese. But this isn't: in English, the most common referent for them is the term "language". As there are very little to no Western documents that consider the Ryukyuan varieties as merely dialects of Japanese, the term "dialect" should not be retained, regardless of personal opinion. The Japanese and Ryukyuan branches are, however, related. This much is clear. To disambiguate, most academic articles name the entire grouping the Japonic languages, which has the advantage of being far more specific and less controversial than the term Japanese alone. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 00:32, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Firstly, you made an assertion, "The term 方言 hougen isn't exactly equivalent to regional tongue in Japanese" without showing anything to back it up. Several Japanese dictionary categorically state that hogen is "a language used in particular region" [3] or "a language used only in particular region"[4]. The word, brogue, on the other hand is defined as an accent. [5][6] Secondly, there are academic articles in English which do refer Ryukyuan as dialect. [7] And pretty much any academic article in ryukyuan or Japanese dialects would mention that Japanese "hogen" can be defined as language and/or dialect. After all, only linguists from Japan have any sufficient command in Japanese variants. Any edit which assert that Ryukyuan is a language and not a dialect does not reflect the academic consensus of linguists who specialised in Japanese and is making a political and not a linguistic assertion. Lastly, I would say one can call linguistic as science by using No True Scotsman fallacy. In humanity, subjects such as history, law, accounting, etc. which do not attempt to call itself science tend to be more empirically solid. Vapour (talk) 19:41, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

I never stated that hougen precisely meant "brogue", I stated that it "also carries a pejorative nuance akin to the term brogue". Note further that the 大辞泉 dictionary defines the term using the words 俚言, 隠語 and 俗語 (see definitions 2 and 3 on Goo.ne.jp). Suddenly, we're not just talking about a term that means "regional tongue", we're talking about a term that encompasses the English definitions of dialect, slang, patois, jargon, and, as you noted yourself, language. Regardless, the argument over the term is useless, since it's a Japanese word, not an English term.

Furthermore, I strongly suggest you read the sources you link. If you filter your Google Scholar results to "ryukyuan dialect of japanese", then there are only 4 results that appear written by Westerners, only two of which deal with linguistics. If you filter by "ryukyuan language", you end up with 12 pages full of results, most of which deal directly with Ryukyuan linguistics. If you filter by "Okinawan language", you get 17. The reason you can't simply search for "Ryukyuan dialect(s)" is because the term is commonly used to refer to specific regional variants of a certain Ryukyuan grouping. And this is proven by the fact that all or most of your initial results talk about city or areal dialects (Ryukyuan dialect of Hateruma; Miyako-Hirara dialect). The sources and contexts also contradict your point, with most of them referring to the higher grouping (Miyako, Okinawa, Yaeyama, etc.) as languages. Another issue is that the terms dialect and language go in opposition: the Okinawan language refers to the original native tongue, while Okinawan dialect refers to the modern Tokyo-based Japanese dialect spoken in Okinawa (though it may ambiguously refer to the first from a traditional Japanese perspective).

Henceforth, I can reverse your statement and say "any edit which assert[s] that Ryukyuan is a [dialect] and not a [language] does not reflect the academic consensus of [Western] linguists who specialise in [Japanese and Ryukyuan linguistics and dialectology]". Actually, I'd specify that Ryukyuan itself isn't a language either, but an entire grouping of languages. And in fact, it's not only linguists in Japan that have a firm grasp of Ryukyuan linguistics, there are tons of peer-reviewed and well-sourced academic works in English that deal with the subject. Your statements thereon are simply based on sentimentalism. To repeat, dialect in English is not equivalent to the term 方言 in Japanese. The two languages don't express reality in the same way. The term "language" is the most common label used in English. If you wish to publish academic works referring to them merely as dialects, that's your choice, but Wikipedia cannot weigh in on lesser-used non-native terminology. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 00:50, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

