The Asia-Pacific Journal | Japan Focus Volume 7 | Issue 19 | Number 2 | Article ID 3138 | May 09, 2009

1

The Ryukyus and the New, But Endangered, Languages ofJapan

Patrick Heinrich, Fija Bairon, Matthias Brenzinger

The Ryukyus and the New, ButEndangered, Languages of Japan

Fija Bairon, Matthias Brenzingerand Patrick Heinrich

Luchuan (Ryukyuan) languages are nolonger Japanese dialects

On 21 February 2009, the international motherlanguage day, UNESCO launched the onlineversion of its ‘Atlas of the world’s languages indanger’. This electronic version that will alsobe published as the third edition of theUNESCO Atlas in May 2009, now includes theLuchuan [Ryukyuan] languages of Japan(UNESCO 2009). ‘Luchuan’ is theUchinaaguchi (Okinawan language) term forthe Japanese ‘Ryukyu’. Likewise ‘Okinawa’ is‘Uchinaa’ in Uchinaaguchi. Well taken,UNESCO recognizes six languages of theLuchu Islands [Ryukyu Islands] of which twoare severely endangered, Yaeyama andYonaguni, and four are classified as definitelyendangered, Amami, Kunigami, Uchinaa[Okinawa] and Miyako (see UNESCO 2003 forassessing language vitality and endangerment).

Through publication of the atlas, UNESCOrecognizes the linguistic diversity in present-day Japan and, by that, challenges the long-standing misconception of a monolingualJapanese nation state that has its roots in thelinguistic and colonizing policies of the Meijiperiod. The formation of a Japanese nation

state with one unifying language triggered theassimilation of regional varieties (hogen) underthe newly created standard ‘national language’(kokugo) all over the country (Carroll 2001).What is more, through these processes, distinctlanguages were downgraded to hogen, i.e.mere ‘dialects’ in accordance with thedominant national ideology (Fija & Heinrich2007).

Fija Bairon teaching an Uchinaaguchilanguage class at Duisburg-Essen

University (Germany)

The entire group of the Luchuan languages –linguistic relatives of the otherwise isolatedJapanese language – is about to disappear.These languages are being replaced bystandard Japanese (hyojungo or kyotsugo) as aresult of the Japanization of the LuchuanIslands, which started with the Japaneseannexation of these islands in 1872 and wasmore purposefully carried out after theestablishment of Okinawa Prefecture in 1879.In public schools, Luchuan children were

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

2

educated to become Japanese and they were nolonger allowed to speak their own language atschools following the ‘Ordinance of dialectregulation’ (hogen torishimari-rei) in 1907(ODJKJ 1983, vol. III: 443-444). SpreadingStandard Japanese was a key measure fortransforming Luchu Islanders into Japanesenationals and for concealing the fact thatJapanese was multilingual and multicultural(Heinrich 2004).

The US occupation of Uchinaa after World WarII, which – at least formally – ended in 1972,marks the final stage in the fading of theLuchuan languages. In their attempts toseparate Uchinaa from mainland Japan,Americans emphasized the distinctiveness ofthe Luchuan languages and cultures andencouraged their development. This US policyof dividing Luchuan from Japan, however,backfired and gave rise to a LuchuanJapanization movement. Today, even theremaining – mainly elderly - Luchuan languagespeakers generally refer to their languages ashogen, i.e. Japanese ‘dialects’, accepting in sodoing the downgrading of their heritagelanguages for the assumed sake of nationalunity.

In support of the UNESCO approach, SakiyamaOsamu, professor emeritus of linguistics at theNational Museum of Ethnology, stated that “adialect should be treated as an independentlanguage if its speakers have a distinct culture”(Kunisue 2009). However, linguistic studiesalso prove that these speech forms should betreated as languages in their own right (e.g.Miyara 2008), distinct both from Japanese aswell as from one another. According to resultsemploying the lexicostatistics method (Hattori1954), the Luchuan languages share onlybetween 59 and 68 percent cognates withTokyo Japanese. These figures are lower thanthose between German and English. Scholars,as well as speakers, agree that there is nomutual intelligibility between these languages(Matsumori 1995). Thus calling them hogen

(dialects of Japanese) may satisfy nationaldemands of obedience but is problematic onlinguistic and historical grounds.

Luchuan language description anddialectology

The two most important aspects of theUNESCO initiative for the Luchuan languagesare, first, the encouragement to writegrammars and dictionaries, i.e. to initiate a newphase of language documentation and, second,to lend support, by recognition, for communityand official language maintenance activities.Despite the generally high standards oflinguistic scholarship in Japan, thedocumentation of the Luchuan languagesremains unsatisfactory (Ishihara 2009). Tworeasons might be responsible for this situation.First, the Luchuan languages arepredominantly still studied as ‘dialects’ ofJapan’s ‘national language’ (kokugo), orJapanese tout court. Second, Japan’sunfortunate division of linguistics into twobranches, i.e. ‘general linguistic’ (gengogaku)and ‘national [identity] linguistics’(kokugogaku) (Koyama 2003), resulted in analmost complete lack of studies on Luchuanlanguages by general linguists.

Kokugogaku linguists have always treated, andcontinue to treat, the Luchuan languages as‘dialects’. As a result, the Luchuan languageshave been studied in a dialectology framework,which proves inadequate for documentingdistinct languages. Japan’s ‘National Institutefor Japanese Language’ (Kokuritsu kokugokenkyujo, literally ‘National LanguageResearch Institute’) lists 211 publications onthe Luchuan languages in their ‘Yearbook ofNational Language Studies’ in the last 10years, 90% of which refer to these languages as‘dialects’. The category under which thesepublications are compiled in the yearbook is‘Okinawa and Amami dialects’ and even themost important journal for research on theLuchuan languages is incongruously named

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

3

‘Ryukyu no hogen’ (Ryukyu Dialects). Moststudies of Luchuan languages have beenconducted by dialectologists, who have notraining in language documentation. Hence, notsurprisingly, in employing UNESCO’s (2003)tool for assessing the quality of languagedocumentation, the Luchuan languages score ameagre 2 points out of a possible 5, adocumentation level referred to as‘fragmentary’.

Language documentation has developed overthe last decade in response to an increasedawareness of the threads to the world’slanguage diversity among linguists. The globalspread of language endangerment becamevisible in the 1990s in publications such asEndangered Languages, edited by RobertRobins and Eugenius Uhlenbeck in 1991.Studies followed, focusing on the underlyingprocesses that lead to language shift, as inLanguage Death, edited by MatthiasBrenzinger in 1992. Nikolaus Himmelmann(1998) and others initiated the development ofdescriptive linguistics towards languagesdocumentation, i.e. the recording, analysingand preserving of endangered languages. Inaddition to traditional linguistic descriptions,language documentation demands acomprehensive approach, which includes inaddition to classical language annotation andanalysis, description of the sociolinguisticenvironment, as well as questions concerningarchiving the data. Finally, scholars, such asArienne Dwyer (2006), began to reflect on therelationship between linguists, speakers andlanguages, i.e. on ethical and legal aspects oflanguage work. Today, languagedocumentation – unlike language description ofthe past – is predicated on a cooperativeapproach, i.e. the active involvement oflinguistic communities in the planning andconducting of fieldwork, as well as in thedissemination of the research results.

