By Naoki Watanabe
Okinawans are the people of Okinawa (沖縄—Uchinaa in Okinawan). They have their own language, known as Okinawan (沖縄口—Uchinaaguchi in Okinawan). However, the majority of the Japanese populace refers to it as 沖縄方言 (Okinawa dialect). This is a monumental mistake as Okinawan is not the same as Japanese and the language is different enough from Japanese to be considered a separate language.
This flawed view of Okinawan being a dialect of Japanese is also applied to the other Ryūkyūan languages: Amami, Yaeyama, Yoron, Miyako, and Yonaguni (calling Yonaguni a dialect is especially egregious1 as mutual intelligibility with Japanese is nearly nonexistent2 and it was formerly written in Kaida Dii—a script completely different from the Hiragana, Katakana, and Kanji used for Japanese and the Ryūkyūan languages) (see Appendix A for locations of Ryūkyūan languages).
The Ryūkyūan languages currently have a total of around 1.1 million speakers with Okinawan as the most widely spoken one with 980,000 speakers, according to Ethnologue3 (although other sources, such as The Endangered Language Project, provide a lower figure around 100,0004).
These languages are part of the Japonic language family (which consists of the Ryūkyūan languages, Japanese, and the extinct Kaya language). Furtheremore, Japan remains the only country in the world to continue to refer to Okinawan and the other Ryūkyūan languages as dialects. An example of this can be seen on the Wikipedia page for the Okinawan language, where all language versions of the page (save for the Japanese version) refer to it as the Okinawan language5.
Although it is true that the vast majority of the Japanese populace converses mainly in Japanese, Japan is by no means a completely monolingual state. Historically, Japan has had different languages spoken natively in Hokkaido (Ainu, Nivkh, and Orok), Tohoku (Emishi and Kesen), Kyushu (although the nature of this language is unclear), and most vigorously in Okinawa (the Ryūkyūan languages), which was once a completely different state altogether. Sadly, many of these languages are extinct (such as Kurile Ainu) or moribund (e.g. Hokkaido Ainu, Nivkh, and Yonaguni).
Moreover, apart from Ainu and possibly Nivkh, many Japanese are unaware of the existence of many of these languages and insensibly refer to them as mere 方言—hougen (dialects), which are often perceived as being associated with uneducated country people. This bigotry is likely a leftover effect of the Imperial Japanization Policy (皇民化政策) used by the Japanese Empire where the majority of languages apart from Japanese (specifically the Tokyo dialect) were classified as uncultured hougen that were to be exterminated. This policy even extended to languages that were totally different such as Okinawan (which even today is often called 沖縄方言—okinawa hougen).
Okinawan shares many similarities with Japanese. Apart from having the same writing system and similar words (“Help!” is 助きてぃ！—”Tashikiti” in Okinawa, similar to Japanese 助けて！”Tasukete”), it also has a similar grammar. An example of this is how both Japanese and Okinawan use what are called particles to mark nominative-accusative nouns (nominative nouns are words like I, you, he, and she while accusative nouns are pronouns like me, you, him, and her).
Japanese uses particles such as は (pronounced as “wa” when used as a particle) and が (ga) to indicate the nominative which is used to mark the subject of the sentence and accusative which is used to mark the object of the sentences such as in 太郎は水を飲む/飲んだ— “Tarō wa mizu wo nomu/nonda” (Tarō drinks the water/drank the water), which in Okinawan would be 太郎や水飲むん/飲むたん—”Taruu ya Miji numun/numutan”. は is used to mark 太郎 as the subject of the sentence, while を is used to mark 水 as the object of the sentence.
In Okinawan, や (ya) is analogous to は and is used to mark 太郎 as the subject of the sentence (there is no equivalent to を in Okinawan). Another sentence where this can be seen is 今日や早く—chuu ya feeku ((it’s) early today), which uses や to indicate 今日which means today (the Japanese equivalent to this sentence would be 今日は早い—kyou wa hayai). Furthermore, sentence endings can be changed to indicate politeness or future tense, as in Japanese.
This can be seen in the sentence 本を読みます— “Hon wo yomimasu” (“I will read a book”, in polite terms) as the Okinawan equivalent would be 書物読まびーん— “Sumuchi yumabiin” and the ending まびーん (-mabin) is equivalent to Japanese ます (-masu), which indicates both future tense and politeness, as opposed to ending a sentence with むん(-mun) (or simply む (-n) in Japanese). Japanese and Okinawan also both posses an SOV (subject-object-verb) grammar in the way sentences are formed. An example in Japanese is 私は本を買う/買います—”watashi wa hon wo kau/kaimasu” (I buy the book/I will buy the book), where 私 is the subject, 本 is the object and 買う/買います is the verb.
The Okinawan rendering of this sentence would be 我んや書物買—ゆん/買ーいびーん—”Wan ya sumuchi kooyun/kooibiin”, which uses the same structure as 我ん is the first person pronoun and subject analogous to 私, 書物 is the Okinawan word for book and the object (it should also be noted that this word is cognate with Old Japanese, not modern Japanese), and 買—ゆん/買ーいびーん serves as the verb. Another similarity of note is how it’s possible to fuse pronouns with indicators when speaking; in Japanese such an example would be the use of わしゃ— “washa”, which fuses the first person pronoun わし—washi and は—wa, and is often used by senior citizens. In Okinawan such phrases are used more extensively and the most prominent example would be 我んねー “wannee”, which is equivalent to Japanese 私は—”Watashi wa”. These and many other similarities between Japanese and Okinawan clearly show that the two languages are related and this was used to justify forced Japanization6.
