contributor
26,980
edits
Changes
From SamuraiWiki
Jump to navigationJump to searchno edit summary
*''Okinawan'': ウチナーグチ / 沖縄口 ''(uchinaa-guchi)''
The Okinawan language is one of several [[Ryukyuan languages]] spoken in the [[Ryukyu Islands]]. It is spoken chiefly on the [[Okinawa Island|island of Okinawa]], and by members of the Okinawan diaspora in mainland Japan, and elsewhere in the world. The Ryukyuan languages, along with [[Japanese language|Japanese]], form the Japonic language group. The split in the proto-Japonic language which led to the separate development of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages is generally believed to have occurred around the third or fourth century CE.<ref>[[Robin Thompson|Thompson, Robin]]. ''The Music of Ryukyu''. ''Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music''. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. p304.</ref>
Okinawan is generally divided into two dialects. The Nakijin dialect, spoken in Northern Okinawa, and sometimes called the Kunigami language or dialect, takes its name from [[Nakijin]], the former capital of the northern Okinawan kingdom of [[Hokuzan]]. The Southern Okinawan dialect, also known as the Shuri-Naha dialect, is the more dominant of the two, and is a combination of the aristocratic dialect of [[Shuri]] (the royal capital of the [[Kingdom of Ryukyu|Kingdom of Ryûkyû]]) and that of [[Naha]] (the kingdom's chief port).
==Vocabulary and Phonology==
The Okinawan language derives chiefly from the same roots as [[classical Japanese]], and thus the vast majority of words in the language are cognates of words in classical or modern Japanese. Though some Okinawan vocabulary represents borrowing from Chinese and Southeast Asian sources, overall the language borrows from Chinese significantly less than modern Japanese; for many words, the Okinawan vocabulary corresponds more closely with the ''kun-yomi'' ("native Japanese") reading for a [[kanji]] such as would have been used more commonly in classical Japanese, rather than the ''on-yomi'' ("Chinese-style") reading used more commonly today in modern Japanese.
For the most part, the Okinawan language features the same sounds as the Japanese language, albeit shifted slightly. That is to say, the precise pronunciation of a given sound, e.g. /o/ or /chi/, is somewhat different in Okinawan from the Japanese pronunciation. However, overall, the Okinawan language operates on the same syllabary as the Japanese language. Some exceptions are the inclusion in Okinawan of some sounds not found in Japanese, such as /fa/, /fe/, /fi/, /si/, /ti/, /di/, /tu/, and /du/, and the lack of differentiation between some sounds differentiated in Japanese. The sounds /su/ and /shi/, for example, are often interchangeable in Okinawan, the former an element of the Naha dialect, and the latter prominent in the Shuri dialect. The word ''gusuku'', meaning "fortress" or "castle," and alternatively written/pronounced as ''gushiku'', is a good example of this.
Many vowel and consonant sounds are shifted, in a largely regular and predictable manner, as compared to cognates in the Japanese language. The word "Uchinaa" (J: Okinawa) itself is a good example of this, as it reflects that Okinawan words often use 'u' where their Japanese equivalents use 'o', 'chi' in place of 'ki', and 'aa' in place of 'awa'.
No word in Okinawan consists of only a single mora, and vowel sounds are often lengthened as compared to the corresponding word in Japanese. One example of this is the word for "eye" (''me'' め in Japanese, ''mii' みー in Okinawan).
