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56-452: Originally a sacred space of the native Ryukyuan religion , due to its location and natural beauty, it was dedicated to nirai kanai , the mythical source of all life, and to the sea. At some point it came to be known as Hana gusuku and Nanminsan ; Nanmin is the Okinawan reading of 波上, meaning "above the waves", which is pronounced as Naminoue in standard Japanese . In 1890, it

112-556: A distinction between the terminal form ( 終止形 ) and the attributive form ( 連体形 ), the genitive function of が ga (lost in the Shuri dialect), the nominative function of ぬ nu (cf. Japanese: の no ), as well as honorific/plain distribution of ga and nu in nominative use. Classical Japanese: 書く kaku One etymology given for the -un and -uru endings is the continuative form suffixed with uri ("to be; to exist", cf. Classical Japanese : 居り wori ): -un developed from

168-576: A few places. There are different theories about these places' origins. One reasonable explanation is that they were created by the indigenous people from the Jōmon period . Another, racialist theory was they were created from scratch by the Yamato people , which lead in the 1930s and 1940s to re-consecration and building new Shinto temples on the islands. This article related to religion in Japan

224-416: A method of dying clothes. And before alveolar and alveolo-palatal consonants, it becomes a syllabic alveolar nasal /n̩/ , as in /kaɴda/ [kan̩da] kanda "vine". In some varieties, it instead becomes a syllabic uvular nasal [ɴ̩] . 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

280-527: A number of other buildings, including a number of smaller shrines within the grounds, was completed in 1993. Utaki Utaki (御嶽) is an Okinawan term for a sacred place, often a grove , cave, or mountain. They are central to the Ryukyuan religion and the former noro priestess system. Although the term utaki is used throughout the Ryukyu Islands , the terms suku and on are heard in

336-611: 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 Okinawan dialect ( 沖縄方言 , Okinawa hōgen ) or more specifically the Central and Southern Okinawan dialects ( 沖縄中南部諸方言 , Okinawa Chūnanbu Sho hōgen ) . Okinawan speakers are undergoing language shift as they switch to Japanese, since language use in Okinawa today

392-603: A process of glottalization of word-initial vowels. Hence, all vowels in Okinawan are predictably glottalized at the beginning of words ( */ame/ → /ʔami/ 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 */uwa/ → /ʔwa/ Q wa "pig" to /wa/ wa "I", or */ine/ → /ʔɴni/ Q nni "rice plant" to */mune/ → /ɴni/ nni "chest". The moraic nasal /N/ has been posited in most descriptions of Okinawan phonology. Like Japanese, /N/ (transcribed using

448-526: 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

504-423: A subject of a sentence Pronouns are classified the same as nouns, except that pronouns are more broad. 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

560-574: 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. Hiragana was a much more popular writing system than kanji ; thus, Okinawan poems were commonly written solely in hiragana or with little kanji. Okinawan became

616-413: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This Okinawa Prefecture location article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Okinawan language The Okinawan language ( 沖縄口 , ウチナーグチ , Uchināguchi , [ʔut͡ɕinaːɡut͡ɕi] ) or Central Okinawan is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa , as well as in

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672-477: 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. Okinawan is still kept alive in popular music, tourist shows and in theaters featuring a local drama called uchinā shibai , which depict local customs and manners. Okinawan

728-403: 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

784-501: Is realized as a velar nasal [ŋ̍] . The Okinawan language was historically written using an admixture of kanji and hiragana . 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

840-583: Is unmotivated. Consequently, the existence of /ɸ/ must be regarded as independent of /h/ , even though the two overlap. Barring a few words that resulted from the former change, the aspirate /h/ also arose from the odd lenition of /k/ and /s/ , as well as words loaned from other dialects. Before the glide /j/ and the high vowel /i/ , it is pronounced closer to [ç] , as in Japanese. The plosive consonants /t/ and /k/ historically palatalized and affricated into /t͡ɕ/ before and occasionally following

