The Kunigami language is a colloquial variant of the Okinawan language that is spoken largely in the Kunigami district of Okinawa Prefecture in Japan. Like other variants of Okinawan, Kunigami is part of the Ryukyuan languages family. A colloquialism is an informal expression, that is, an expression not used in formal speech or writing. ... Okinawan (Okinawan Uchinaaguchi) is a Ryukyuan language spoken in Japan on the southern island of Okinawa, as well as the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kume-jima, Tonaki, Aguni, and a number of smaller islands located to the east of the main island of Okinawa. ... The area of Kunigami District in Okinawa. ... Okinawa redirects here. ... The Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the Ryūkyū Islands and make up a subfamily of the Japonic family. ...

Phonology

The Kunigami language presents some unique phonological characteristics that set it apart from other Japonic languages. One of the most notable characteristics of Kunigami phonology is the existence of a full series of "tensed" or "glottalized" consonants, including stops, nasals, and glides. Kunigami is also notable for the presence of an /h/ phoneme separate from /p/, which is believed to be the historical source of /h/ in modern dialects of the Japanese language. Thus, for example, the Nakijin dialect of Kunigami has /haʔkai/ (a light, a lamp, lamplight; a shōji, a translucent paper screen, a translucent paper sliding door), which is cognate with Japanese /akari/ (light, bright light, a ray of light, a beam of light; a light, a lamp, lamplight); the Kunigami form is distinguished from its Japanese cognate by the initial /h/, glottalized /ʔk/, and elision of Proto-Japonic */r/ before */i/. The Kunigami language also makes distinctions in certain word pairs, such as Nakijin dialect /ʔkumuu/ (cloud) and /hubu/ (spider), which both appear as /kumo/ in Japanese (boldface text indicates morae pronounced with a high tone). The Japonic languages or Japanese-Ryukyuan languages constitute a language family that is agreed to have descended from a common ancestral language known as Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan. ... Japanese (,  ) is a language spoken by over 130 million people, mainly in Japan, but also by Japanese emigrant communities around the world. ... Nakijin (今帰仁村; -son) is a village located in Kunigami district, Okinawa, Japan. ... Mora (plural moras or morae) is a unit of sound used in phonology that determines syllable weight (which in turn determines stress) in some languages. ...

Vocabulary

The Kunigami language has some words of unclear etymology, such as Nakijin dialect sincun (/ʃintʃun/), which is an intransitive verb meaning "to sink." This word has often been compared with the Old Japanese and Classical Japanese verb しづく siduku, which appears in ancient poetry with the sense of "to be sunk at the bottom of a body of water, to rest on the bottom; to be seen through water." However, if Nakijin sincun is ultimately cognate with Old Japanese siduku, the two forms must have descended from different Proto-Japonic dialectal variants, because the phonological correspondence between the Nakijin form and the Old Japanese form is irregular. The Japonic languages or Japanese-Ryukyuan languages constitute a language family that is agreed to have descended from a common ancestral language known as Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese-Ryukyuan. ...

External links

• Ethnologue report for Kunigami