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Japanese sound !! Okinawan sound !! Examples
|-
| e || i || fune->funi, mame->maami, te->tii
|-
| o || u || tori->tui, Yamato->Yamatu
|-
| ki || chi || Okinawa->Uchinaa
|-
| tsu || chi || tsume->chimi, tsukuru->chikuin
|-
| ari, ori, uri || ai, ui, ui || hari->haai, tori->tui, Shuri->Sui
|-
| awa || aa || Okinawa->Uchinaa
|}
Many other words in the Okinawan language bear no direct resemblance or correspondence to the Japanese word of the same meaning. Some examples of this include the word [[gusuku]] for "fortress" or "castle" (rather than the Japanese ''shiro'' or ''jô''), ''nishi'' for "north" (in contrast to the Japanese ''kita''), and ''nchu'' for "person of" in contrast to the Japanese ''no hito'' (e.g. J: Shima-no-hito, O: Shimanchu). The Okinawan words for east and west, ''agari'' and ''iri'', bear no linguistic connection to the Japanese ''higashi'' and ''nishi'', but do show obvious relation to the Japanese words for "rise" (as in rising in the east, ''agaru'') and "enter" (as in, to sink below the horizon in the west, ''iru'').
Okinawan also makes use of a glottal stop, like the 'okina in the Hawaiian language (e.g. as in the word "Hawai'i"), which Japanese does not. The Okinawan language makes a distinction between the words <i>'yaa</i> (with a glottal stop at front, meaning "you") and ''yaa'' (without a glottal stop, meaning "house").
==Grammar==
Okinawan sentence structure and grammar bears strong similarities with modern Japanese, and even stronger similarities with classical Japanese. Like Japanese, it relies heavily on the use of particles to connect parts of speech, and places the verb at the end of sentences (or clauses). Like classical Japanese, but somewhat unlike modern Japanese, Okinawan conjugates not only verbs, but adjectives and adverbs as well. The phenomenon of ''kakari-musubi'', all but absent in modern Japanese but prominent in classical Japanese, plays a significant role in Okinawan as well.
In the aristocratic literary language of Shuri, or when trying to lend a more classical or high-class feel to one's speech, the sound ''ya'' (や) is the standard topic marker, equivalent to ''ha'' (は) as used in Japanese. However, in the Naha dialect, and generally in non-literary Okinawan, the topic marker takes different forms depending on the sound immediately preceding it, often simply lengthening that sound. The first-person pronoun ''wan'' (related to the Japanese ''ware'' 我) takes an irregular topic marker, becoming ''wannee''.
{|
! Word ending !! Topicalizer !! Example !! Topicalized Example !!
|-
| Double-vowel || ya || Uchinaa (Okinawa); mii (eye) || Uchinaa-ya; mii-ya
|-
| single 'a' || lengthened ''aa'' || Naafa (Naha) || Naafaa
|-
| single 'e' or 'i' || lengthened ''ee'' || funi (boat); tui (bird) || funee; tuee
|-
| single 'o' or 'u' || lengthened ''oo'' || toofu (tofu); gusuku (fortress) || toohoo; gusukoo
|-
| single 'nu', 'no', or 'n' || lengthened ''noo'' || [[sanshin]] || sanshinoo
|}
==Writing==
Documents in the Ryûkyû Kingdom were typically written either entirely in Chinese characters, as in the Japanese practice of ''[[kanbun]]'', in a combination of Chinese characters and Japanese phonetic ''[[kana]]'', or purely in ''kana''.
Some modern linguists have invented new ''kana'' to represent those sounds in Okinawan which differ from their Japanese pronunciations, or which do not exist in Japanese. However, outside of such contexts, Okinawan is typically written using the standard ''kana'' characters used in Japanese. Katakana is frequently used in Japan for Okinawan words, marking them as foreign (e.g. ウチナー, ''uchinaa''), though many in Okinawa use hiragana, marking these words as non-foreign (e.g. うちなー, ''uchinaa'').
Reading traditional Okinawan texts is complicated by the traditional tendency to use the ''kana'' for the equivalent Japanese pronunciation, even though the Okinawan writer & reader would likely see it and pronounce it in the Okinawan manner. For example, a traditional document might use the ''kana'' おきなわ, corresponding directly to ''o-ki-na-wa'', intending it to be read ''u-chi-na-a''.
{{stub}}
==References==
*Sakihara Mitsugu and Stewart Curry (ed.). ''Okinawan-English Wordbook''. University of Hawaii, 2006.