896-669: 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

952-527: The Miyako and Yaeyama regions respectively. Utaki are usually located on the outskirts of villages and are places for the veneration of gods and ancestors. Most gusuku have places of worship, and it is theorized that the origins of both gusuku and utaki are closely related. These places usually face east, due to the mythical origin of the gods and spirits in the East , or southeast, south, or southwest in

1008-494: 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

1064-547: The phonemic and allophonic level. Namely, Okinawan retains the labialized consonants /kʷ/ and /ɡʷ/ which were lost in Late Middle Japanese , possesses a glottal stop /ʔ/ , features a voiceless bilabial fricative /ɸ/ distinct from the aspirate /h/ , and has two distinctive affricates which arose from a number of different sound processes . Additionally, Okinawan lacks the major allophones [t͡s] and [d͡z] found in Japanese, having historically fronted

1120-601: 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 National Language Research Council ( 国語調査委員会 ) began

1176-592: The Japanese system of nobility and Imperial authority. During the Sino-Japanese War (1894-5) and Russo-Japanese War (1904-5), it was common for women to come to Naminoue to pray that their sons be deemed unfit for military service to the Japanese Empire . The shrine was destroyed in the 1945 battle of Okinawa ; the honden (main hall) and shrine office were rebuilt in 1953, as was the worship hall ( haiden ), eight years later. Construction of

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1232-474: The Northern Ryukyuan languages. Since the creation of Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawan has been labeled a dialect of Japanese as part of a policy of assimilation. Later, Japanese linguists, such as Tōjō Misao , who studied the Ryukyuan languages argued that they are indeed dialects. This is due to the misconception that Japan is a homogeneous state (one people, one language, one nation), and classifying

1288-685: The Origin of the Kingdom of Ryūkyū ), a Buddhist temple was founded on the site, to be associated with the shrine, in 1367, by Raijū , a monk from Japan's Satsuma province . This was called Naminoue-san Gokoku-ji (波上山護国寺, "Temple for the Protection of the Country, Naminoue Mountain"). The shrine then came to be associated with protection of the many ships coming and going from Naha's port, as Okinawa's trade with Korea, China, Japan, and regions to

1344-613: The Ryukyu Kingdom was colonized by the Satsuma Domain in the south of Japan. However, Satsuma did not fully invade the Ryukyu in fear of colliding with China, which had a stronger trading relationship with the Ryukyu at the time. When Ryukyu was annexed by Japan in 1879, the majority of people on Okinawa Island spoke Okinawan. Within 10 years, the Japanese government began an assimilation policy of Japanization , where Ryukyuan languages were gradually suppressed. The education system

1400-439: 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 ( おもろさうし ), a sixteenth-century compilation of songs and poetry, and a few preserved writs of appointments dating from

1456-662: 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. Outside Japan, Okinawan is considered a separate language from Japanese. This was first proposed by Basil Hall Chamberlain , who compared the relationship between Okinawan and Japanese to that of the Romance languages . UNESCO has marked it as an endangered language. UNESCO listed six Okinawan language varieties as endangered languages in 2009. The endangerment of Okinawan

1512-458: The Ryukyuan languages as such would discredit this assumption. The present-day official stance of the Japanese government remains that Okinawan is a dialect, and it is common within the Japanese population for it to be called 沖縄方言 ( okinawa hōgen ) or 沖縄弁 ( okinawa-ben ) , which means "Okinawa dialect (of Japanese )". The policy of assimilation, coupled with increased interaction between Japan and Okinawa through media and economics, has led to

1568-407: The chart below, with major allophones presented in parentheses. The only consonant that can occur as a syllable coda is the archiphoneme |n| . Many analyses treat it as an additional phoneme /N/ , the moraic nasal , though it never contrasts with /n/ or /m/ . The consonant system of the Okinawan language is fairly similar to that of standard Japanese, but it does present a few differences on

1624-449: The development of Okinawan Japanese , which is a dialect of Japanese influenced by the Okinawan and Kunigami languages. Japanese and Okinawan only share 60% of the same vocabulary, despite both being Japonic languages. 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