Also, "Vapour", please note that according to standard guidelines for language grouping, pairs of language varieties with 80% or greater rate of cognates are considered dialects of the same language; separate languages belonging to the same family should have between 35% and 79% cognates in most cases (according to Crowley; Gudschinsky; and Lehmann). None of the Ryukyuan languages has more than 79% cognation with any Japanese dialect, while all Japanese dialects have over 80% cognation with each other, as far as can be ascertained from extant lexicostatistical research. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 21:29, 6 October 2011 (UTC)

node ue: I see, but does that exclude the possibility of secondary divergence and convergence (I'm thinking of convergence on the mainland due to the strong influence which the Kyōtō dialect exerted, in particular) that might have obscured the picture? Just consider the case of Scandinavian, where the medieval West vs. East split was blurred by later developments which led to an Insular vs. Mainland split. Think of Western Japanese as Norwegian, Eastern Japanese as Swedish/Danish, the Hachijō dialect as Gutnish (traditional dialects in Dalecarlia, Norrland, Finland and Estonia are strikingly divergent from the mainstream of Scandinavian, too), and Ryūkyūan as Icelandic/Faroese. Have exclusive common innovations (especially isoglosses in historical phonology and morphology) characterising Ryūkyūan and Old Japanese respectively really been established (which would be the only way to establish these as valid subgroups/nodes beyond doubt)? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:08, 12 March 2012 (UTC)

Modern History

It sounds like the Modern history section was written by a non-native speaker of English. There are lots of... issues with grammar. Can someone look it over and correct it? I don't have time right now. 128.192.98.201 (talk) 19:46, 7 July 2010 (UTC)

It looks like someone went in and replaced some sentences for no good reason. The new version makes almost no sense. I reverted. --ಠ_ಠ node.ue ಠ_ಠ (talk) 13:11, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Dubious

My ja-3 friend can't fathom how トン普通語 could mean 'potato standard'. What does Amami have to do with potato? Also, the source cited is just gibberish symbols. ~Crazytales (talk) (edits) 05:53, 27 May 2012 (UTC)

You have to change the page's encoding to properly view it. But looking at the page, I'm unclear of whether "ton futsūgo" is referring to the traditional Amami language, or the modern Amami-Japanese dialect. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 14:34, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

I am removing the "dubious" annotation because it was evidently added by someone who didn't know how to set his browser's character encoding to Shift_JIS, and so didn't read the referenced page. It is explained there that トン means potato. What does Amami have to do with potato? Probably the same thing that limes have to do with the British ("limeys"), etc. 192.139.122.42 (talk) 23:14, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

Not sure if you didn't make the edit or someone undid it, but I've removed the dubious claim, and confirmed that it does refer to Amami-accented Japanese with Kyoww. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 14:41, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Adjective class

What evidence supports the fact that Ryukyuan languages have no separate word class for adjectives? I can't help but feel that this is really not the case, considering that adjectives ending in -san/han (and all variants thereof) are still intrinsically linked to adverbial forms and display numerous irregularities when compared to regular verbs. For instance, -san/han class adjectives cannot be directly negated and require an auxiliary verb to accomplish this. Consider Shuri: churasan "beautiful" > churakoo neen "not beautiful" (note also the topicalized adverbial form). If we consider other things like different processes of nominalization between these adjectives and verbs, as well as the ability to qualify nouns using the adjective root alone where verbs cannot do this, then adjectives would wholly have to be a separate class. Distinguishing them from nouns is simple on the basis that an adjective root is meaningless on its own (you cannot say *chura yan for "it is beauty", but would have to nominalize it as *churasa(a) yan), and nouns cannot be suffixed by -san/han. I suspect this applies to Southern Ryukyuan as well. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 18:16, 25 August 2012 (UTC)

I think the idea is that, while the category of "adjective" does exist in some sense, there is no group of independent words which can be called "the adjectives" in the way that the English words "big, tall, red, etc." can. Adjectives need to be instantiated either by making them into a verb ("churasan") or a noun ("churasa" or "imi-ffa"). I'd say that there are indeed morphological adjectives, but there is no word class' "adjective".

