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Okinawan scripts

Orthography of the Okinawan language From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Okinawan scripts
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Okinawan, spoken in Okinawa Island. Documents in Ryukyu Kingdom were written in kanji and hiragana, derived from Japan.

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An example of traditional Okinawan writing circa 1471

Although generally agreed among linguists 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.[1] Modern Okinawan is not written frequently. The Japanese writing system is used in Okinawan scripts.

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Chinese translation of Okinawan Script in 1721 (Hiragana and Katakana)
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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 by Okinawa Center of Language Study, 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 Yoshiaki Funazu (船津好明, Funazu Yoshiaki), in his textbook Utsukushii Okinawa no Hōgen (美しい沖縄の方言; "The beautiful Okinawan Dialect"; ISBN 4-905784-19-0). The rule applies to hiragana only. Katakana is used as in Japanese; just like in the conventional usage of Okinawan.

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Basic syllables and kai-yōon (palatalized syllables)

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More information i, u ...
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 [i], [u], [e], [o], and い, う, いぇ, お (イ, ウ, イェ, オ) for [ʔi], [ʔu], [ʔe], [ʔo], respectively.
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Gō-yōon (labialised syllables)

More information wa, wi ...

Others

More information n 3, ' ...
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

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