1680-454: The first becoming a flap in word-medial position, and the second sometimes becoming a plosive in word-initial position. For example, /ɾuː/ rū "dragon" may be strengthened into /duː/ dū , and /hasidu/ hashidu "door" conversely flaps into /hasiɾu/ hashiru . The two sounds do, however, still remain distinct in a number of words and verbal constructions. Okinawan also features a distinctive glottal stop /ʔ/ that historically arose from

1736-611: The glide /j/ and the high vowel /i/ : */kiri/ → /t͡ɕiɾi/ chiri "fog", and */k(i)jora/ → /t͡ɕuɾa/ chura- "beautiful". This change preceded vowel raising, so that instances where /i/ arose from */e/ did not trigger palatalization: */ke/ → /kiː/ kī "hair". Their voiced counterparts /d/ and /ɡ/ underwent the same effect, becoming /d͡ʑ/ under such conditions: */unaɡi/ → /ʔɴnad͡ʑi/ Q nnaji "eel", and */nokoɡiri/ → /nukud͡ʑiɾi/ nukujiri "saw"; but */kaɡeɴ/ → /kaɡiɴ/ kagin "seasoning". Both /t/ and /d/ may or may not also allophonically affricate before

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1792-448: The high vowel /u/ , and /ɸ/ does not occur before the rounded vowel /o/ . This suggests that an overlap between /ɸ/ and /h/ 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 */p/ → /ɸ/ → */h/ as in Japanese, and that the suggested clusterization and labialization into */hw/

1848-550: The isolation caused by immobility, citing the story of his mother who wanted to visit the town of Nago but never made the 25 km 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

1904-400: The language using hiragana with kanji. In any case, no standard or consensus concerning spelling issues has ever been formalized, so discrepancies between modern literary works are common. Technically, they are not syllables, but rather morae . Each mora in Okinawan will consist of one or two kana characters. If two, then a smaller version of kana follows the normal sized kana. In each cell of

1960-572: The language. 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. Once in a new country and far from their homeland, they found themselves in a place where there was no prohibition of their language, allowing them to willingly speak, celebrate and preserve their speech and culture, up to

2016-674: 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. The Okinawan language has five vowels, all of which may be long or short, though

2072-461: The linguistic unification of Japan to Standard Japanese. This caused the linguistic stigmatization of many local varieties in Japan including Okinawan. As the discrimination accelerated, Okinawans themselves started to abandon their languages and shifted to Standard Japanese. Okinawan dialect card , similar to Welsh Not in Wales, were adopted in Okinawa, Japan. Under American administration, there

2128-469: The mid vowel /e/ , though this pronunciation is increasingly rare. Similarly, the fricative consonant /s/ palatalizes into [ɕ] before the glide /j/ and the vowel /i/ , including when /i/ historically derives from /e/ : */sekai/ → [ɕikeː] shikē "world". It may also palatalize before the vowel /e/ , especially so in the context of topicalization : [duɕi] dushi → [duɕeː] dusē or dushē "( topic ) friend". In general, sequences containing

2184-484: 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. After Ryukyu became a vassal of Satsuma Domain , kanji gained more prominence in poetry; however, official Ryukyuan documents were written in Classical Chinese . During this time, the language gradually evolved into Modern Okinawan. In 1609,

2240-421: The palatal consonant /j/ are relatively rare and tend to exhibit depalatalization. For example, /mj/ tends to merge with /n/ ( [mjaːku] myāku → [naːku] nāku " Miyako "); */rj/ has merged into /ɾ/ and /d/ ( */rjuː/ → /ɾuː/ rū ~ /duː/ dū "dragon"); and /sj/ has mostly become /s/ ( /sjui/ shui → /sui/ sui " Shuri "). The voiced plosive /d/ and the flap /ɾ/ tend to merge, with

2296-578: The present day. 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. 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

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2352-459: 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

2408-417: The short vowels /e/ and /o/ are quite rare, as they occur only in a few native Okinawan words with heavy syllables with the pattern /Ceɴ/ or /Coɴ/ , such as /m e ɴsoːɾeː/ m e nsōrē "welcome" or /t o ɴɸaː/ t o nfā . The close back vowels /u/ and /uː/ are truly rounded, rather than the compressed vowels of standard Japanese. The Okinawan language counts some 20 distinctive segments shown in