I do agree that if adjectival verbs are highly irregular then they might be considered their own word class. The cut-off line is somewhat subjective, though, as word classes usually wind up lumping together different words with different behaviors (e.g. English "swim, drink, sing" form the past tense differently than "bang, lock, poke").

By the way, this claim is based on my understanding of the Shimoji & Pellard paper on page 10. I cited it in the article, but not in the lead since article leads are generally a summary of information in the body and don't need to be cited. Mo-Al (talk) 12:41, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the response. I'm not sure English morphology is here comparable on the basis that "swam" and "broke" only differ in meaning. The irregular conjugation can be attributed to historical sound changes, a phenomenon that would be comparable to the difference between, say, Shuri kachan "wrote" and tudan "flew". It seems that Pellard does consider adjectives as a class, but one secondary to verbs (126, 140), while Aso (201) and Matayoshi (94) call them a subset; though they all admit to some notable differences. Tyler Lau[8] uses the term "class", but compares them to verbs. I think it might be better to be more explicit and state that adjectives share general properties of verbs (with some differences) and are therefore considered a subset, which is a little more descriptive than saying they have no word class at all. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 15:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Keep in mind that the examples you're citing from Pellard are talking about Ogami, a Miyako Ryukyuan variety. Pellard states on page 10 that Miyako is unique among Ryukyuan languages in having a distinct adjective class. He seems to only consider true adjectives to be those formed through reduplication (imii-imi) or the suffix -ki, which in my understanding is only found in Miyako. (But I'm not very knowledgeable about Ryukyuan languages -- correct me if I'm wrong.)

Also, when Aso and Matayoshi call adjectives a subset of verbs, it looks like they're only referring to verbalized adjectives, not ones that are used in combound nouns (e.g. imi-ffa). From a glance at Lau, it looks like he's also only talking about verbalized adjectives

It would seem to me that in most Ryukyuan languages adjectives can either be instantiated as nouns or verbs, with the exception of Miyako wherein they form their own class.

I agree that the English verb example wasn't great. I'll give a better example from a different language. The traditional grammatical tradition for Classical Hebrew (and many Semitic languages in general) considers nouns and adjectives to be the same word class. They do indeed share many similarities -- they don't inflect, they are marked for grammar, and in fact adjectives may stand on their own as nouns (qatan 'small (one)'). Attributive adjectives are really being used for apposition (hagamal haqatan 'the small camel', lit. 'the camel, the small one'). However one could distinguish between nouns and adjectives on some grounds, for instance adjectives take either gender depending on the noun they modify (qatan (male) or qetana (female)) whereas many nouns may only take one gender (yam 'sea' (male)). Perhaps this difference isn't as great as in Ryukyuan -- however it does show that the boundaries between word classes aren't completely objective. Mo-Al (talk) 18:04, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Ah sorry, you're right about Pellard, it looks like I should have read more carefully that section. But I still have to disagree with such a strict criteria for the notion of word class. You stated earlier that English is very definable, but what really separates nouns from adjectives? If the criteria for all languages is that they have to have perfectly separate morphology in all aspectual domains, then English nouns and adjectives constitute one single unambiguous class. Consider: "the dog man" vs "the red man" vs "the pretty man"; "the dogs" vs "the reds" vs "the pretties" (all attested), etc. French observes the same type of phenomenon, but more strongly. Yet, in neither of these languages would we not consider adjectives as a notable class, and the same goes for Japanese (mentioned on the article Part of speech itself), especially with regards to -i type adjectives.

If you recognize that English distinguishes adjectives from nouns in some instances (e.g. you can say "I am pretty." but not "*I am a pretty."), then the same differential criteria should apply to Ryukyuan. The morphology of 'verbal adjectives' (-san & variants) is distinctive enough from regular verbs and nouns to merit notice. Otherwise I feel we'll end up declaring all world languages as having just two separate classes: nouns and verbs -- which isn't exactly helpful or descriptive in my opinion. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 20:36, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

It seems to me like in English nouns and adjectives are distinguished more by syntactic properties rather than morphological ones due to the fact that English is a fairly isolating language. For instance, adjective-noun sequences like "the dog reg", "the man big", etc. sound ill-formed. I'll defer to your knowledge, however, regarding the morphological differences between Ryukyuan verbs and adjectives.

