Okinawan, spoken in

Okinawa Island is the largest of the Okinawa Islands and the Ryukyu (''Nansei'') Islands of Japan in the Kyushu region. It is the smallest and least populated of the five main islands of Japan. The island is approximately long, an average wide, and has an ...

, was once the official language of the Ryukyu Kingdom. At the time, documents were written in kanji and hiragana, derived from

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Although generally agreed among

linguists Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

to be a distinct language, most Japanese, as well as some Okinawans, tend to think of Okinawan as merely a regional dialect of Japanese, even though it is not intelligible to monolingual Japanese speakers. Modern Okinawan is not written frequently. When it is, the Japanese writing system is generally used in an '' ad hoc'' manner. There is no standard orthography for the modern language. Nonetheless, there are a few systems used by scholars and laypeople alike. None of them are widely used by native speakers, but represent the language with less ambiguity than the ''ad hoc'' conventions. The Roman alphabet in some form or another is used in some publications, especially those of an academic nature.

Systems

Conventional usages

The modern conventional ''ad hoc'' spellings found in Okinawa.

Council system

The system devised by the Council for the Dissemination of Okinawan Dialect
沖縄方言普及協議会

University of the Ryukyus system

This system was devised b

a section of University of the Ryukyus. Unlike others, this method is intended purely as a phonetic guidance, and basically only uses katakana. For the sake of an easier comparison, corresponding hiragana are used in this article.

New Okinawan letters

新沖縄文字 (''Shin Okinawa-moji''), devised by , in his textbook ''Utsukushii Okinawa no Hōgen'' (美しい沖縄の方言; "The beautiful Okinawan Dialect"; ). The rule applies to hiragana only. Katakana is used as in Japanese; just like in the conventional usage of Okinawan.

Basic syllables and kai-yōon (palatalized syllables)

: ¹: At the beginning of a word. : ²: University of the Ryukyus system is an exception, always using ゐ, をぅ, え, を (ヰ, ヲゥ, エ, ヲ) for , , , , and い, う, いぇ, お (イ, ウ, イェ, オ) for , , , , respectively.

Gō-yōon (labialised syllables)

Others

: ³: Hatsuon (moraic ''n'') : ⁴: Sokuon ( geminated consonants) : ⁵: Chōon ( longer vowels): In conventional usages, longer vowels are sometimes spelled like in mainland Japanese as well; "ou" (おう) for ''ō'', doubled kana for others. (e.g. うう for ''ū''.)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okinawan Writing System Ryukyuan languages Japanese writing system Writing systems