[quote]let the rest of the peeps here about the language in Okinawa, called hougen. Hougen is an Okinawan language. There are different kinds of Hougen all over different parts of Okinawa.[/quote]

Actually the word "hougen" �����@means dialect, refering to the many different dialects in Okinawa. The Okinawan language is called "Uchinaa guchi" in Okinawa but really only refers to the "hougen" spoken in the Naha/Shuri area. To make things even more complicated, the dialects in Naha and Shuri are different as well.

The word "hougen" itself is a Japanese word, so the word for a particular "hougen" in "Uchinaa guchi" is "Shima kutuba" �V�}�N�g�D�o

I'm currently in Okinawa attending the University of the Ryukyus (we're on Spring Break now) and my "hougen" professor says Uchinaaguchi is closer to Nihongo than it is to the Chinese language. In my experience so far, grammatically Uchinaaguchi is much closer to Nihongo than Chinese. Sounds are pretty close to. One of the theories out there traces modern Japanese and Uchinaaguchi to a common language, Proto-Japanese.

Here's the explanation I was given for the word Uchinaa. The word "Uchinaa" is the Okinawan pronuciation for the word "Okinawa". Generally speaking "O" sounds in Japanese became "U" sounds in Okinawan, "ki" sounds became "chi" sounds, and the "nawa" of Okinawa became "naa".

Another example of the "o" sound in Japanese pronounced as a "u" sound is the word "onegai" becoming "unigei" in Uchinaaguchi. "shimasu" in Uchinaaguchi is "sabira", so "onegai shimasu" becomes "unigei sabira."

One last thing, Okinawans (Uchinaanchu) refer to Nihongo by a number of various ways such as "Yamato guchi"��a���i���}�g�O�`�j, "kyoutsuu go"���ʌ�, and "hyoujungo."�@�W����

wow we have kairyu an okinawan expert here!
hey do you know a girl named sayaka at university of ryukyu??
she was named miss okinawa awhile back (maybe 2 or 3 years ago).
she's one of my dear friends.. if you know her, say hi for me.
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Haisai!

Miss okinawa huh, I take it she's pretty pretty.
The Sayaka I know is more on the cute tomboyish side, and she's in the "pro-wrestling" club. She doesn't strike me as the Miss Okinawa type (and nobody has mentioned it about her) so I doubt its her, but I'll ask.

Miss Okinawa turns pro-wrestler. Now that would make some news.


By the way, I used to live in Osaka, so I'm familiar with Osaka-ben and I've noticed that when Okinawans speak Japanese, they often use some Osaka-ben grammar. The TA for my "hougen" class says linguists think its because the earliest Japanese that came to Okinawa to teach them Nihongo came mainly from the Kansai.

Example:

Wa ne ikan = Watashi ha ikanai.

Wa = Uchinaaguchi for I
ne = (I'm not sure what this "ne" is exactly, but I think its an Uchinaaguchi subject marker of somekind)
ikan = is an attempt to say "ikanai" or "won't go" in Yamato guchi, but ends with a Kansai ben type inflection.

So the above is phrase would be considered "hougen", but its not pure Uchinaaguchi because of the verb "ikan" is considered Yamato guchi (Nihongo) though its really Kansai ben of somekind. Anyway, some linguists call this kind of language a mix of both Uchinaa guchi and Yamato guchi (or Yamato-uchinaa guchi [Okinawan language infected with Nihongo] or Uchinaa-yamatoguchi [Nihongo infected with Okinawan])

Hey, aren't you the same Kairyu from the KikuTv message board?
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kairyu wrote:

Haisai! Miss okinawa huh, I take it she's pretty pretty. The Sayaka I know is more on the cute tomboyish side, and she's in the "pro-wrestling" club. She doesn't strike me as the Miss Okinawa type (and nobody has mentioned it about her) so I doubt its her, but I'll ask. Miss Okinawa turns pro-wrestler. Now that would make some news.

yah miss okinawa..she is very cute..she used to play volleyball a lot also..i dunno about wrestling though..

i've also noticed that okinawans like to refer to themselves as a third person.
it's very cute.. i know ayumi hamasaki refers herself this way sometimes too... like "ayu wa ..blah blah blah"
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SARS High Quality Asian Drama FanSUBs:
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..dorama & fansubbing obsession blog.. http://blog.goo.ne.jp/amrayu78/

ahochaude wrote:

Hey, aren't you the same Kairyu from the KikuTv message board?