<references/>
[[Category:Ryukyu]]
[[Category:Resource Articles]]
The Okinawan language is one of several [[Ryukyuan languages]] spoken in the [[Ryukyu Islands]]. It is spoken chiefly on the [[Okinawa Island|island of Okinawa]], and by members of the Okinawan diaspora in mainland Japan, and elsewhere in the world. The Ryukyuan languages, along with [[Japanese language|Japanese]], form the Japonic language group. The split in the proto-Japonic language which led to the separate development of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages is generally believed to have occurred around the third or fourth century CE.<ref>[[Robin Thompson|Thompson, Robin]]. ''The Music of Ryukyu''. ''Ashgate Research Companion to Japanese Music''. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, 2008. p304.</ref>
Okinawan is generally divided into two dialects. The Nakijin dialect, spoken in Northern Okinawa, and sometimes called the Kunigami language or dialect, takes its name from [[Nakijin]], the former capital of the northern Okinawan kingdom of [[Hokuzan]]. The Southern Okinawan dialect, also known as the Shuri-Naha dialect, is the more dominant of the two, and is a combination of the aristocratic dialect of [[Shuri]] (the royal capital of the [[Kingdom of Ryukyu|Kingdom of Ryûkyû]]) and that of [[Naha]] (the kingdom's chief port).
==Vocabulary and Phonology==
The Okinawan language derives chiefly from the same roots as [[classical Japanese]], and thus the vast majority of words in the language are cognates of words in classical or modern Japanese. Though some Okinawan vocabulary represents borrowing from Chinese and Southeast Asian sources, overall the language borrows from Chinese significantly less than modern Japanese; for many words, the Okinawan vocabulary corresponds more closely with the ''kun-yomi'' ("native Japanese") reading for a [[kanji]] such as would have been used more commonly in classical Japanese, rather than the ''on-yomi'' ("Chinese-style") reading used more commonly today in modern Japanese.
For the most part, the Okinawan language features the same sounds as the Japanese language, albeit shifted slightly. That is to say, the precise pronunciation of a given sound, e.g. /o/ or /chi/, is somewhat different in Okinawan from the Japanese pronunciation. However, overall, the Okinawan language operates on the same syllabary as the Japanese language. Some exceptions are the inclusion in Okinawan of some sounds not found in Japanese, such as /fa/, /fe/, /fi/, /si/, /ti/, /di/, /tu/, and /du/, and the lack of differentiation between some sounds differentiated in Japanese. The sounds /su/ and /shi/, for example, are often interchangeable in Okinawan, the former an element of the Naha dialect, and the latter prominent in the Shuri dialect. The word ''gusuku'', meaning "fortress" or "castle," and alternatively written/pronounced as ''gushiku'', is a good example of this.
Many vowel and consonant sounds are shifted, in a largely regular and predictable manner, as compared to cognates in the Japanese language. The word "Uchinaa" (J: Okinawa) itself is a good example of this, as it reflects that Okinawan words often use 'u' where their Japanese equivalents use 'o', 'chi' in place of 'ki', and 'aa' in place of 'awa'.
No word in Okinawan consists of only a single mora, and vowel sounds are often lengthened as compared to the corresponding word in Japanese. One example of this is the word for "eye" (''me'' め in Japanese, ''mii' みー in Okinawan).
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Japanese sound !! Okinawan sound !! Examples
|-
| e || i || fune->funi, mame->maami, te->tii
|-
| o || u || tori->tui, Yamato->Yamatu
|-
| ki || chi || Okinawa->Uchinaa
|-
| tsu || chi || tsume->chimi, tsukuru->chikuin
|-
| ari, ori, uri || ai, ui, ui || hari->haai, tori->tui, Shuri->Sui
|-
| awa || aa || Okinawa->Uchinaa
|}
Many other words in the Okinawan language bear no direct resemblance or correspondence to the Japanese word of the same meaning. Some examples of this include the word [[gusuku]] for "fortress" or "castle" (rather than the Japanese ''shiro'' or ''jô''), ''nishi'' for "north" (in contrast to the Japanese ''kita''), and ''nchu'' for "person of" in contrast to the Japanese ''no hito'' (e.g. J: Shima-no-hito, O: Shimanchu). The Okinawan words for east and west, ''agari'' and ''iri'', bear no linguistic connection to the Japanese ''higashi'' and ''nishi'', but do show obvious relation to the Japanese words for "rise" (as in rising in the east, ''agaru'') and "enter" (as in, to sink below the horizon in the west, ''iru'').
