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Thread: Okinawan-Japan relationship???

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    Default Okinawan-Japan relationship???

    Hey guys,

    I was referred to this forum, thinking that my question best fits here. I had originally posted in the Members Lounge. Doug (sorry, forgot your last name) gave some good information. Here's the question. What is the relationship between Okinawa and Japan? Is it a part of Japan, seperate from it, or what?
    I would also like to expand the discussion. Where do people see this relationship going in the future? What are some commonalities as well as possible pitfalls to that forseable future?

    Thanks for your time,

    Tim Dahl
    Tim Dahl

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    Default Okinawa is a Japanese Prefecture (State)

    Mr. Dahl,

    Formally, Okinawa and her sister islands in the Ryukyu Archipelago comprise the Japanese Prefecture (state) of Okinawa. The closest American equivalent would be Hawai'i. In fact, as I understand it, Okinawa is often referred to as Japan's Hawai'i ... a warm holiday travel destination spot. That said, Okinawan culture remains distinct from mainland Japanese culture in many ways (again much like Hawai'i and mainland US).

    Moreover, I understand that many Okinawans consider Okinawa to be separate nation ... in practice, if not on paper. Okinawa has it's own distinct (yet sadly dying) language comprised primarily of Hogen, but other dialects also exist. Okinawan food/diet is also distinct in many ways from that of mainland Japan. The list goes on and on. For more information, check out these web resources:
    <ul><li><a href=www.pref.okinawa.jp target=_blank><b>Official Okinawa Prefecture Page</b></a><li><a href=http://www.okinawatimes.co.jp/index-e.html target=_blank><b>Okinawa Times</b></a><li><a href=http://www.okinawa.com/home.html target=_blank><b>Okinawa.com</b></a></ul>In addition, you are always welcome to visit e-Budo's <a href=http://204.95.207.136/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=68 target=_blank><b>Okinawan Martial Arts Forums</b></a>.

    Regards,

    Doug Daulton

    NOTE: My reply to Tim's post in the Member's Lounge

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    Default "Hogen" vs. "hogen"

    Mr. Dalton,

    First, let me say how much I've enjoyed your various posts over the last several months that I've been a member of E-budo.com.

    Now the point of this post. You (and several others) have more than once written things like (to quote you above):

    "Okinawa has it's own distinct (yet sadly dying) language comprised primarily of Hogen, but other dialects also exist."

    As a long-time resident of Japan who likes to think of himself as fairly fluent in Japanese (the language is just like the martial arts: You gradually get increasingly better, but you're never good enough!), I've been wanting to ask, "Are you sure there is a language (or even a dialect) called "Hogen"? In everday Japanese speech, "hogen" means, simply, "dialect." Thus, where I live, people speak a hogen, too. It's called "Hiroshima-ben." There is also Tohoku-ben, Osaka-ben, Kagoshima-ben, etc, etc. Each of these is a "hogen." Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you (and others) have written, or maybe it's my basic lack of knowledge about Okinawa , but I think that maybe there's some confusion about the use of this word. Can I ask for your thoughts?

    Respectfully,
    Mark Tankosich

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    Smile Re: "Hogen" vs. "hogen"

    Originally posted by Mark Tankosich ... "Okinawa has it's own distinct (yet sadly dying) language comprised primarily of Hogen, but other dialects also exist."

    As a long-time resident of Japan who likes to think of himself as fairly fluent in Japanese (the language is just like the martial arts: You gradually get increasingly better, but you're never good enough!), I've been wanting to ask, "Are you sure there is a language (or even a dialect) called "Hogen"? In everyday Japanese speech, "hogen" means, simply, "dialect." Thus, where I live, people speak a hogen, too. It's called "Hiroshima-ben." There is also Tohoku-ben, Osaka-ben, Kagoshima-ben, etc, etc. Each of these is a "hogen." Perhaps I'm misunderstanding what you (and others) have written, or maybe it's my basic lack of knowledge about Okinawa , but I think that maybe there's some confusion about the use of this word. Can I ask for your thoughts?
    Mr.Tankosich,

    You raise a good point. As I am not a professional linguist, I cannot give you a formal answer to your question. That said, here is what I can offer as a reply.

    1. I've most frequently heard H/hogen used when referring to the Okinawan tongue. I was not aware the word directly translated to "dialect". Thanks for enlightening me. With this in mind, I would assume you are correct that correct use would be hogen as opposed to Hogen ... as the word is not a proper noun/name.

    2. I have heard folks on the mainland refer to the Okinawan tongue as Okinawa-ben, so this seems in line with your point as well.