In order to improve language documentation inthe Luchuan islands one would need to

encourage linguists trained in languagedocumentation to conduct research on Japan’sendangered languages and at the same timeinvolve the existing kokugogaku studies (andscholars) within a language documentationframework. The recognition of the languagestatus in UNESCO’s online atlas might prove animportant influence on this new researchoutline. How urgent and important a thoroughreconsidering of existing works on the Luchuanlanguages really is can be seen in thepublications of the ‘Endangered Languages ofthe Pacific Rim’ project. While explicitly aimingto document endangered languages, allpublications of the project series perpetuatethe image of the Luchuan languages as‘dialects’ of ‘national language’. Research ofthis type is indifferent towards, at best, and atworst undermines community efforts torevitalizing local languages. Statements likethe following, both taken from publications ofthe ‘Endangered Languages of the Pacific Rim’project have a devastating effect on languagedocumentation and maintenance activities.

“Apart from the material recordedand preserved by researchers, thetraditional dialects of the islandsand communities of the Ryukyuscannot escape oblivion.” (Uemura2001: 193).

And

“People have to learn a differentlanguage. It is desirable for themto enter into the world of commonJapanese language as soon aspossible. The old traditionaldialects are becoming useless fortheir social lives.” (Izuyama 2003:12).

This is not exactly the stance one might expect

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

4

from scholars working on endangeredlanguages, but more importantly, these viewsfuel the ideologically and political mediatedmisconceptions that there is only one languagein Japan and that there is no future, even forthe so-called Luchuan ‘dialects’. See Heinrich(2009a) for discussion of possible uses,functions and benefits of the Luchuanlanguages in the 21st century.

The current situation of Luchuan languagedocumentation is a result of a politically andideologically marred research policy. The firstassessment of the Luchuan languages as‘dialects’ of Japanese were made by Japaneseadministrators in the wake of Japan’sannexation of the Luchu Kingdom, without anylinguistic research. In negotiating withLuchuan, actually mainly with Chineseauthorities over the future affiliation and statusof the Luchu Islands, ‘Ryukyu DispensationSuperintendent’ (Ryukyu shobunkan) MatsudaMichiyuki stressed the ‘historical, cultural andlinguistic’ correspondences between Japan andthe Luchu Islands (Oguma 1998: 28-29). Thefirst linguistic research revealed a quitedifferent picture. Basil Hall Chamberlain’spioneering study of the Luchuan languages,conducted in 1893, established evidence of ashared Luchuan-Japanese genealogy. Inexplaining the difference betweenUchinaaguchi [Uchinaa language] andJapanese, Chamberlain (1895 [1999]: 6) wrote:

“On the whole, we shall not be farfrom wrong if we compare themutual relation of the twolanguages to that of Spanish andItalian, or perhaps rather ofSpanish and French.”

Chamberlain’s analysis did not comply withJapanese national ideologies which stressed thefirm division of a ‘national language’ into two‘greater dialects’ (dai-hogen), i.e. ‘Ryukyugreater dialects’ (Ryukyu dai-hogen) and

‘homeland greater dialects’ (naichi dai-hogen).This classification was established by thefounding father of Japanese dialectology, TojoMisao, in his groundbreaking ‘Dialect map ofGreater Japan’ (Dai-nihon hogen chizu). Tojo(1927: 18) adopted Chamberlain's view that theLuchuan languages were genealogically relatedto Japanese but then concluded that both arepart of the ‘national language’ (kokugo):

“Since [Luchuan] is a languagewhich has split from the sameancestor language [as Japanese]and, besides this, the use of thelanguage is limited within theboundaries of the same nationstate, I would like to regard it asone dialect of the nationallanguage.” [All translations fromJapanese into English by PatrickHeinrich].

In a later publication, Tojo (1938: 6)substantiated his view, defining ‘dialect’ in thefollowing way:

“If a national language is brokenup into a number of languagegroups, which differ with regard topronunciation, lexicon andgrammar according to the differentregions in which they are used, thevarious groups are called dialects.”

Based on the ideologically-driven claim of Japanbeing a monolingual nation, Luchuan peoplewere not considered to be speaking languagesof their own. Kokugogaku linguists understoodit to be their duty to provide arguments thatallow for classifying the Luchuan languages asdialects, no matter how clumsy theseclassifications might be (‘greater dialects’,‘language group’). Having established Luchuanas a dialect of the ‘national language’, its

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

5

speakers consequently were also Japanese.Such arguments have been internalized bykokugogaku linguists ever since. Furthermore,this academic deprecation has led to awidespread acceptance of the inferior status oftheir language by many Luchuans.

Fija Bairon’s lecture on the ‘language –dialect’ issue on Youtube

Since its establishment during the period ofnation state formation, linguistic research hasbeen instrumental in creating the ideologicallymotivated imagination of a homogenousJapanese nation by marginalizing Japan’sminority languages (Koyama 2003). Up to now,Luchuan languages have almost exclusivelybeen studied by dialectologists and then ofcourse as ‘dialects’ and not by generallinguists, with the notable exceptions of OsumiMidori (2001) and Matsumori Akiko (1995).There is no tradition of languagedocumentation or sociolinguistic research ofthe Luchuan languages. The politicaldowngrading of the Luchuan languages as‘dialects’ has made them invisible in theinternational discourse on endangeredlanguages, as for example pointed out byBrenzinger (2007: xv). It still obstructsadequate language documentation andlinguistic research, and most crucially, itundermines language maintenance andrevitalization attempts.

The publication of the new UNESCO atlaschallenges these malpractices and is animportant support for pioneering attempts atLuchuan language documentation, such as theone carried out by Shimoji Michinori. Hisrecently compiled Reference Grammar of Irabu,a language variety of Miyako, was accepted bythe Australian National University as a PhDthesis in December 2008. Together with MiyaraShinsho’s (1995) Grammar of Yaeyama, these

works mark a new phase of research on theLuchuan languages. Karimata Shigehisa’s‘Ryukyuan audio database’ (Ryukyugo onseidetabesu) on the Shuri/Naha variety ofUchinaaguchi and the Nakijin variety of theKunigami language sets standards for thedocumentation of other Ryukyuan languages.Easily accessible due to its internet basedplatform, it is helpful and popular for speakers,activists and researchers alike.

Fija Bairon discussing Uchinaaguchi withKarimata Shigehisa

Language use in the Luchuan Islands

The crucial phase of the decline of the Luchuanlanguages started with communal languageshifts in the 1950s. At that time, local speechcommunities decided in large numbers not totransmit their languages to the followinggeneration. Languages vanish by being usedless often and in fewer domains. With the lossof the last domain, namely the home, theLuchuan languages have entered the finalphase of becoming extinct.

Experts on Luchuan language study are incomplete agreement that the naturalintergenerational language transmission of theLuchuan languages was interrupted in the early1950s (Hokama 1991, 2000, Matsumori 1995,

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

6

Motonaga 1994, Osumi 2001, Uemura 1997).This observation has been confirmed byempirical research across the Luchus (Heinrich2007, 2009b).

The question why language shift occurred atthis particular time is intriguing and Nakamoto(1990: 467) singles it out as one of the foremostdesiderata in Luchuan language studies. Thereason why we still lack conclusive insights intothese language shifts is that language shift istriggered by a complex mix of seeminglyendless variables, of which some of the mostimportant include economy, communitypatterns, family networks, marriage patterns,perception of cultural distance to other speechcommunities, religious practices, andassessment of local wealth and futureprospects. It is this complex mixture ofvariables which leads Brenzinger (1997: 278) toobserve that “no two language shifts resembleeach other”, a view supported by the case ofthe Luchuan languages. Consider the results ofquestionnaire surveys conducted by Heinrich in2005 and 2006.

