Miyako language

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Miyako language

Spoken in

Japan
Linguistic
classification
Language codes
ISO 639-3

mvi

The Miyako language (proper name: / mjaːkufucy /, ミ ャ ー ク フ ツ Myāku-futsu ; Japanese 宮 古 方言 Miyako-hōgen "Miyako dialect") belongs to the Ryūkyū languages and is spoken on the Miyako Islands in the Japanese Okina prefecture .

The Miyako language is also divided into the Miyako dialect on Miyako-jima , the Irabu dialect on Irabu-jima and the Tarama dialect on Tarama-shima . The latter differs most clearly due to the distance to the other two islands (50 and 45 km).

It differs considerably from other regional languages ​​both lexically (probably due to its geographical proximity to Taiwan ) and pronunciation, e.g. B. / mi / and / mu / at the beginning of the word become / n /:

  • mukashi ( ) → / nkjaːn / ( ン キ ャ ー ン )
  • migi ( ) → / ngy / ( ン ギ ィ )

The language is completely incomprehensible both for speakers of the language spoken in Okinawa ( ウ チ ナ ー グ チ Uchinā-guchi ) and for speakers of the language spoken on the main Japanese islands.

Trivia

The singer Isamu Shimoji ( 下地 勇 ), born in Miyako-jima, sings almost exclusively in the Miyako language. The booklets accompanying his albums contain the lyrics sung in the Miyako language as well as their translations into standard Japanese.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Nakasone Seizen ( 仲 宗 根 政 善 ): 琉球 方言 概 説 . In: 方言 学 講座 . 第 4 巻 , 1961, p. 20-21 .