Yeah that's me. I'll be returning to Hawaii in July and back to Kiku.

Seeing Nanako giving me a kiss on the screen from your signature always makes my day!


amrayu, I sometimes refer to myself in the third person. I heard people (mostly girls) doing that in Osaka when I was there too. Not too sure its a Okinawa thing.

kairyu wrote:

amrayu, I sometimes refer to myself in the third person. I heard people (mostly girls) doing that in Osaka when I was there too. Not too sure its a Okinawa thing.

but if they do refer to themself, it's 'uchi ha --- nantoka, natoka....' BTW, welcome to the board, kairyu.

kairyu wrote:

Yeah that's me. I'll be returning to Hawaii in July and back to Kiku.

Oh, went back with your wife to her hometown?
When did you go? (Lucky guy!)
I'd kill to back to Ashiya now...... work sucks!

kairyu wrote:

Seeing Nanako giving me a kiss on the screen from your signature always makes my day!

Thanks! I got it from Nekobaba site.
It's a dandy, ain't it?!
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niko2x wrote:

but if they do refer to themself, it's 'uchi ha --- nantoka, natoka....' BTW, welcome to the board, kairyu.

Thanks for the "welcome" niko2x, maybe I should do a jiko shokai on the appropriate thread.

As for the "uchi ha --- nantoka, nantoka . . . " thing, yeah, that's true, but I was thinking of times when I would hear my Jr high students say stuff like "Mami ha na, --- nantoka, nantoka . . ." where they would be using their name, not uchi. But I don't remember hearing adults doing this, so it might be a jr. high/ adolescent thingy. Whenever I used my name refering to myself in the third person I would always get a"kimochi warui" or similar remark.

Quote:

Oh, went back with your wife to her hometown? When did you go? (Lucky guy!) I'd kill to back to Ashiya now...... work sucks!

Actually the wife is from Suita in Osaka. I'm the one with Okianwan/Uchinaa roots. Got here almost a year and a half
ago.
Ashiya, that's the "classy" part of Kobe isn't it. Is your wife from Ashiya? I lived down in Sumiyoshi-ku near the Yamato-gawa, near the border of Sakai-shi.

kairyu wrote:

Actually the wife is from Suita in Osaka. I'm the one with Okianwan/Uchinaa roots. Got here almost a year and a half ago.

Damn! I didn't know that. I thought you were in Hawaii all this time.
Where did your family originate from Okinawa? Mine was from Itoman. (father's side) Mother's father's side was from Hiroshima. And Mother's mother, Okinawa but don't know where.

kairyu wrote:

Ashiya, that's the "classy" part of Kobe isn't it. Is your wife from Ashiya? I lived down in Sumiyoshi-ku near the Yamato-gawa, near the border of Sakai-shi.

GF actually. And yes, she's in Ashiya. She'll be coming here in June though. But personally, I'd rather go back to Ashiya. It's getting warmer down there huh? And the weather's been pretty crappy lately too huh?
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Haisai,

Who is that in your "stop aids" signature?

As for what part of Okinawa my family is from, my greatgrandparents on my dad's mother's side are from Haneji (now Nago-shi), so I guess that makes me a 'hillbilly'.

Yeah, the weather has been a little crappy down here, cloudy and rainy, but then we have a draught going on now so we need the rain. Lucky for us enough rain fell over the past week for prefectural officials to lift the planned water "blackout". They were going to stop running water between 10pm and 6am everyday starting yesterday.

Hey! As far as knowing who the chick is in my avatar, I don't really know. I just found it on the web and decided to sport it for a while. My good deed for the week, or something.
So, you're a hillbilly?
I had no idea that there was a drought going on in Japan. All I knew was that the weather was doodoo. Even in Hawaii, our weather here has sucked lately. Overcasts almost everyday and not to mention rain.
Yesterday was humid as hell. But today is rather cool.
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kairyu wrote:

As for what part of Okinawa my family is from, my greatgrandparents on my dad's mother's side are from Haneji (now Nago-shi), so I guess that makes me a 'hillbilly'.