Figure 1: Who do you address in locallanguage? (448 consultants)

This chart reveals different degrees oflanguage vitality, with the local language beingmost widely used in Yonaguni and Miyako.Yonaguni stands out because the locallanguage is widely used in the neighbourhood,due to the Gemeinschaft (community) character

of an isolated island with 1.600 inhabitants.Also worthy of notice is the frequent locallanguage use among work colleagues, which islargely due to the lack of development of thesecondary and tertiary economic sector inYonaguni. Note, however, that the locallanguage in Yonaguni is just as rarely usedtowards children as elsewhere. As a matter offact, the restraint on use of local languagetowards children is the most consistent resultacross the five speech communities of Amami,Uchinaa, Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni. (Thesixth Luchuan language according to theUNESCO atlas, i.e. Kunigami, was at that timeunfortunately not recognized as an independentlanguage by Heinrich). On the lower end oflanguage vitality, we find the Yaeyamalanguage. Since endangered languages arealways spoken in multilingual communities,specific domains of local language use must bemaintained to secure their continued use. Themost crucial domains for local language are thefamily and the local neighbourhood (shima orchima in the Luchuan languages, hence theterm shimakutuba, ‘community language’). Onthe basis of the results presented in Figure 1,we see that the prospects for languagemaintenance are, at present, most favourableon Miyako Island. For more detaileddiscussions on language shift in the Luchuislands see Heinrich and Matsuo (2009).

Luchuan language endangerment is the resultof the local language suppression campaignswhich started in 1907 and became most intenseafter 1940. They played a crucial role instigmatizing these languages (Heinrich 2004).Pivotal in subsequent oppression was the‘Movement for enforcement of standardlanguage’ (hyojungo reiko undo). A particularlynotorious and obviously quite effective form oflocal language repression was the use of‘dialect-tags’ (hogen fuda), the use of whichincreased drastically in the 1920s and 1930s,peaking at the time of the general mobilizationcampaign (Kondo 2006). A stigmatizing dialect-tag had to be worn around the neck to punish

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

7

students who used expressions from a Luchuanlanguage in the classroom.

Political developments after 1945, with the USpromotion of Luchuan nationalism, led manyLuchuans to escape the existing dismal livingconditions by seeking reversion to Japan. WhileUS occupiers sought to foster theestablishment of Luchuan as a nationallanguage, the Luchuan people opted for theopposite (Nakachi 1989: 27), “easily seeingthrough the ‘Ryukyu-ization’ campaign as apropaganda ploy to prolong the Americanmilitary occupation” (Rabson 1999: 146).Instead of an increase in language loyalty,Luchuans shifted from their Luchuan languagesto Japanese, even in their homes. The hardshipsthat Luchuans experienced under USoccupation, ranging from malaria outbreaks,confiscation of land, the complete destructionof infrastructure, the collapse of the educationsystem to the omnipresent discrimination byUS Americans (see e.g. Time Magazine1957-12-12) produced resistance measures. In1952, on the occasion of restoring Japan’ssovereignty in the San Francisco Peace Treaty,more than two thirds of the Luchuan electoratevoted for a return to Japan. However, the USoccupation continued (Kreiner 2001: 450-451).Nevertheless, reversion to Japan was notwelcome by all. Luchuans were left with bittermemories of Japan including pre-wardiscriminations of various sorts and the Battleof Okinawa when some Japanese military unitsimposed forced suicides (shudan jiketsu) onOkinawan citizens (see Oe 2008). Manyexpressed doubts about reversion.[i]

Reversion to Japan, as a means of improvinglivelihood in the Luchu islands, led manyLuchuans to engage in proving their genuineJapaneseness both to mainland Japan and tothe US (Oguma 1998: 564). Given theideological view of Japan as a monolingualnation state, speaking Japanese becameperceived as a key factor in the ‘reversionmovement’ (fukki undo) which called to ‘return

Japanese to Japan’ (nihonjin wa nihon e kaese).The reversion movement was predominantlyled by school teachers, who were responsiblefor both, a strong promotion of Japanese andfor constituting the reversion issue as a popularnon-party movement. Yara Chobyo(1902-1997), one of many Luchuan teacherturned politician at the time and a prominentleader of the reversion movement, promulgatedin 1968 a three-point strategy for reversion inwhich (language) education features mostprominently (quoted from Anhalt 1991: 45):

1. Educate Okinawanchildren as Japaneseaccording to the Japaneseschool sysytem

2. Inclusionon of teachersand all interested into‘pressure groups’

3. Spread of the reversionmovement on the Japanesemainland

Since the Luchuan languages had beenseverely stigmatized before, these languageswere given up without much regret at thattime. Hence, Japanese and not the Luchuanlanguages served as an emancipatory tool inthe eyes of many Luchuans under the USoccupation, which ended in 1972 but with USbases intact down to today. The languageswere sacrificed in hope for a better future.

The language shifts on the Luchu Islands in the1950s were sweeping (cf. Heinrich 2007,2009b). With the rise of the popular reversionmovement, parents started to address theirchildren in Japanese only. In Uchinaa, Yaeyamaand Yonaguni, those born after 1950 canusually no longer speak any Luchuan language.The situation on Amami and Miyako is slightlydifferent. Amami as part of KagoshimaPrefecture, has been considered to be part of

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

8

mainland Japan since the Meiji period by many.Language shift in Amami was probably lessdrastic due to the fact that the Amami peopledid not suffer from language repressioncampaigns. Therefore, language shift set inearlier in Amami than in the rest of the Luchuislands, but it was less drastic. The linguisticsituation in Amami is today the most stabilized.Mixed Amami-Japanese, called tonfutsugo(literally potato standard) is widely used acrossall three generations (Heinrich 2007).Secondly, in Amami the reversion movementended in December 1953, when the USreturned the island group to Japan. Miyako alsodid not experience radical language shifts, butfor quite different reasons. Miyako peopleshifted only gradually to Japanese. While adetailed account for this is not yet possible andwould require detailed field work, the reasonsseem to include the absence of in-migrationand continuance of subsistence farming.

Nevertheless, all Luchuan languages willdisappear by 2050 if speech communities andsupportive linguists do not act immediately.The establishment of Luchuan heritagelanguage education (Heinrich 2008) and ofJapanese language policy supportive ofJapanese diversity (Katsuragi 2005, 2007) arenecessary for preventing language loss. Officialsupport for language revitalization remainsweak but some promising developments can beobserved. The most important step wascertainly the establishment of the annualshimakutuba no hi (community language day)in 2004, an event supported by OkinawaPrefecture since 2006 (Ishihara 2009). In theabsence of more comprehensive and structuredinstitutional support, however, languagerevitalization will not be possible at some pointin the very near future, and it is alreadydifficult to reverse the language shift. Even inoutlying islands (ritto) the use of Luchuanlanguage is declining in neighbourhoods andonly older generations know and speakLuchuan languages. The retreat of locallanguage use on Iheiya, an outlying islands in

the vicinity of Uchinaa, led to the posting of abillboard which reads ‘On Sunday it'scommunity language’ (nichiyobi washimakutuba) (Nishimura 2001: 164).