2464-400: The shrine for the protection of the tranquility of all Okinawa (沖縄総鎮守社, Okinawa sōchinshu sha ). In 1924, it was officially designated the center of religious affairs on the island. Symbols of Minamoto no Tametomo , and Ryukyuan kings Shunten , Shō En , Shō Nei , and Shō Tai were enshrined there as the primary objects of worship, as part of efforts to integrate the Ryukyuan royal line into

2520-422: The small capital /ɴ/ ) 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 [m̩] , as in /ʔɴma/ [ʔm̩ma] Q nma "horse". Before velar and labiovelar consonants, it will be pronounced as a syllabic velar nasal [ŋ̍] , as in /biɴɡata/ [biŋ̍ɡata] bingata ,

2576-450: The south expanded. Prayers were made for safe journeys, and kami of the sea, of navigation and related matters were enshrined there. In addition, at the beginning of each year, the King visited the shrine and formally prayed on behalf of all the nation for good harvests and good fishing, and for the peace and prosperity of the nation. Thus, Naminoue came to be the top shrine of the kingdom. It

2632-443: The stone, and the man fled. From then on, there was an oracle at that spot, until the time when it became known as Nanminsan. Other stories tell that the man was visited by an avatar of Kumano  [ ja ] , who commanded the spiritual protection of the nation, and that, the man having related such to the royal government, the shrine was erected. According to the historical document Ryūkyū-koku yurai-ki (琉球国由来記, "Record of

2688-523: 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

2744-601: 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. 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

2800-457: The terminal form uri ; -uru developed from the attributive form uru , i.e.: A similar etymology is given for the terminal -san and attributive -saru endings for adjectives: the stem suffixed with さ sa (nominalises adjectives, i.e. high → height, hot → heat), suffixed with ari ("to be; to exist; to have", cf. Classical Japanese: 有り ari ), i.e.: Nouns are classified as independent, non-conjugating part of speech that can become

2856-493: The use of " dialect cards " ( 方言札 ). 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

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2912-439: The vowel /u/ to /i/ after the alveolars /t d s z/ , consequently merging [t͡su] tsu into [t͡ɕi] chi , [su] su into [ɕi] shi , and both [d͡zu] dzu and [zu] zu into [d͡ʑi] ji . It also lacks /z/ as a distinctive phoneme, having merged it into /d͡ʑ/ . The bilabial fricative /ɸ/ has sometimes been transcribed as the cluster /hw/ , since, like Japanese, /h/ allophonically labializes into [ɸ] before

2968-634: 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. Multiple English words were introduced. After Okinawa's reversion to Japanese sovereignty, Japanese continued to be the dominant language used, and the majority of the youngest generations only speak Okinawan Japanese . There have been attempts to revive Okinawan by notable people such as Byron Fija and Seijin Noborikawa , but few native Okinawans know

3024-637: Was officially recorded as such in 1605, in Ryūkyū Shintō-ki (A Record of Ryūkyū Shinto) by Taichū Shōnin, a Japanese Buddhist monk. In 1633, the shrine was destroyed by fire; and it was re-built. Following the Meiji Restoration , the Ryūkyū Kingdom was dissolved and formally annexed by Japan as Okinawa Prefecture. The shrine was formally established as a Shinto shrine under the Imperial Household Agency in 1890, and designated as

3080-415: Was recognized in the system of State Shinto. It is among the ranked, nationally significant shrines or Kanpei-shōsha ( 官幣小社 ) . According to legend, it was founded after a fisherman, who had come to that spot to fish everyday, caught a mysterious stone. He began to pray to it, and began to receive better hauls in his fishing; the stone glowed, and the man treasured it. However, the gods ( kami ) stole

3136-528: Was the heart of Japanization, where Okinawan children were taught Japanese and punished for speaking their native language, being told that their language was just a "dialect". By 1945, many Okinawans spoke Japanese, and many were bilingual. During the Battle of Okinawa , some Okinawans were killed by Japanese soldiers for speaking Okinawan. Language shift to Japanese in Ryukyu/Okinawa began in 1879 when

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