Okinawan writing system

This article describes the modern Okinawan writing system. See the Okinawan language article for an overview of the language. For the writing systems in Ryukyuan languages in general, see the Ryukyuan language article.

Okinawan language, spoken in Okinawa Island, was once the official language of the Ryukyuan Kingdom. At the time, documents were written in kanji and hiragana, derived from Japan. However, after Japan annexed the kingdom, the language was labeled as the "dialect" of mainland Japanese. Nowadays, most mainland Japanese, as well as most Okinawans, tend to think of Okinawan as merely a dialect of mainland Japanese, even though the language is not mutually unintelligible to main islands Japanese.

As a "dialect", modern Okinawan language is not written frequently. When it is, the Japanese writing system is generally used with an "ad hoc" manner. There is no standard orthography for the modern language. Nonetheless, there are a few systems announced by scholars and alike. None of them are wide spread among the native speakers yet, but those systems can write 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.

ystems

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 ( [http://www4.ocn.ne.jp/~knaka/hogen/index.html 沖縄方言普及協議会] ). [http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/spe/kotoba20010829.html]

University of the Ryukyus system

The system devised by [http://ryukyu-lang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/srnh/sign.html Okinawa Center of Language Study] , a section of University of the Ryukyus. Unlike others, this method is intended purely as a phonetic guidance, basically uses katakana only. 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 nihongo|Yoshiaki Funazu|船津好明|Funazu Yoshiaki, in his textbook "Utsukushii Okinawa no Kotoba" (美しい沖縄の方言; "The beautiful Okinawan words"; ISBN 4-905784-19-0). The rule applies on hiragana only. Katakana is used as in Japanese; just like in the conventional usage of Okinawan.

=Basic syllables and kai-yōon (palatalized syllables)=

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