Today, some of the few remaining domains ofLuchuan language use are arts, prayers,festivals and religious rites. However, even inthese domains, the Luchuan languages havebeen under pressure (see e.g. Clarke 1979,Ishihara 2009). What is more, these domainsare largely detached from daily life. Thecurrent situation is what Fishman (1991) hastermed a ‘folklorization’ scenario, i.e. theheritage language is no longer used forcommunication but merely as a symbol in verylimited situations. Languages can, however, notbe maintained with such symbolic functionsalone.

Especially among the young generation a kindof language crossing is widespread. These newhybrid varieties, in which Japanese is mixedwith elements of Luchuan languages, arewidely used in informal situations. They are notCreoles as some researchers claim (e.g.Karimata 2006), but are a specific kind ofmixed language. Creole languages emerge incontact situations in which two speechcommunities do not share a language, andhence create on the basis of their respectivelanguages a third language for the sake ofcommunication. Mixed languages, on the otherhand, are purposefully formed for the sake ofsetting their speakers apart from other speechcommunities (Kaye & Tosco 2003: 22). It goeswithout saying that present-day Luchuans andmainland Japanese do not encountercommunication problems which necessitate thecreation of a Creole. The grammatical matrix ofthese hybrid language varieties, which differconsiderably between islands and generations,is that of standard Japanese while the words orinflections inserted are either from the locallanguages or are in themselves mixtures oflocal language and Japanese (see below). Inthis way it is somewhat similar to incorporating

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

9

English words into Japanese, a process inwhich pronunciation and semantic range is alsoaffected.

Mixed language varieties (e.g.Uchinaayamatoguchi in Uchinaa or Tonfutsugoin Amami) account for a large percentage oflanguage choices in private domains today.Across the Luchu Islands, mixed languagevarieties accounted for 35% of the languagechoices among the age cohort between 30 and60; those younger than 30 chose mixedvarieties in 43% of the cases forcommunicating in private domains (Heinrich2007: 8-9).

As an example of mixed Uchinaa-Japanese(uchinaa-yamatoguchi) consider the followingtranscription of a radio program in Uchinaataken from Sugita (2009):

Yoosuru ni ano: [waja] mo [fuyuushii] suru hito ga:, [fuyuu shii]shita ato ni nani ka shippai shite[[kara nye]] “[Ee shimusa: yaanankuru nai sa]" tte iu no to:.[[Sakkoo]] ganbatte shigoto shiteite: nayande: “[chaasu ga yaa.chaasu ga yaa.]" tte mainichinayande ru hito ni: “[[Daijoobuyo.]] [Anshi] nayande mo [yaa,]isshookenmei [soo-ru bun][nankuru nai sa]” to. Iu tsukaikata:ryoohoo aru wake desu yo ne:.

[ ] uchinaaguchi

[[ ]] uchinaayamatoguchi

Japanese

Yoosuru ni ano: [shigoto] mo[namakete] iru hito ga, [namakete]ta ato ni nani ka shippai shite

“[Shooganai naa. nankuru nai sa”]tte iu no to, [[sugoku]] ganbatteshigoto shite ite, nayande, “dooshiyoo. doo shiyoo.” tte mainichinayande ru hito ni, “[[daijoobu dayo.]] [sonna ni] nayande mo [nee,]isshookenmei [yatteru bunnankuru nai sa]” to iu tsukaikataryoohoo aru wake desu yo ne.

English

I mean, well, to say the person whois doing the [job] [halfheartedly],after having worked[halfheartedly] and making amistake, “[Well, it can't be helped,you know. You deserve it.]”, and tosay to the person who is working[[very]] hard, but being worriedlike “[What should I do? Whatshould I do?]” being worried everyday, “[[Take it easy.]] Don't worry[so much]. When you are workingso hard, [it will work out.]” It isthat we have both usages, right?

The use of language mixed in such a way isUchinaayamatoguchi, with this particularutterance involving particularly extensiveUchinaaguchi. Despite the lack of any supportand prestige, these mixed language varietiesare currently spreading into an increasingnumber of domains in the Luchu islands. Thislanguage change from below is significantbecause it testifies to the lack of Luchuanlanguage proficiency among the youngergenerations as well as the desire to uselanguage varieties different from StandardJapanese in the Luchu Islands. Whether theongoing language shift to these mixed languagevarieties will ultimately replace the locallanguages in informal situations or whether it

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

10

will lead to heightened efforts at revitalisationof the local languages can at present not bepredicted with confidence.

Luchuan communities, in particular those inAmami, Uchinaa and Yaeyama are shifting fromStandard Japanese to mixed language inprivate domains today. Where the locallanguage is strongly stigmatized, as inYaeyama, such shift is less thorough than inplaces where the local language is lessstigmatized, such as in Amami. For the timebeing, it seems that both the Luchuanlanguages and Standard Japanese are decliningin favour of the use of the mixed language.Yonaguni is an exception in this respect; mixedlanguage varieties are not popular mainly dueto the outmigration of large parts of theyounger generation. Yonaguni has lost twothirds of its population in the last 50 years.

The shift towards mixed language in mostLuchuan Islands today reveals a yearning forlocal language. Whether this will lead toLuchuan language revitalization, to a furtherpopularization of mixed languages or to both,remains to be seen. Much hinges on thequestion whether Luchuans can maintain anddevelop beneficial usages for the Luchuanlanguages in the future.

Fija Bairon speaking Uchinaaguchi withhis Shuri language consultant Yakabi

Tomoko

Is there still a place for Luchuanlanguages?

Languages constitute important tools forprotecting and expanding the rights of theirspeakers and providing a range of meaningfuloptions. Local languages are, for instance, apowerful tool for renegotiating the terms ofintegration of speech communities within the

majority society (Kymlicka 1995: 67). It isexactly this that made Kayano Shigeru, the firstAinu to become a member of the Japanese Dietin 1994, deliver his inauguration speech in Ainu(Maher 2001). Kayano was a lifelong devotee ofteaching Ainu language and preserving Ainuculture. And may have been one of the very lastpeople fluent in Ainu as a daily language aswell as a ritual language (see e.g. Kayano1994). It is this instrumentality of languagewhich leads May (2001: 315) to state that “thearguments of minority groups for the retentionof their ethnic, cultural and linguistic identitiesare most often not characterized by a retreatinto traditionalism or cultural essentialism but,rather, by a more autonomous construction ofgroup identity and political deliberation.”Readers of Japan Focus will be aware thatthere is no shortage of arguments in the LuchuIslands for such deliberations. Luchuan issuessuch as the ‘schoolbook debate’ (Aniya 2008),the ‘base problem’ (Yoshida 2008), its related‘environmental problems’ (Sakurai 2008) andthe repeated ‘rape incidents by militarypersonnel’ (Johnson 2008) highlight thenecessity of renegotiating the conditionsaccording to which the Luchu Islands are partof the Japanese state. Language has not beenused as an argument by those seeking suchrenegotiation to their detriment.

Naming is yet another aspect, where thebenefits of local languages is manifest. As amatter of fact, Fija Bairon, deliberatelychanged his name from the Japanese reading‘Higa’ to the Uchinaa reading ‘Fija’. As motivefor changing his name, Fija points todiscrimination both towards him as an Uchinaaperson of Western appearance and Japanesenationality, and towards the culture heidentifies with, Uchinaa. Upon starting toappear in Uchinaa media regularly, ‘HigaBairon’ decided to henceforth adopt the name‘Fija Bairon’ (see Fija & Heinrich 2007 fordetails). His new name serves Fija as awelcome entry to discuss naming issues withpeople he meets or interacts with through the

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

11

media. It serves Fija as a means to inform andinfluence fellow Luchuans on their views onUchinaa’s cultural and linguistic heritage aswell as on their views of him as a person. Fijaalso prefers the Uchinaaguchi terms Uchinaa[Okinawa], Uchinaaguchi [Okinawan] andLuchu [Ryukyu], and this article follows histerminological suggestions.