Perhaps it would be best to rephrase the article -- instead of saying that Ryukyuan does not have an adjective class, it might be better to say that adjectives are all bound morphemes, or attribution uses compounding and verbalization, or something like that. I'd like to emphasize the unique characteristics of Ryukyuan without saying anything controversial. Mo-Al (talk) 01:09, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Language policies

Note that the decline of the Ryukyuan languages was largely abetted by the Ryukyuans themselves, who wrote and spoke in standard Japanese on purpose along with encouragement in official policy. The Ryukyuans saw themselves and their language as backwards. general sources about the language are availible here.

http://books.google.com/books?id=8guTfpBKm5kC&printsec=frontcover&dq=okinawa+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3Mt-UqH2H4PD4AOBi4DYAw&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=okinawa%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=hAss0HdHS3gC&pg=PA181&dq=okinawa+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=3Mt-UqH2H4PD4AOBi4DYAw&ved=0CEgQ6wEwAw#v=onepage&q=okinawa%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=KYJG21ajeUQC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=2Nduy93hZngC&pg=PA149&dq=loochoo+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wM1-Uo_YN8W64APJv4GICg&ved=0CDIQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=loochoo%20language&f=false

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/25/voices/use-lose-theres-stake-language-reviving-ryukyuan-tongues/#.VAIspcu9KSM

Secondary mentions

http://books.google.com/books?id=sVY9AQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA2&dq=luchu+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ns5-UuvuH6bE4AP58YD4DQ&ved=0CDQQ6wEwAA#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=6EbOAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA2&dq=luchu+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ns5-UuvuH6bE4AP58YD4DQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=8GMFAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA174&dq=luchu+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ns5-UuvuH6bE4AP58YD4DQ&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=o0EOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA99&dq=luchu+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ns5-UuvuH6bE4AP58YD4DQ&ved=0CEQQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=ZyYqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA99&dq=luchu+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ns5-UuvuH6bE4AP58YD4DQ&ved=0CEkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=fKdBAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA535&dq=luchu+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ns5-UuvuH6bE4AP58YD4DQ&ved=0CE8Q6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=whBTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA99&dq=luchu+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=ns5-UuvuH6bE4AP58YD4DQ&ved=0CGgQ6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=lyAQAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA307&dq=luchu+language++supplement&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yc5-UpmKHcXJ4AP2woHgCw&ved=0CEsQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language%20%20supplement&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=6EbOAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA2&dq=luchu+language++supplement&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yc5-UpmKHcXJ4AP2woHgCw&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language%20%20supplement&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=sVY9AQAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA2&dq=luchu+language++supplement&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yc5-UpmKHcXJ4AP2woHgCw&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language%20%20supplement&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=Q3gYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA282&dq=loochooan+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WNB-UtO-CMe34AOG24G4Bg&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=loochooan%20language&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=UG3QHpMrfo8C&pg=PA282&dq=loochooan+language&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WNB-UtO-CMe34AOG24G4Bg&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA

Modern

http://books.google.com/books?id=U-f_lylDECkC&pg=PT235&dq=luchu+language++supplement&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yc5-UpmKHcXJ4AP2woHgCw&ved=0CFkQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language%20%20supplement&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=vaAKJQyzpLkC&pg=PA497&dq=luchu+language++supplement&hl=en&sa=X&ei=yc5-UpmKHcXJ4AP2woHgCw&ved=0CEUQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=luchu%20language%20%20supplement&f=false

03:59, 27 December 2013 (UTC)

• Comment: I would like to point out that this was a side effect of Japanese ideology at the time. Imperial Japan thought of everyone else as barbarians, including the Ryūkyūans, and that they needed to accept the Japanese way of life to be treated as equal (which they weren't). Unlike the Koreans, who were also forced to learn Japanese and take Japanese names, the Ryūkyūans were submissive. Generations of Ryūkyūan children forced being forced to go to school and being taught to forget the past and that your native tongue is "barbaric" has that effect. ミーラー強斗武 (talk) 23:50, 22 January 2014 (UTC)

Chinese records on Ryukyu language

Talk:Languages_of_China#Foreign_relations_and_the_bureau_of_translation_in_the_ming_dynasty

Transcription of Ryukyuan words with Chinese characters. The text is public domain.

