Talk:Ryukyuan languages
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[edit] Origin of Okinawan
I believe the original Okinawan Language came from China. If you want to narrow down which part of China, just look at the Okinawan Tombs, Castles, utensils and fabrics. We Okinawans also have Portuguese influence as well. In Okinawa, we even have a section or partial lots with homes for the Chinese professors that came to teach Okinawans how to read and write "Kangi". The old Okinawan news paper where written all in Kangi, not like the Japanese writing kangi with hiragana or katakana. The Japanese influence in Okinawa caused the next generations to include Japanese language into their dailect. The People of Miyako, Island, I believe are made up of people from many different countries. In old days, the criminals were sent to that Island, I was told when I was young. Also, maybe some foreigners that came to Okinawa Island by accident was sent there because of the language barrier. The music tone sounds the same but the language is so different from the main Okinawa Island and the others. No, Okinawan language is not Japanese origin, it's Chinese. Thank you and my e-mail is mtshawaii@juno.com Mike Higa.
- Uhh... Okinawan linguists disagree with you. Also, even in Classical Okinawan (known from texts such as the Omorososhi) is Japonic, in fact it has less Chinese words than modern Okinawan. --Node 19:20, 24 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Indeed. It's fairly well shown by comparative and historical linguistic analysis that the Ryukyuan languages are closely related to the Japanese language, and are lumped together in a family called "Japonic". What relation that family has to other languages is still debated, but the most popular hypothesis is that the Japonic languages are historically related to the Manchu-Tungus languages according to what is called the "Altaic Hypothesis". The split between the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese probably happened only two or three thousand years ago, as evinced by regular sound changes in the two. — Ts'éiyoosh 03:29, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
On a completely different topic, I'd like to see some sort of citation for the "percent differences" given. Those sound somewhat suspicious as is, and should be at least clarified to refer to what part of the language (noun inventory, verb morphology, etc) is being measured and compared. — Ts'éiyoosh 03:33, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
- I'd also like to see some sources for this information. Until then, I am going to hide it into a comment. I study linguistics at the University of Helsinki and I've never heard of any ways of measuring the percentage of similarity between languages. One possibility is the portion of common words, but the percentages sound a bit too high, and definitely too accurate. Oghmoir 19:31, 29 Jan 2005 (UTC)
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- I believe they are lexicostatistical percentages, and can be found in a few sources including but not limited to "okinawago ziten" [Okinawan dictionary], the "ryuukyuu hougen onsei de-tabe-su" [Ryukyuan regional speeches voice-sample database] (online source), and "gengogaku daiziten serekusyon: nippon rettouno gengo" [Selection from the encyclopedia of linguistics: the languages of the Japanese archipelago]. I don't know the original source, though. --Node 02:19, 2 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Using HTML comments is discouraged. I moved the sentences in question here:
The Okinawa language is only 71% similar to Tokyo Japanese. Even the southernmost Japanese dialect (Kagoshima dialect) is only 72% similar to the northernmost Ryukyuan language (Amami). The Kagoshima dialect of Japanese, however, is 80% similar to Tokyo Japanese.
Pjacobi 19:44, 2005 Jan 29 (UTC)
I am against the merger, as "Okinawan language" is a language within "Ryukyuan languages", and unless the it is to be moved here along with all the other Ryukyuan language pages linked here, it should stay where it is. Further, this hasn't been discussed in a long time, and certainly not at any real length. I'm removing the "suggested merger" tags from both pages. Turly-burly 01:48, 2 February 2006 (UTC)
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- I'm wondering whether Ryukyuan languages have relationships with Formosan languages due to the proximity of the Ryukyu archipelago with Taiwan. Whlee 08:55, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
[edit] 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)
[edit] 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)