Fija Bairon at Radio Okinawa

Personal names and toponyms give testimonyto Luchu’s oppressed past. Consider once morethe example of Fija / Higa. The name wasoriginally written with the Chinese characterdenoting ‘east’ (東) which was read ‘Fija’. Itwas only after 1624, when the Satsuma Domain(today’s Kagoshima Prefecture), which hadinvaded the Luchu Kingdom in 1609, tried toconceal its influence on the Kingdom from theShogunate, that Luchuans were forcefully madeto change the written characters of theirnames. The reason was that Satsuma wantedthem to appear more ‘foreign’ in order toobscure its influence on the Kingdom. This isthe background upon which the Chinesecharacters denoting ‘Fija’ were changed from東 into 比嘉 (Beillevaire 2001: 83). Still, thename continued to be read as ‘Fija’. After all,Fija sounded ‘un-Japanese’ enough to theSatsuma colonizers.

Things changed again with the establishment of

the Meiji state, i.e. the establishment of a stateinto which one imagined Japanese nationneeded to be moulded. The Chinese characters比嘉were then required to be read ‘Higa’ inorder to assimilate Luchuans with such ‘un-Japanese’ sounding names into the newlyinvented linguistic and cultural homogeneousnation. Recovering the names as read beforeassimilation into the Japanese nation stateexposes the problems of Luchu’s colonial past(see e.g. Christy 1993, Oguma 1998) and itslingering influences on its linguistic andcultural heritage today. How Luchuans namethemselves, their islands, communities andlanguages has not been for Luchuans to decide.If Luchuans want to restore control over theirfates, their cultural and linguistic heritage,then names might be a good place to start.This, in a nutshell, is what led Fija to abandonthe Japanese name Higa in favour of UchinaaFija.

Language rights and true recognition

Within the discourses on linguistic diversity,four different directions can be discerned, alinguistic, an aesthetic, an economic and amoral discourse. The linguistic discourse israther straightforwardly concerned with theongoing loss of linguistic diversity on anunprecedented scale. It has been framed in aseminal article by Michael Krauss (1992: 10) inwhich he wrote “[o]bviously we must do someserious rethinking of our priorities, lestlinguists go down in history as the only sciencethat presided obliviously over thedisappearance of 90% of the very field to whichit is dedicated.” This line of thought underlies alarge part of endangered language studies,which seek to describe languages before theyvanish in order to gain a better understandinginto parameters of human language or intohistories of language development and spread.The latter point has been repeatedly made withregard to the Luchuan languages (e.g. Uemura2003). The aesthetic discourse is likewisestraightforward. Many of us enjoy diversity,

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

12

regardless of whether it is in food, inlandscape, climate or in language. Luchuan‘folk music’ (Roberson 2003), literature(Molasky & Rabson 2000) or speech contests(Hara 2005) enjoy the popularity they dolargely due to an audience enjoying thediversity which is thereby presented. Economicdiscourse, that is to say, assessing theeconomic benefits which specific languagesoffer their speakers and the way such benefitscan be measured and influenced, is the leastdeveloped field. Pioneering work in thisdirection has been undertaken by scholars suchas Coulmas (1993) and Grin (2003). Such workstill awaits application in the field of Luchuanlanguages.

The moral discourse, finally, is well developedin the West but underdeveloped in Japan. Moraldiscourse on language endangerment stressesthat it is the languages of those on the shorterend of the power divide which get lost. Themajor underlying sentiments of this kind ofdiscourse are that of fairness and support forlinguistic diversity. Language frequentlyappears in key documents of the UnitedNations on human rights and there is a growingliterature on this topic in Western scholarship(e.g. de Varennes 1996). In Japan, the issue oflanguage rights has yet to emerge as aprominent form of discourse. The large scalelack of such discourse is primarily due toabsence of a frame for ethnic autochthonousminorities in Japan (see Nakamura 2006). Thatis to say, in contrast to the West, nointerpretive schema is readily available inJapan where the right to use one’s languagecan be derived from one’s ethnic, cultural orotherwise framed minority status. MostLuchuans do not conceive of themselves aslanguage minorities. Despite compellingevidence that the Luchuan language varietiesare languages in their own right, the majorityof Luchuans call these language varieties‘dialects’ (see Fija & Heinrich 2007). As wehave seen above, the framing of Luchuansbeing part of the Japanese ‘nation’ was the

main objective of the Luchuan irredentistreversion movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Itis hence not surprising to see that the soleattempt, to date, to claim language rights bythe Okinawan Society for LanguageRevitalization (Uchinaaguchi fukyu kyogikai) in2005 has so far been totally ignored. One of thekey tasks in language maintenance and therationalization for language documentation andlanguage education will thus be to frame therelevance of such endeavors in a Japanesecontext. Here, again, the inclusion of theLuchuan languages into the ‘Atlas of theworld’s languages in danger’ provides for muchneeded assistance to all those who seek tomaintain the Luchuan languages or to establishLuchuan heritage language education.

At present, institutional support for languagedocumentation and education programs isdismal. There exists only one chair for Luchuanlinguistics (Prof. Karimata Shigehisa at theUniversity of the Ryukyus), too little foroverseeing the six Luchuan languages on thevarious levels of linguistic description. Nostudy program on Ryukyuan linguistics hasbeen established. Contrary to expectations, the‘Research Centre for the Languages ofOkinawa’ (Okinawa gengo kenkyujo), foundedin 1978, has no rooms, no budget, no phonenumber, no homepage. It is merely a nameunder which activities of predominantlydialectological research are summarized. Threeresearch institutes for Luchuan Studies existworldwide (Hosei University Tokyo, WasedaUniversity Tokyo, University of Hawai’i). Thenotable fact is that none of them is located inthe Luchu Islands. Language documentationprograms are not established at these centresat present, nor does language constitute aresearch focus there. No archive exists whereLuchuan language data is collected, maintainedand made accessible to researchers andcommunity members. There are no conferenceson Luchuan linguistics and no plans orinitiatives exist for establishing institutions forLuchuan language documentation and

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

13

maintenance. In short, the lack of adequateinstitutional support and funding is anotherfactor which contributes to the endangermentof the Luchuan languages. Nevertheless, thereare some promising developments. Theyinclude the establishment of the ‘Society forOkinawan Language Revitalization’(Uchinaaguchi fukyu kyogikai) in 2000, theestablishment of a ‘Sub-committee ofEndangered Languages’ (Kiki gengo shoikai) atthe Linguistic Society of Japan in 2003, andShimoji Michinori’s recently establishedLuchuan linguist mailing-list. Many more suchactivities need to follow.

Matthias Brenzinger with linguisticsstudents at the University of the Ryukyus

Since language shift in the Luchu Islandsoriginated as a product of Japanese languagenationalism, reversing language shift requiresthe reversal of the ideological views which ledLuchuans to abandon these languages in firstplace. To a considerable extent, languageattitudes in the Luchu Islands have alreadychanged. This is evidenced by the positivelanguage attitudes many hold towards locallanguages today. A questionnaire survey by thelocal newspaper Ryukyu Shinpo revealed thatmore than 90% expressed some kind ofaffection for hogen, i.e. the Luchuan locallanguages (Ryukyu shinpo sha 2007: 25).Questionnaire surveys conducted by Heinrichrevealed that an average of 73% of all

consultants across the Luchuan Islands supportthe idea of introducing their respective locallanguage into local school education. In view ofsuch changing language attitudes, therestoration of the local languages mightbecome possible. This requires theestablishment of language documentation,revitalization and teaching programs. Towardsthis end, a reorientation of linguisticscholarship is unavoidable.

