Changes

==Writing==

==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''.  

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''. Internal administrative documents were typically written almost entirely in ''kana'', with a minimum of Chinese characters, and in the Okinawan language; communications with China were written in Chinese, and from quite early, communications with Japan were written in the Japanese form of writing known as ''wayô kanbun''.<ref>Chan, Ying Kit. “A Bridge between Myriad Lands: The Ryukyu Kingdom and Ming China (1372-1526).” Thesis, National University of Singapore, 2010, 70. http://scholarbank.nus.edu.sg/handle/10635/20602.</ref>

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'').

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''.

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'', and would not write うちなー, as we might today to explicitly indicate the Okinawan reading/pronunciation.

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