Despite the presence of many similarities between Japanese and Okinawan, the languages are different enough to justify Okinawans’ tendencies to identify themselves as ethnically separate from Japanese on the basis of language alone7. The two languages have a mutual intelligibility between 58% and 65%8 9 (by comparison, the mutual intelligibility rate between Russian and Ukrainian is 62%10).
Such differences between Japanese and Okinawan are directly connected to ethnic and personal identity and are amongst the main reasons why people resisted the hougen fuda and culminated in the language persisting today. Older Okinawans still prefer Okinawan over Japanese (an example being Prof. Gibo’s father, who considers Okinawan his native language), and despite sharing cognates (words with the same root) with old Japanese, there are also many unrelated words (such as ちゃんぷーるー “chanpuru”, and it’s more likely that it was taken from an Austronesian language than it being a cognate with a word in Japanese.
Despite this, even today, many Okinawans will refer to their language as hougen and will rarely say 沖縄語—Okinawa go (Okinawan language). This is apparently a result of semantics. According to Prof. Gibo of Sophia University, the term hougen in the past had no negative connotations and only gained such connotations when European imperialism introduced the word “dialect” to Japan and the term hougen became the Japanese equivalent.
Prior to this, the term only meant “regional language” and is still used in this sense in China (which is where the Japanese term likely originates from). For this reason, it can be seen as pejorative for a Yamato Japanese person to use the term but not so much for an Okinawan to use it. The Okinawan former professor now rock star Fija Bairon condemns the use of the word and advocates the term Okinawa go instead11. However, he has been criticized by both linguists12 and other Okinawans for not considering the connotations of hougen used by Okinawans and for basing his thinking on American social influences (as Fija is half American and has lived in the US for a while).
When I visited Okinawa during my 11th grade school trip, I was the only person in my class (and possibly the entire school) who actually studied Okinawan beforehand and actively tried to use it (see Appendix F). This resulted in a warm reception from many Okinawans we encountered (I even received a finely made piece of pottery for free from an Okinawan craftsman on Ishigaki Island).
On the last day of our trip, when we were allowed to freely explore Naha (Naafa in Okinawan), I tried to use the language with nearly everyone I encountered and many of the people I encountered seemed pleased that I was using Okinawan, even though most of the people who responded were elderly (although in one case some Okinawan men who heard me trying to speak the language with random passerby approached me and encouraged me to speak the language).
However, I encountered a problem on one occasion when I went into an antique shop and jovially stated 今日拝なびら “chuu wuganabira” — Okinawan for hello. The shopkeeper rudely responded with 方言で話さないでください — “hougen de hanasanai de kudasai” — “please refrain from speaking in hougen”. I was taken aback by this shopkeeper’s rude behavior and I immediately suspected she was not Okinawan as her skin was too light (Okinawans tend to have darker skin than Yamato Japanese) and her Japanese lacked an Okinawan accent. However, this was the only incident where my speaking Okinawan was questioned and everyone else I encountered seemed to appreciate my efforts.
Overall, I believe that Okinawan and the other Ryūkyūan languages deserve respect and recognition from the majority of the Japanese populace as actual languages; it would be a tragedy if they died out as that would mean the rich indigenous culture of Ryūkyū would be consigned to oblivion and Japanese colonialism will ultimately be responsible for the total cultural and linguistic genocide of a nation if Ryūkyūan languages became extinct.
1 Ethnologue. (2004). Yonaguni. From Ethnologue: https://www.ethnologue.com/language/yoi/19
2 Heinrich, P. (2014, August 25). Use them or lose them: There’s more at stake than language in reviving Ryukyuan tongues. Retrieved from The Japan Times: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/25/voices/use-lose-theres-stake-language-reviving-ryukyuan-tongues/#.WI9YGrZ96Rs
3 Ethnologue. (2000). Okinawan, Central. From Ethnologue: https://www.ethnologue.com/language/ryu/19
4 The Endangered Languages Project. (n.d.). South-Central Okinawan. Retrieved from The Endangered Languages Project: http://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/ryu
5 Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. (2017, January 21). Okinawan language. Retrieved 09:02, January 30, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Okinawan_language&oldid=761144531
6 Ainu Association of Hokkaido . (n.d.). Ainu Historical Events (Outline). From Ainu Association of Hokkaido : http://www.ainu-assn.or.jp/english/eabout05.html
7 Heinrich, P. (2014, August 25). Use them or lose them: There’s more at stake than language in reviving Ryukyuan tongues. Retrieved from The Japan Times: http://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/25/voices/use-lose-theres-stake-language-reviving-ryukyuan-tongues/#.WI9YGrZ96Rs
8 Funatsu, Y. (October 28, 2015), Personal Interview. Shinjuku Asahi Culture Center, Tokyo, Japan.
9 Gibo, L. (January 30, 2017), Personal Interview. Sophia University, Tokyo, Japan
10 Arizona State University. (n.d.). Ukrainian. From College of Humanities Critical Languages Program: http://clp.arizona.edu/ukrainian
11 Fija, B & Heinrich, P. (n.d.). “Wanne Uchinanchu – I am Okinawan.” Japan, the US and Okinawa’s Endangered Languages. Retrieved from The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus: http://www.japanfocus.org/-Fija-Bairon/2586
12 Funatsu, Y. (October 28, 2015), Personal Interview. Shinjuku Asahi Culture Center, Tokyo, Japan.
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