Fija Bairon discusses Uchinaaguchiteaching materials with Sugita Yuko

Japan’s newly recognized multilingualism in theUNESCO Atlas raises some inconvenientquestions about Japanese scholarship. How is itthat Japan, a country with hundreds ofuniversities and thousands of linguists neverdoubted that it was monolingual? What is itwhich makes scholars term languages‘dialects’, despite the well known lack ofmutual intelligibility and unshared linguisticinnovations between them, the need to developdistinct orthographies, independent languagedevelopment going back to pre-history, in otherwords, clear indications that they are dealingwith languages? Linguistic scholarship in whichsuch questions are not tackled reflects a clearpolitical agenda. It reproduces Meiji periodnation-imagining ideology despite the fact thatsuch ideology has long been critiqued (see e.g.Koyama 2003, Lee 1996, Yasuda 1999). The

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

14

suppression of linguistic diversity in Japantakes sometimes bizarre forms. A talk by FijaBairon at the University of the Ryukyus titled‘Hogen aibiran, Uchinaaguchi’ (‘It is not adialect, but Uchinaa language’) was reportedupon in BBTV’s ‘Dialect news’ (hogen nyusu)program in February 2009. On the other hand,it is exactly these kinds of contradictions whichlead to reflection and discussion about thestatus of the local languages in the Luchuislands.

Recognition of Japan’s linguistic diversity doesnot affect Japanese citizens alone. Recognitionof Japanese linguistic diversity and a shifttowards valuing Japan’s multilingual heritagealso affects perspectives and treatment of thelanguages of Japanese migrants. Japan’s policyof internationalization (kokusai-ka)incorporates strong elements of nationalism.Kokusai-ka policy has placed much attention onnational pride as a basis for Japaneseinteracting on a global level. Hence, therunning gag that kokusai-ka(‘internationalization’) is actually kokusui-ka(‘nationalization’). Much Japanese discourse onkokusai-ka regularly perceivesinternationalization as requiring a reaction tocounteract unwelcome outside influences. Itthus reproduces a rigid confrontation betweenthe Japanese state and the outside world (seee.g. McVeigh 2002).

In language shift driven by languagenationalism, the loss of local languages is thevictory of uniformity and of cultural andlinguistic intolerance. A state and itsinhabitants not valuing the linguistic andcultural plurality within the confines of its ownborders cannot convincingly claim to be justdoing that with regard to internationallanguages and cultures. One either valuesplurality or one does not. Gottlieb (2007) isright in her assessment that Japan’sinternationalization crucially requires anundoing of the foreigner-Japanese binary,which, in turn, involves reducing the

‘foreignness’ of foreigners and, of equallycrucial importance, debunking the idea of aninherent and uniform ‘Japaneseness’ amongJapanese nationals. In this sense, the LuchuIslands can serve as an important means forthe ‘de-parochialization’ of Japan’s majority,which recognizes only their language andculture. It can serve as a means to create moretolerant orders and attitudes, more befittingtoday’s diversifying and globalizing world.

The release of the online version of theUNESCO Atlas is an important instance ofinternationalizing the discourse on Japan’slanguage situation. The release of the atlascoincided with a workshop on languagedocumentation of the Luchuan languages(‘Linking language and heritage’), held at theUniversity of the Ryukyus in Nishihara Town,Okinawa.

The organizers of the workshop IshiharaMasahide and Patrick Heinrich

Leading scholars on the Ryukyuan languageswere part of this workshop and the UNESCOinitiative triggered an academic discourseamong them. Most scholars welcomed theacknowledgment of the Luchuan speech formsas languages and took this as a chance forencouraging language documentation. Othersreacted defensively and felt uneasy about thisemancipatory step pushed from abroad. Some

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

15

feared that the UNESCO atlas might haveopened a Pandora’s Box in that “we might endup with hundreds of languages in Japan”.

Christoph Goro Kimura (right) reportingthe release of the UNESCO Atlas to

participants of the workshop (from left:Shibuya Kenjiro, Yamada Takao, Patrick

Heinrich)

Some linguists frankly confess that even thoughtheir own research findings prove a deeplyrooted linguistic distance between Japaneseand the Luchuan languages and also amongthem, they still opt for retaining the termhogen, i.e. dialect, for purely socio-politicalreasons. Even speaking about Luchuan‘languages’, to them is almost a rebellious act,challenging no less than the unity of theJapanese nation state. Whether language ordialect, however, is not a question of personaltaste or an academic dalliance; the fate of theLuchuan languages heavily depends on theright choice. The right choice, we argue, canonly be that of a linguistic scholarship which isdetached from Japanese nation state ideologyand squarely centred on linguistic facts.

At the language documentation workshop:Hara Kiyoshi, Matthias Brenzinger,

Karimata Shigehisa, Patrick Heinrich

For decades, Japan and Japanese scholars haveplayed leading roles in UNESCO activitiesrelated to the documentation and support ofendangered languages all over the globe. Itwas long overdue that the Japanese finally alsostarted to look at the language diversity in theircountry. The new, now international discourseson Japanese language diversity will hopefullynot only spur language documentation, but alsofoster language maintenance activities. At amarket in Matsuo in Naha City, an elderlywoman stated that only old people andforeigners are interested in Uchinaaguchi. Shefurther suggested that professors at theUniversity are much better consultants onUchinaaguchi than the speakers on the ground.

Discrimination against the Luchuan languages,by downgrading them to Japanese dialects, hashad far-reaching effects: Even though manythousand still speak the Luchuan languages,most are no longer confident of their languageskills. They furthermore are reluctant to speaktheir languages in public. Community languageactivities on Uchinaaguchi generally do notinclude ‘ordinary speakers’, such as taxi driversor local traders. Language related activities areconfined to selected groups of intellectuals,who focus on discussing Uchinaaguchi as a

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

16

cultural treasure, with strong elitistpretensions. Those still speaking the languageson a regular basis are not part of suchactivities. They are not even aware of the factthat they are the true speakers, the only oneswho can actually safeguard the Luchuanlanguages.

Matthias Brenzinger, from the Institut fürAfrikanistik at the University of Cologne,Germany, coordinates the information onendangered African languages south of theSahara in UNESCO's Atlas of the World'sLanguages in Danger. He is SecretaryGeneral of WOCAL (World Congress ofAfrican Linguistics) and congress chair ofWOCAL6, which will be held at the Universityof Cologne in August 2009. Since 1995, he hasbeen concerned with language documentationin Japan and by Japanese scholars. He can becontacted by e-mail: Matthias.Brenzinger@Uni-Koeln.de

Fija Bairon hosts a radio show in Uchinaaguchion Radio Okinawa every Sunday from 13:00 to15:30. He teaches Uchinaaguchi at variousculture centres in Okinawa and has also taughtthe language at Germany’s Duisburg-EssenUniversity. He can be contacted by e-mail inJapanese: fijabyron@yahoo.co.jp

Patrick Heinrich is a sociolinguist and visitingresearcher at the University of the Ryukyus. Heis currently conducting languagedocumentation on Yonaguni Island. He can becontacted by e-mail: heinrich@ll.u-ryukyu.ac.jp

Recommended Citation: Fija Bairon, MatthiasBrenzinger, Patrick Heinrich, "The Ryukyusand the New, But Endangered, Languages ofJapan" The Asia-Pacific Journal, Vol. 19-2-09,May 9, 2009.

