The Okinawan language, casually spoken | Gijs and Takako speaking Uchinaaguchi | Wikitongues

The Okinawan language, or Uchināguchi, is primarily spoken on the island of Okinawa in Japan's Ryukyu archipelago. It is related to Japanese and other Ryukyuan languages, like Kunigami and Miyako. In this video, Takako-san speaks Uchināguchi's Ishikawa (Ihichaa) dialect, and occasionally code-switches into Japanese.

More from Wikipedia: "The Okinawan language (沖縄口/ウチナーグチ, Uchināguchi, [ʔut͡ɕinaːɡut͡ɕi]) or 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 Ryūkyū 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 there is a small number who still speaks the Okinawan language, most often the elderly. Within Japan, Okinawan is often not seen as a language unto itself but is referred to as the Okinawan dialect (沖縄方言, Okinawa hōgen) or more specifically the Central and Southern Okinawan dialects (沖縄中南部諸方言, Okinawa Chūnanbu Sho hōgen). Okinawan speakers are undergoing language shift as they switch to Japanese, since language use in Okinawa today is far from stable. Okinawans are assimilating and accenting standard Japanese due to the similarity of the two languages, the standardized and centralized education system, the media, business and social contact with mainlanders and previous attempts from Japan to suppress the native languages. Okinawan is still kept alive in popular music, tourist shows and in theaters featuring a local drama called Uchinā shibai, which depict local customs and manners.,

Japanese (日本語, Nihongo [ɲ̟ihõŋɡo] (listen)) is an East Asian language spoken by about 128 million people, primarily in Japan, where it is the national language. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, and its relation to other languages, such as Korean, is debated. Japonic languages have been grouped with other language families such as Ainu, Austroasiatic, and the now-discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained widespread acceptance.
Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial texts did not appear until the 8th century. During the Heian period (794–1185), Chinese had considerable influence on the vocabulary and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) included changes in features that brought it closer to the modern language, and the first appearance of European loanwords. The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo (modern Tokyo) region in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid-19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly. English loanwords, in particular, have become frequent, and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender, and there are no articles. Verbs are conjugated, primarily for tense and voice, but not person. Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. Japanese has no clear genealogical relationship with Chinese, although it makes prevalent use of Chinese characters, or kanji (漢字), in its writing system, and a large portion of its vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system primarily uses two syllabic (or moraic) scripts, hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名) and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名).."

[ryanchon]

lovely to hear Uchināguchi spoken fluently! I hope younger Okinawans see the value of this language

[shygorilla]

I'm Uchinanchu. I understand Japanese and can speak a little. But, when we go to Okinawa and visit family, my mom starts rapping in Uchinaguchi and I'm completely lost. I understand like 20% of what they're saying. With this lady I understand only about 10%.

[xavieroconnor]

As an American English speaker, it sounds like she's speaking Japanese with a heavy Korean flow

[matthewtopping]

Hey it's my friends Gijs and Takako. I actually introduced them! I had no idea they produced this for WikiTongues!

[brandon]

As someone who knows a little bit of Japanese and Korean, I could recognise a few Japanese words, but the intonation sounded across between Korean and Japanese to me. Very interesting.

[jitaru]

As a Japanese speaker it sounds definitely similar to Japanese but I can't understand it if I don't focus. There's lots I don't understand but I think a good amount of the more basic grammar particles, plus some words here and there are similar, and I can kinda tell where any given sentence is by the inflection. Can't really understand most of it though. Edit: i think she is speaking about the American occupation when she was a girl because I hear her mention her father and "Americans" or "english-speakers" several times

[SakiMcGee]

Ahh, I found a song a long time ago that I've never been able to get the lyrics to because it turned out it was in Uchinaaguchi. I asked one of my Japanese friends if he could help me with it and he told me I was on my own. 😂

[Arstifartsi]

I wish I could find a uninaaguchi teacher. I’d love to reconnect with my heritage

[AlexanderYamada]

I wish I had been allowed more exposure to Okinawan language and culture as a child. My father was from Okinawa, my mother from way up north in Aomori from an old samurai family that heavily looked down on and discouraged the pairing. Growing up, my maternal grandmother did everything in her power to limit any Okinawan influence on my upbringing.

[catapretafernando]

I’m a 3rd gen Japanese Brazilian, but my grandparents were both from Uruma in Okinawa.
My grandparents still speak Uchinaguchi but they haven’t spoken it much because they never thought they’d need to use it at all, instead favor of Portuguese and Japanese.

I now want them to teach me Okinawan, and I want to be more in touch with my Okinawan heritage. I am proud to have Okinawan blood in my veins.

[OhiChicken]

For some reason, this is what my grandmother sounded like when I was falling asleep in the other room. I'd be sat up trying to understand her but still half asleep. She'd be straight up just speaking english with a french canadian accent and this is what it would sound like.

[Drevo-]

as a japanese guy, i was able to pick up numbers and some words like satsumaimo, ikusa (kinda archaic word for war), watashi, doko de etc but even if i focus i understand like 10 percent of whats spoken. it feels like im trying to understand a language i recently started learning lol

[japanese]

It sounds a lot like if japanese and Korean were mixed together. When I heard this, it sounded a lot like as if it was influenced by the korean language itself.

[zvyada]

Please make more records of the Amami language, which is northeast of the Okinawa Islands.

[JaeCole]

Wow! I’m Korean and this sounds a bit like the Korean language in some places.

[khust]

The intonation sounds more like Korean to me than Japanese, interesting.

[gustavovillegas]

今沖縄口勉強そーん！なま うちなーぐち びんちょー そーん！
I’m studying Okinawan now!

It’s a really beautiful language, I want to help keep it alive as someone studying to become a linguist

[prestonjones]

I'm currently studying Japanese and I love how I got an ad in Japanese for this video. I understood maybe one sentence from the ad and a few words from the video itself.

[nashorngamingtm]

The language sound japanese but somewhat korean at the same time

[.]

It would be cool to listen to some languages from papua new guinea, given the insane linguistic diversity there.