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Motobu Dialect
Kunigami or Northern Okinawan (, , ) is a Ryukyuan language of Northern Okinawa Island in Kunigami District and city of Nago, otherwise known as the Yanbaru region, historically the territory of the kingdom of Hokuzan. The Nakijin dialect is often considered representative of Kunigami, analogous to the Shuri-Naha dialect of Central Okinawan. The number of fluent native speakers of Kunigami is not known. As a result of Japanese language policy, the younger generation mostly speaks Japanese as their first language. Location In addition to the northern portion of Okinawa Island, Kunigami is spoken on the small neighboring islands of Ie, Tsuken and Kudaka. Scope and classification ''Glottolog'', following Pellard (2009), classifies Kunigami with Central Okinawan as the two Okinawan languages. ''Ethnologue'' adds Okinoerabu and Yoron; these (along with all other languages of the northern Ryukyu Islands) are classified as Amami languages by ''Glottolog''. The UNESCO ''Atla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and List of islands of Japan, thousands of smaller islands, covering . Japan has a population of over 123 million as of 2025, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh-most populous country. The capital of Japan and List of cities in Japan, its largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the List of largest cities, largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Japan is divided into 47 Prefectures of Japan, administrative prefectures and List of regions of Japan, eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of Geography of Japan, the countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Central Okinawan Language
Okinawan (, , , ), or more precisely Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of Northern Okinawa, which is classified independently as the Kunigami language. Both languages are listed by UNESCO as endangered. Though Okinawan encompasses a number of local dialects, the Shuri–Naha variant is generally recognized as the ''de facto'' standard, as it had been used as the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom since the reign of King Shō Shin (1477–1526). Moreover, as the former capital of Shuri was built around the royal palace, the language used by the royal court became the regional and literary standard, which thus flourished in songs and poems written during that era. Today, most Okinawans speak Okinawan Japanese, although a nu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shōji
A is a door, window or room divider used in traditional Japanese architecture, consisting of Transparency and translucency, translucent (or transparent) sheets on a lattice frame. Where light transmission is not needed, the similar but opaque ''fusuma'' is used (/closet doors, for instance). Shoji usually slide, but may occasionally be hung or hinged, especially in more rustic styles. Shoji are very lightweight, so they are easily slid aside, or taken off their tracks and stored in a closet, opening the room to other rooms or the outside. Fully traditional buildings may have only one large room, under a roof supported by a post-and-lintel frame, with few or no permanent interior or exterior walls; the space is flexibly subdivided as needed by the removable sliding wall panels. The posts are generally placed one ''tatami''-length (about ) apart, and the shoji slide in two parallel wood-groove tracks between them. In modern construction, the shoji often do not form the exterio ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Proto-Japonic
Proto-Japonic, also known as Proto-Japanese or Proto-Japanese–Ryukyuan, is the linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed language ancestral to the Japonic languages, Japonic language family. It has been reconstructed by using a combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative method to Old Japanese (both the central variety of the Nara area and Eastern Old Japanese dialects) and the Ryukyuan languages. The major reconstructions of the 20th century were produced by Samuel Elmo Martin and Shirō Hattori. Background The Japonic language family comprises Japanese language, Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan; Hachijō language, Hachijō, spoken on Hachijō-jima, Aogashima, and the Daitō Islands; and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to northern Kyushu from the Korean peninsula around 700 to 300 BC by wet-rice farmers of the Yayoi culture and spread throughout the Ja ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aspirated Consonant
In phonetics, aspiration is a strong burst of breath that accompanies either the release or, in the case of preaspiration, the closure of some obstruents. In English, aspirated consonants are allophones in complementary distribution with their unaspirated counterparts, but in some other languages, notably most South Asian languages and East Asian languages, the difference is contrastive. Transcription In the International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ... (IPA), aspirated consonants are written using the symbols for voiceless consonants followed by the aspiration modifier letter , a superscript form of the symbol for the voiceless glottal fricative . For instance, represents the voiceless bilabial stop, and represents the aspirat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tenuis Consonant