See in addition: Jon Mitchell, Byron Fija is on aquest to rescue cultural distinctiveness fromthe brink of extinction

References:

Anhalt, Gert (1991): Okinawa zwischenWashington und Tokyo: Betrachtungen zurpolitioschen und sozialen Entwicklung1945-1972, Marburg: Marburger Japan Reihe.

Aniya, Masaaki (2008): Compulsory masssuicide, the Battle of Okinawa, and Japan’stextbook controversy. In: The Asia-Pacificjournal – Japan focus..

Beillevaire, Patrick (2001) : Les nomsd’Okinawa. Une japonité singulière. In: Mots.Les langages du politique 66 : 71-89.

Brenzinger, Matthias (1997): Languagecontact and language displacement. In:Florian Coulmas (ed.): The handbook ofsociolinguistics, Oxford: Blackwell.

Brenzinger, Matthias (2007): Languageendangerment throughout the World. In:Matthias Brenzinger (ed.): Language diversityendangered, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: IX-XVII.

Brenzinger, Matthias (ed.) (1992): Languagedeath. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Carroll, Tessa (2001): Language planning andlanguage change in Japan, Richmond: Curzon.

Chamberlain, Basil Hall (1999[1895]): Essay inaid of a grammar and dictionary of theLuchuan language, Tokyo: Yumani shobo.

Christy, Alan S. (1993): The making of imperialsubjects in Okinawa. In: Positions 1.3:607-639.

Clarke, Hugh (1979): Language and life on anOkinawan island. Some observations

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

17

concerning Kohamajima. In: Ian Nish &Charles Dunn (eds.): European studies onJapan, Tenterden: Paul Norbury: 259–265.

Coulmas, Florian (1992): Die Wirschaft mit derSprache [The economics of language],Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.

De Varennes, Fernand (1996): Language,minorities and human rights, The Hague:Nijhoff.

Dwyer, Arienne M. (2006): Ethics andpracticalities of cooperative fieldwork andanalysis. In: Jost Gippert, Nikolaus P.Himmelmann & Ulrike Mosel (eds.):Essentials of language documentation.Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter: 31-66.

Fija, Bairon & Patrick Heinrich (2007): ‘WaneeUchinanchu – I am Okinawan’ – Japan, the USand Okinawa’s endangered languages. In: TheAsia-Pacific journal – Japan focus.

Fishman, Joshua A. (1991): Reversing languageshift, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Gottlieb, Nanette (2007): Challenges forlanguage policy in today’s Japan. In: FlorianCoulmas (ed.): Language regimes intransformation. Future prospects for Germanand Japanese in science, economy and politics,Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 33-52.

Grin, Francois (2003): Language policyevaluation and the European charter forregional or minority languages, New York:Palgrave.

Hara, Kiyoshi (2005): Regional dialect andcultural development in Japan and Europe.International journal of the sociology oflanguage 175/176: 193-211.

Harrison, David K. (2007): When languagesdie. The extinction of the world’s languagesand the erosion of human knowledge, Oxford:Oxford University Press.

Hattori, Shiro (1954): ‘Gengo nendai-gaku’sunawachi ‘goi tokeigaku’ no hoho ni tsuite –nihon sogo no nendai [On glottochronology orthe methodology of lexical statistics – the ageof Japan’s parent languages]. Gengo kenkyu[Journal of the linguistic society of Japan]26/27: 29-77.

Heinrich, Patrick (2009): The Ryukyuanlanguages in the 21st century global society.In Masanori Nakahodo et al. (eds.): Humanmigration and the 21st century global society.Okinawa: University of the Ryukyus: 16-27.

Heinrich, Patrick (2009b): Ryukyu retto niokeru gengo shifuto [Language shift in theRyukyu Islands]. Patrick Heinrich & ShinMatsuo (eds.): Higashi ajia ni okeru gengofukko [Language revitalization in East Asia],Tokyo: Sangensha.

Heinrich, Patrick (2008). EstablishingOkinawan language heritage education. In:Patrick Heinrich & Yuko Sugita (eds.):Japanese as foreign language in the age ofglobalization. Munich: Iudicium: 65-86.

Heinrich, Patrick (2007): Look who’s talking.Language choices in the Ryukyu Islands. (=LAUD Linguistic Agency: General andtheoretical papers 691), Essen: LAUD.

Heinrich, Patrick (2004): Language planningand language ideology in the Ryukyu Islands.Language policy 3.2: pp.153-179.

Heinrich, Patrick & Shin Matsuo (2009.7)(eds.): Higashi ajia ni okeru gengo fukko[Language revitalization in East Asia], Tokyo:Sangensha.

Himmelmann, Nikolaus P. (1998):Documentary and descriptive linguistics.Linguistics 36:161-195.

Hokama, Shuzen (1991): Okinawa no kotoba[The language of Okinawa], Tokyo: Chuokoron.

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

18

Hokama, Shuzen (2000): Okinawa no kotoba torekishi [Okinawa language and history],Tokyo: Chuo koron.

Ishihara, Masahide (2009.7): Ryukyugo nosonzoku-sei to kiki-do. Gyakko-teki gengoshifuto wa kano ka [Ryukyuan languagevitality and endangerment. Is reversinglanguage shift possible?]. In: Patrick Heinrich& Shin Matsuo (eds.): Higashi ajia ni okerugengo fukko [Language revitalization in EastAsia], Tokyo: Sangensha.

Izuyama, Atsuko (2003): The Grammar ofIshigaki Miyara dialect in Luchuan. In: AtsukoIzuyama (ed.): Studies on Luchuan grammar,Kyoto: ELPR: 1-162.

Johnson, Chalmers (2008): The ‘rape’ ofOkinawa. In: The Asia-Pacific journal – Japanfocus.

Karimata, Shigehisa (2006): Okinawawakamono kotoba jijo – Ryukyu kureorunihongo shiron [The situation of youthlanguage in Okinawa – a tentative assumptionon Ryukyu Creole Japanese]. In: Nihongogaku[Japanese language study]: 25.1: 50-59.

Katsuragi, Takao (2007): On language policy inthe age of globalization with good governance.In: Florian Coulmas (ed.): Languages regimesin transformation. Future prospects forGerman and Japanese in science, economyand politics, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter: 1-17.

Katsuragi, Takao (2005): Japanese languagepolicy from the point of view of publicphilosophy. In: International journal of thesociology of language 175/176: 41-54.

Kayano, Shigeru (1994): Our land was a forest:An Ainu memoir, Boulder: Westview Press.

Kaye, Alan S. & Tosco, Mauro (2003): Pidginand Creole languages, Munich: Lincom.

Kondo, Kenichiro (2006). Kindai Okinawa ni

okeru kyoiku to kokumin sogo [Education andnation building in Modern Okinawa], Sapporo:Hokkaido University Press.

Koyama, Wataru (2003): Language and itsdouble. A critical history of metalanguages inJapan, University of Chicago: UnpublishedPhD Dissertation.

Krauss, Michael (1992): The world's languagesin crisis. In: Language 68: 4-10.