WOW, you're the first person that i've heard of that is from nago. not that nago is small by any means, but compared to the population down south nago isn't as populated. (that might even be a good thing. )

kairyu wrote:

Yeah, the weather has been a little crappy down here, cloudy and rainy, but then we have a draught going on now so we need the rain. Lucky for us enough rain fell over the past week for prefectural officials to lift the planned water "blackout". They were going to stop running water between 10pm and 6am everyday starting yesterday.

I thought ou're living in hawaii now? With the water restriction, reminds me of typhoon season.

Just a little note about referring to oneself in the third person in Japanese:
Is not a particular Okinawan thing at all. It's common all over Japan, and particularly with young girls. However, it is not limited to them. Speaking in the third person with familiars if you are say, over 20 years old is a very childish and cutesty way of speaking if used repeatedly instead of I. Sometimes mothers or fathers using 3rd person use it with their children because they are family and that is what they are called, so they use it to refer to themselves with their own children.
However, for example, a 5 year old girl to say, "Keiko likes candy!" and for a 25 year old to say, "Keiko likes candy!" when talking about themselves has a different feeling completely. She looks like a young girl--or WANTS to be a young girl, haha--and that might be why some people say "kimochi warui" when older people use 3rd person.
I admit though, recently I use it when I want to soften what I am saying or "cute-ify" my sentences. Though, I will probably never use it seriously in conversation as I'm past that age and I have no children to whom I can refer to myself as "Mama," haha.

I hope that clears something up?

Oh, and the "Uchi wa..." is also like, "my house is..." so you will hear people say, "Uchi no otousan" literally meaning, "the father of the house," but obviously their house, not the other person's, so it means, "My dad."

Ryukyuan language (extending from Northern Okinawan Island of Amami Oshima to Yonaguni, which is just 73 km. off the coast of Taiwan). Like Kairyu had mention before, the Okinawan language itself is comprised of many diffferent dialects and sub-dialects from village to village. The Shuri dialect was standardized under the Ryukyuan kingdom central administration estiablished by King Sho Shin (1477-1526). It was the official language used in conversation by the aristocratic class of Shuri castle. Most Okinawan songs and poems were composed in the Shuri dialect.

Okinawan is inherently more difficult than regular JPN, because even the "keigo" in hougen is a lot more structured than JPN keigo.

Quote:

The Shuri dialect is characterized by complexity of honorific markers which differentiate class, sex, and age. A diversity of respect forms was strictly adhered to among the three social classes of aristocracy, gentry, and commoners; between male and female; and also between different age groups. The appropriate respect forms had to be used not only when two speakers were from the same class, same sex, and even to the same age when the hierarchical distinction only related to the month of birth. When two speakers were completely different status, conversational usage was extremely complex.

, which basically means even a regular conversation, depending on what status you happen to be in, will use two sets of different vocabulary. For example, the six individuals: A little boy, an oni-chan, a jiji, a little girl, an onee-chan, and baba would all have a different set of vocabulary, and I'm not even including social status, different clans, and/or different areas of Okinawa that these six people are from.

niko2x wrote:

For example, the six individuals: A little boy, an oni-chan

Lum? :-P

PaulTB wrote:

Lum? :-P

what's lum? you mean this lum?

kairyu: oh from nago! one of the people i went on a host exchange with stayed there in nago..
ahh.. natsukashii...

@ aho: i think the Aids girl in your sig.. looks like Uehara Takako??
im not really 100% sure. but it looks a lot like her.
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amrayu wrote:

@ aho: i think the Aids girl in your sig.. looks like Uehara Takako?? im not really 100% sure. but it looks a lot like her.

Oh boy. I had no idea that it could've been her. Damn! It's like sporting my "cousin" or something. Ewww.
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ahochaude wrote:

Oh boy. I had no idea that it could've been her. Damn! It's like sporting my "cousin" or something. Ewww.

"nothing spells lovin' like locking lips with yer cousin"
--- Al Bundy

It does look like her, but personally i don't think it's her. I don't think she would do those kinds of racy ads. Nudity i can see her doing, but as far as aids/condoms, i really don't think so.