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Language Lineage

Southern Ryukyuan

Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni, the southernmost Japonic languages, with unusual sound systems such as Miyako's syllabic fricatives and Yonaguni's shift of *y to d.

c. 11th century CE – presentThe Miyako and Yaeyama Islands and Yonaguni, near Taiwan
On this page
  1. The Southern Islands
  2. Words Without Vowels
  3. Where it's spoken
  4. Turning points

01

The Southern Islands

The Southern Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Sakishima islands, closer to Taiwan than to Okinawa. They are sharply different from each other and from Okinawan. Miyako has syllables made of a fricative with no vowel, and Yonaguni turned initial y into d. Under the Ryukyu Kingdom, the islands paid a heavy head tax from 1637, abolished only in 1903, and their populations remained poor and isolated.

02

Words Without Vowels

Southern Ryukyuan preserves one of the oldest features of Japonic and has created some of its strangest.

The old feature is p. Proto-Japonic *p became h in Japanese and in most of Okinawan, but Miyako and Yaeyama kept it: 'flower' is pana in Miyako, as it was in 8th-century Japanese. Yonaguni has h instead.

The new features come from what happened to the high vowels. In many Miyako varieties old i after certain consonants became a buzzing, fricative-like vowel, and in some it disappeared, leaving the consonant itself to carry the syllable. Thomas Pellard's description of Ōgami, a tiny island off Miyako, records words such as pstu 'person', kss 'breast' and ff 'comb', with no vowel at all. Such syllables are rare among the world's languages.

Yonaguni went the other way, reducing its vowels to three, a, i and u, and changing initial y to d. It also has a distinction between plain and glottalised consonants that Japanese lacks.

The grammars are more familiar: verb-final, with case particles and focus particles such as Irabu du. Grammars and grammar sketches of Irabu, Ōgami, Ikema and Hateruma, produced since 2008, have made Southern Ryukyuan far better known than it was a generation ago.

On the map

Where it’s spoken

Spoken todayShading marks whole countries, not the regions within them.
  1. Japan

Figures are rough first-language estimates, rounded, from censuses and Ethnologue. Counts for small or scattered communities are especially uncertain.

Rings along the limb

Turning points

Oldest first.

  1. Splitc. 11th – 13th century CEContested

    Settling the Sakishima islands

    Ryukyuan speakers settle Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni, and Southern Ryukyuan diverges from the northern languages. The earlier inhabitants of the islands had different, southern connections, and the relationship is debated.

    Sources (1)
    • Pellard, Thomas. 2015. The linguistic archeology of the Ryukyu Islands. In Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages, ed. Patrick Heinrich, Shinsho Miyara & Michinori Shimoji. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
  2. Contact1637 – 1903

    The head tax

    The Ryukyu Kingdom, itself under Satsuma pressure, imposes a harsh head tax on the southern islands. The islands stay poor and isolated, which helps preserve their distinct languages.

    Sources (1)
    • Heinrich, Patrick, Shinsho Miyara & Michinori Shimoji, eds. 2015. Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.
  3. Revitalization2009 onward

    Documentation and revival

    After UNESCO lists Yonaguni as severely endangered and Miyako and Yaeyama as definitely endangered, linguists and islanders produce dictionaries, grammars and teaching materials.

    Sources (1)
    • Heinrich, Patrick, Shinsho Miyara & Michinori Shimoji, eds. 2015. Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.