Kreiner, Josef (2001): Okinawa und Ainu[Okinawa and Ainu]. In: Klaus Kracht &Markus Rütterman (eds), Grundriß derJapanologie [Outline of Japanese Studies],Wiesbaden: Harrasowitz: 433-474.

Kunisue, Norito (2009): UNESCO: 8 languagesin Japan could disappear. In: Asahi shinbun,Online edition 2009-02-21. (accessed 12March 2009)

Kymlicka, Will (1995): Multicultual citizenship,Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Lee, Yeounsuk (1996): ‘Kokugo’ to iu shiso [Anideology called ‘kokugo’], Tokyo: Iwanami.

Maher, John (2001): Akor itak – Our language,your language: Ainu in Japan. In: JoshuaFishman (ed.): Can threatened languages besaved? Clevedon: Multilingual Matters:323-349.

Marti, Felix et al. (eds.) (2005): Words andworlds. World languages review, Clevedon:Multilingual Matters.

Matsumori, Akiko (1995): Ryukyuan. Past,present, and future. In: John C. Maher &Kyoko Yashiro (eds.): Multilingual Japan,Clevedon: Multilingual Matters: 19–44.

May, Stephen (2001): Language and minorityrights. Ethnicity, nationalism and the politicsof language, Harlow: Longman.

McVeigh, Brian J. (2002): Self-Orientalism

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

19

through Occidentalism. How ‘English’ and‘foreigners’ nationalize Japanese students. In:Brian J. McVeigh (ed.): Japanese highereducation as myth, Armonk: Sharpe: 148-179.

Miyara, Shinsho (2008): ‘Uchinaaguchi’ to waokinawago? Okinawa hogen? [Is‘Uchinaaguchi’ Okinawa language or Okinawadialect?]. In: Ryukyu daigaku-hen (eds.):Yawarakai minami no gaku to shiso [Informalstudies and thought of the south], Naha:Okinawa taimusu.

Miyara, Shinso (1995): Minami RyukyuYaeyama Ishigaki hogen no bunpo [Grammarof the Ishigaki dialect on Yaeyama on thesouth Ryukyus], Tokyo: Kuroshio.

Molasky, Michael & Stephen Rabson (2000):Southern exposure. Modern Japaneseliterature from Okinawa, Honolulu: Universityof Hawai'i Press.

Motonaga, Moriyasu (1994): Ryukyu-kenseikatsu-go no kenkyu [Studies in the dailylanguage in the Ryukyus], Tokyo: Shunjusha.

Mühlhäusler, Peter (2003): Language ofenvironment - environment of language,London: Battlebridge.

Nakachi, Kiyoshi (1989): Ryukyu-U.S.-Japanrelations 1945-1972, Quezon City: HiyasPress.

Nakamoto, Masachie (1990): Ryukyu retto nohogen kenkyu [Dialect studies in the Ryukyuarcipelago]. In: Nihon hogen kenkyo-kai[Research circle of Japanese dialects] (eds):Nihon hogen kenkyu no ayumi [The course ofstudies in the Japanese dialects], Tokyo:Kadogawa shoten: 453-467.

Nakamura, Karen (2006): Deaf in Japan.Signing and the politics of identity, Ithaca:Cornell University Press.

Nishimura, Hiroko (2001): Hogen kinshi kara

hogen sonkei e [From Dialect Prohibition toDialect Esteem.] Kotoba to shakai [Languageand Society] 5: 164-184.

ODJKJ = Okinawa dai-hyakka jiten kankojimukyoku (1983) (eds.): Okinawa dai-hyakka jiten [Encyclopaedia of Okinawa],Naha: Okinawa taimusu.

Oe, Kenzaburu (2008): Misreading, espionageand ‘beautiful martyrdom’. On hearing theOkinawa ‘mass suicide’ suit court verdict. In:The Asia-Pacific journal – Japan focus.http://japanfocus.org/-Oe-Kenzaburo/2915.

Oguma, Eiji (1998): ‘Nihonjin’ no kyokai [Theboundaries of the ‘Japanese’], Tokyo:Shinyosha.

Osumi, Midori (2001): Language and identityin Okinawa today. In: Mary Goebel-Noguchi &Sandra Fotos (eds.): Studies in Japanesebilingualism, Clevedon: Multilingual Matters:68–97.

Rabson, Steve (1999): Assimilation policy inOkinawa. Promotion, resistance, and'reconstruction'. In: Chalmers Johnson (ed.):Okinawa: Cold War Island, Cardiff: JapanPolicy Research Institute: 133-148.

Roberson, James E. 2003: Uchina pop. Placeand identity in contemporary Okinawanpopular music. In: Laura Hein & Mark Selden(eds.): Islands of discontent: Okinawaresponses to Japanese and American power,Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield: 192-227.

Robins, Robert H. & Eugenius M. Uhlenbeck(eds.) (1991): Endangered languages,Oxford/New York: Berg.

Ryukyu shinpo-sha (2007): Okinawa kenminishiki chosa hokokusho [Survey report onOkinawa prefectural citizen’s attitudes],Naha: Ryukyu shinpo.

Sakurai, Kunitoshi (2008): Okinawan bases,

APJ | JF 7 | 19 | 2

20

the United States and environmentaldestruction. In: The Asian-Pacific journal –Japan focus.

Sugita, Yuko (2009.7): “Jissen to shite nogengo’ no kiroku hozon. Uchinaa no tagengoshakai saisei mukete [Documenting ‘languageas practice’. Towards a regeneration ofUchinan multilingual society]. In: PatrickHeinrich & Shin Matsuo (eds.): Higashi ajia niokeru gengo fukko [Language revitalization inEast Asia], Tokyo: Sangensha.

Time Magazine (1957): Anti-American feelingon the Okinawa Base. In: Time (1957-12-12issue): 122-124.

Tojo, Misao (1927): Dai-nihon hogen chizu[Dialect map of Greater Japan], Tokyo: Ikueishoin.

Tojo, Misao (1938): Hogen to hogengaku[Dialect and dialectology], Tokyo: Shun'yodoshoten.

Uemura, Yukio (2003): The Ryukyuanlanguage, Koto: ELPR.

Uemura, Yukio (2001): Endangered languagesin Japan and related linguistic problems. In:Osamu Sakiyama (ed.): Lectures onendangered languages II, Kyoto: ELPR:187-202.

Uemura, Yukio (1997): Sosetsu [Introduction].In: Kamei Takashi et al. (eds.): Nihon retto nogengo [The languages of the Japanese

archipelago], Tokyo: Sanshod: 311-354.

UNESCO (2009): Interactive atlas of theworld’s languages in danger, (accessed 12March 2009).

UNESCO ad hoc expert group on endangeredlanguages (2003): Language vitality andendangerment, (accessed 12 March 2009).

Yasuda, Toshiaki (1999): ‘Gengo’ no kochiku[The construction of ‘language’], Tokyo:Sangensha.

Yoshida, Kensei (2008): US bases, Japan andthe reality of Okinawa as a military colony. In:The Asia-Pacific journal – Japan focus.

[i] Consider for instance the following letters tothe editor of Ryukyu shinpo during theoccupation period:

“Are we really Japanese?” (Ryukyu shinpo29.7.1965)

“A rebuttal to ‘Are we really Japanese?’”(Ryukyu shinpo 1.8.1965)

“Japan is not the motherland” (Ryukyu shinpo24.1.1966)

“A rebuttal to ‘Japan is not the motherland’”(Ryukyu shinpo 15.2.1966)