You may have heard of Okinawan before, but did you know there are actually a variety of languages spoken across the southern islands? Six have been recognized internationally, and the Japanese government only recognizes four as of 2024. There are other potential languages that are known but haven't been officially recognized yet.

Often incorrectly referred to as dialects of Japanese, the Ryukuan language family is a separate offshoot of the parent language that Ainu and modern Japanese stemmed from. Referring to the Ryukuan languages as "dialects" enforces a hierarchy that puts the native languages below that of their colonizer.


The recognized languages are:

Many of these have known regional dialects.

At 70%~72% lexical similarity, Ryukyuan and Japanese are not closely related enough to be mutually intelligible. They are farther apart than French and Portuguese. Most of the Ryukyuan languages are not even mutually intelligible with each other.

All of the six recognized languages (and also the unoffical ones) have codes designated by the International Standards Organization in ISO 639. (Wikipedia)

  • : ryu
  • : ryn
  • : rys
  • : yoi
  • : mvi
  • : xug


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Ryuukyuu City