In linguistics, a tenuis consonant ( or ) is an obstruent that is voiceless, unaspirated and unglottalized. In other words, it has the "plain" phonation of with a voice onset time close to zero (a zero-VOT consonant), as Spanish ''p, t, ch, k'' or English ''p, t, k'' after ''s'' (''spy, sty, sky''). For most languages, the distinction is relevant only for stops and affricates. However, a few languages have analogous series for fricatives. Mazahua, for example, has ejective, aspirated, and voiced fricatives alongside tenuis , parallel to stops alongside tenuis . Many click languages have tenuis click consonants alongside voiced, aspirated, and glottalized series. Transcription In transcription, tenuis consonants are not normally marked explicitly, and consonants written with voiceless IPA letters, such as , are typically assumed to be unaspirated and unglottalized unless otherwise indicated. However, aspiration is often left untranscribed if no contrast needs to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Glottalized
Glottalization is the complete or partial closure of the glottis during the articulation of another sound. Glottalization of vowels and other sonorants is most often realized as creaky voice (partial closure). Glottalization of obstruent consonants usually involves complete closure of the glottis; another way to describe this phenomenon is to say that a glottal stop is made simultaneously with another consonant. In certain cases, the glottal stop can even wholly replace the voiceless consonant. The term 'glottalized' is also used for ejective and implosive consonants; see glottalic consonant for examples. There are two other ways to represent glottalization of sonorants in the IPA: (a) the same way as ejectives, with an apostrophe; or (b) with the under-tilde for creaky voice. For example, the Yapese word for "sick" with a glottalized ''m'' could be transcribed as either or . (In some typefaces, the apostrophe will occur above the m.) Types Glottalization varies along thre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nakasone Seizen
Nakasone is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Hirofumi Nakasone (born 1945), former Japanese Minister of Foreign Affairs, son of Yasuhiro Nakasone * Keith Nakasone (born 1956), American competitive judoka * Michael Nakasone, American band director * Paul Miki Nakasone (born 1963), former Commander of the United States Cyber Command, Director of the National Security Agency, and Chief of the Central Security Service * Rino Nakasone (born 1979), Japanese dancer and choreographer * Nakasone Toyomiya, Aji of the Miyako Islands *Yasuhiro Nakasone was a Japanese politician who served as Prime Minister of Japan, prime minister of Japan from 1982 to 1987. His political term was best known for pushing through the privatization of state-owned companies and pursuing a hawkish and pro-U.S. fo ... (1918–2019), 71st to 73rd Prime Minister of Japan {{surname Japanese-language surnames ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amami Languages
The Amami languages are a collection of dialect clusters spoken across the Amami Islands of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. All dialects are members of the Ryukyuan languages, specifically its northern branch. Classification There are many distinct clusters of the Amami languages, most of which have their own ISO 639-3 codes: *; Amami languages ** Amami Ōshima *** Northern Amami Ōshima *** Southern Amami Ōshima ** Kikai ** Tokunoshima ** Okinoerabu ** Yoron are divided on the specific subgrouping of these dialects. The Okinoerabu and Yoron clusters may be grouped within the Kunigami language Kunigami or Northern Okinawan (, , ) is a Ryukyuan language of Northern Okinawa Island in Kunigami District and city of Nago, otherwise known as the Yanbaru region, historically the territory of the kingdom of Hokuzan. The Nakijin dialect .... References {{Japonic languages Ryukyuan languages Amami Islands ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yoron Language
The Yoron language ( ''Yunnu Futuba'') is a dialect continuum spoken on Yoronjima in Kagoshima Prefecture, southwestern Japan. It is one of the Northern Ryukyuan languages, which are a sub-branch within the Japonic languages, Japonic language family. The language is one of the most endangered languages in all of Japan. Dialects According to local folklorist Kiku Chiyo, Yoron dialects can be divided into three groups: *Chabana *Asato (/asi⸢tu/), Gusuku (/gusi⸢ku/ ～ /gusu⸢ku/), Ritchō, Kanō (/ha⸢noː/) and Nama (/naː⸢ma/) *Mugiya-higashiku, Mugiya-nishiku and Furusato (/puru⸢satu/) The Mugiya district is often considered to have a distinct form of accent and intonation. Folk terminology According to Kiku Hidenori, who leads conservation activities, people of Yoron Island, Kagoshima Prefecture call their language "Yunnu Futuba." More precisely, a dictionary compiled by his mother Kiku Chiyo (b. 1927) gives /junnuhu⸢tuba/ as the word form of her home community, Mu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Okinoerabu Dialect Cluster
The Okinoerabu dialect cluster ( ''Shimamuni''), also Oki-no-Erabu, is a dialect cluster spoken on Okinoerabu Island, Kagoshima Prefecture of southwestern Japan. It is part of the Amami–Okinawan languages, which are part of the Japonic languages. Dialects Okinoerabu dialects are classified into two groups: *Eastern Okinoerabu *Western Okinoerabu The linguistic boundary between Eastern and Western Okinoerabu roughly corresponds to the administrative boundary between Wadomari (east) and China (west). In addition, the eastern community of Kunigami (part of Eastern Okinoerabu and not to be confused with Northern Okinawa) is known for sporadically retaining a centralized vowel, which is a characteristic of Northern Amami. For example, ("root", Standard Japanese /ne/) is contrasted with ("loads", Standard Japanese /ni/). The northwestern community of Tamina (part of Western Okinoerabu) has a distinctive accentual system. Uwano (1998:131-133) gives the following list of Okinoerabu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