Okinawan also makes use of a glottal stop, like the 'okina in the Hawaiian language (e.g. as in the word "Hawai'i"), which Japanese does not. The Okinawan language makes a distinction between the words <i>'yaa</i> (with a glottal stop at front, meaning "you") and ''yaa'' (without a glottal stop, meaning "house").
==Grammar==
Okinawan sentence structure and grammar bears strong similarities with modern Japanese, and even stronger similarities with classical Japanese. Like Japanese, it relies heavily on the use of particles to connect parts of speech, and places the verb at the end of sentences (or clauses). Like classical Japanese, but somewhat unlike modern Japanese, Okinawan conjugates not only verbs, but adjectives and adverbs as well. The phenomenon of ''kakari-musubi'', all but absent in modern Japanese but prominent in classical Japanese, plays a significant role in Okinawan as well.
In the aristocratic literary language of Shuri, or when trying to lend a more classical or high-class feel to one's speech, the sound ''ya'' (や) is the standard topic marker, equivalent to ''ha'' (は) as used in Japanese. However, in the Naha dialect, and generally in non-literary Okinawan, the topic marker takes different forms depending on the sound immediately preceding it, often simply lengthening that sound. The first-person pronoun ''wan'' (related to the Japanese ''ware'' 我) takes an irregular topic marker, becoming ''wannee''.
{|
! Word ending !! Topicalizer !! Example !! Topicalized Example !!
|-
| Double-vowel || ya || Uchinaa (Okinawa); mii (eye) || Uchinaa-ya; mii-ya
|-
| single 'a' || lengthened ''aa'' || Naafa (Naha) || Naafaa
|-
| single 'e' or 'i' || lengthened ''ee'' || funi (boat); tui (bird) || funee; tuee
|-
| single 'o' or 'u' || lengthened ''oo'' || toofu (tofu); gusuku (fortress) || toohoo; gusukoo
|-
| single 'nu', 'no', or 'n' || lengthened ''noo'' || [[sanshin]] || sanshinoo
|}
==Writing==
Documents in the Ryûkyû Kingdom were typically written either entirely in Chinese characters, as in the Japanese practice of ''[[kanbun]]'', in a combination of Chinese characters and Japanese phonetic ''[[kana]]'', or purely in ''kana''.
Some modern linguists have invented new ''kana'' to represent those sounds in Okinawan which differ from their Japanese pronunciations, or which do not exist in Japanese. However, outside of such contexts, Okinawan is typically written using the standard ''kana'' characters used in Japanese. Katakana is frequently used in Japan for Okinawan words, marking them as foreign (e.g. ウチナー, ''uchinaa''), though many in Okinawa use hiragana, marking these words as non-foreign (e.g. うちなー, ''uchinaa'').
Reading traditional Okinawan texts is complicated by the traditional tendency to use the ''kana'' for the equivalent Japanese pronunciation, even though the Okinawan writer & reader would likely see it and pronounce it in the Okinawan manner. For example, a traditional document might use the ''kana'' おきなわ, corresponding directly to ''o-ki-na-wa'', intending it to be read ''u-chi-na-a''.
{{stub}}
==References==
*Sakihara Mitsugu and Stewart Curry (ed.). ''Okinawan-English Wordbook''. University of Hawaii, 2006.
<references/>
[[Category:Ryukyu]]
[[Category:Resource Articles]]
