Yaeyama is a language spoken by around 44650 people in the Yaeyama islands south of the Miyako area of the Ryukyus. It is a Ryukyuan language, most closely related to Miyako.
It can be separated into several dialect groupings:
The Yaeyama Islands are the remotest and most southwestern part of Japan, closer to Taiwan than Okinawa Island, much less the mainland.
The Yaeyama Islands are subtropical and even in winter temperatures rarely drop below 15°C, making the area a popular winter getaway, although it's often cloudy and usually a little too cold for sunbathing.
Yaeyama's best-known dish is the ubiquitous Yaeyama soba (八重山そば), which bears little resemblance to soba on the mainland: the Yaeyaman version consists of white wheat noodles in a mild pork-based stock, garnished with chunks of pork (sōki), some slices of fish cake and red ginger.
Yaeyama (Yaeyama: yaimamunii) is a language spoken by around 44,650 people in the Yaeyama Islands, south of the Miyako area of the Ryukyus.
Note, however, that the distinction between languages and dialects is often not a linguistic one but a social and political one.
While the Yaeyamalanguage was more "conservative" in some aspects, in the sense of preserving certain pronunciations, in other aspects it was more innovative.
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