使琉球錄 夷語 夷字

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/使琉球錄_(蕭崇業)/附

http://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/使琉球錄_(蕭崇業)/附

https://zh.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=使琉球錄_%28蕭崇業%29%2F附&variant=zh-hant

http://tieba.baidu.com/p/2107652161

http://books.google.com/books/about/使琉球錄.html?id=Q6JrnQEACAAJ http://books.google.com/books/about/使琉球錄.html?id=ITlZmQEACAAJ

http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/6540655 http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/9230908

Shi Liuqiu lu : Yi yu yi zi fu / [Chen Kan zhuan] 使琉球錄 : 夷語夷字附 / [陳侃撰] Author/Creator: Chen, Kan, 1489-1538. 陳侃, 1489-1538.

https://zh.wikisource.org/zh-hant/重修使琉球錄

使琉球录三种-夷语（附）_国学导航

http://www.guoxue123.com/biji/ming/slql/008.htm

The list of words were appended to a text relating to Ming era missions to Ryukyu, specifically the mission of Chen Kan in 1534

Imperial Chinese missions to Ryukyu Kingdom

0-使琉球录-明-陈侃

http://wenxian.fanren8.com/06/15/80/0.htm

國朝典故卷之一百二　　使琉球錄（明）陳侃 撰

http://www.guoxue123.com/other/gcdg/gcdg/107.htm

Rajmaan (talk) 19:11, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

What does the billboard say?

I see File:Billboards_in_Okinawan.jpg embedded in the article, which shows an interesting modified hiragana. However, I can't find on Wikipedia how those kana are pronounced. For example, I see what looks like a modified ら on the billboard, but the kana doesn't appear under the Orthography section or the Okinawan scripts article? --Saledomo (talk) 04:08, 1 January 2017 (UTC)

It seems that someone erased parts of the characters on the left-most sign. So the unrecognizable ones would be ら (in いらいら), や (right after), and で (after 元). If you compare how the characters appear on the other signs, you'll notice that they match up. — Io Katai ᵀᵃˡᵏ 22:33, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Wow, that makes sense. Didn't think of that, ha ha. --Saledomo (talk) 16:27, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

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Proto-Ryukyuan

The sections on Proto-Ryukyuan should really be their own article; they have relatively little to do with the modern languages. 162.43.205.95 (talk) 19:57, 29 April 2022 (UTC)

Intelligibility

It would appear PeoplePowerRadio wishes to alter the text regarding inter-intelligibility with Japanese. I sense that there is an NPOV and reliability issue. I encourage them to elaborate. ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:01, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

This is an official statement from Okinawa Prefecture. Check the source properly.Read this first[[9]].It is problematic that you do not include the official announcement from Okinawa Prefecture. In the first place, they do not understand the origins of the Japanese language, and there are large numbers of areas in Japan where the language is even more difficult to understand than in Okinawa. Or rather, the old language.PeoplePowerRadio (talk) 00:08, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

I have read your source and it does not support your claim. WanderingMorpheme 00:38, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

From page 1 of this academic text—which takes primacy over a government infopage website as a reliable source—includes a passage that reads "there is no strong argument for referring to Ryukyuan languages as Japanese dialects: there is no mutual intelligibility between Ryukyuan and Japanese, and even between Amami, Okinawan, Miyako, and Yaeyama." ~ Pbritti (talk) 00:45, 9 October 2023 (UTC)

Context for further readers of this conversation: the user PeoplePowerRadio has been blocked indefinitely. Apologies for the tiny chaos here. WanderingMorpheme 10:09, 9 October 2023 (UTC)