    3. The Okinawans I've met do not refer to their tongue as either Hogen or Okinawa-ben. Rather, they refer to it as "Uchinan-guchi" which means "Okinawan speaking" in their tongue. I use hogen as a reference because it is what most folks are familiar with (and it is shorter to write than Uchinan-guchi ).

    4. As an amateur linguist, I can tell you that there do seem to some shared patterns between Nihongo and Uchinan-guchi . This would make sense as I understand most, if not all, languages of the region spring from Chinese. So, I am relatively certain both Nihongo and Uchinan-guchi share a common ancestor, the question is how far removed is that ancestor? While many similar patterns exist, I also noted that some words/phrases were vastly different than their Nihongo counterparts (at least the counterparts I knew). This would seem to suggest some original source.

    5. I've also witnessed younger Okinawans & Japanese using English words for (example, "challenge") as if it were native Nihongo. When the concept of "loan words" was raised, several folks got very animated (not angry) and had to refer to dictionaries for proof of origin. They always assumed the word was Japanese. This phenomena is not unheard of in the US either. For example, many don't know that "honcho" is a word of Japanese origin.

    If there is a clear analog to Uchinan-guchi in the US, it might be Cajun which some might some argue is a French-laced English and others argue is English-laced French. Regardless of derivation, it is a relatively distinct language now. More to the point, if Uchinan-guchi is indeed a derivative of Nihongo, some folks may not recognize that fact for a variety of reasons, the least of which is simply not understanding the lingual history (like the loan words issue).

    All of that said, I think it is important that one understands that most Okinawans (at least in my experience) consider Uchinan-guchi to be a distinct and separate language. Some older Okinawans remember being forced to learn Japanese or English after the war and seem to resent the mainland Japanese as a result (although the devastation of WWII is a larger factor I am sure).

    While visiting Okinawa, I received broad smiles and looks of amazement for using the smattering of Uchinan-guchi I learned from my teacher. From friends to shopkeepers at Kokusai-dori, people (mostly 35 or older) expressed gratitude for taking the time to learn the "original" Okinawan language. I share this anecdote to illustrate that Okinawans hold their language as distinct and some (at least those I met) seem to appreciate attempts to speak and, therefore, preserve it.

    This topic has been raised before in this forum. You may want to check out the following thread: <a href="http://204.95.207.136/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2571">Linguistics and Ryukyu martial traditions</a>. Joe Svinth offers some great links there.

    I hope this little bit of rambling helps. Thanks for the education re: the meaning of hogen. I always enjoy learning new things.

    Regards,


    Doug Daulton

    PS: Is anyone aware of formal linguistic studies re: Uchinan-guchi (university or other)? If so, please post references.

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    Smile Robert - Nifee debiru

    Robert,

    Thanks for the post and the lead. Excellent information as always! BTW, the direct link to the page you mentioned is:

    http://okinawa.com/language.html

    Also, I found this link which has some RealPlayer video clips with Uchina-guchi.

    Okinawan Language Lessons: RealMedia

    Regards,

    Doug Daulton

    PS: Do I recall you mentioning Jim Logue is one of your kyoudai under Oyata sensei? If so, he and Dometrich sensei will meet this weekend at a symposium in South Carolina.
    Last edited by Doug Daulton; 11th October 2001 at 18:51.

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    Default Re: Re: Robert - Nifee debiru

    Originally posted by Robert Rousselot ... Funny you should mention Dometrich sensei, I recently saw her on a video taped at the honbu. I believe it was taken during the trip to Okinawa on the 3rd anniversary of Akamine sensei's death. She was doing Bo and possibly Sai. There were some other folks on there too but can't remember their names.
    Robert,

    When you say the video was shot at the honbu, do you mean Akamine sensei's dojo? Or, Oyata sensei's? Dometrich sensei's last visit was the winter/spring of 1999 to attend Akamine sensei's funeral. So, January 2002 will be the 3rd anniversary of his passing.

    If the video was older B&W, it may have been one of Taira sensei's Embu Taikai. There is some old footage floating around with her, her dojomates and Akamine sensei at a taikai.

    In any event, I am glad she and Logue Kyoshi will get the chance to meet this weekend.

    Regards,
    Doug Daulton

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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Doug Daulton
    Mr.Tankosich,

    You raise a good point. As I am not a professional linguist, I cannot give you a formal answer to your question. That said, here is what I can offer as a reply.

    1. I've most frequently heard H/hogen used when referring to the Okinawan tongue. I was not aware the word directly translated to "dialect". Thanks for enlightening me. With this in mind, I would assume you are correct that correct use would be hogen as opposed to Hogen ... as the word is not a proper noun/name.

    2. I have heard folks on the mainland refer to the Okinawan tongue as Okinawa-ben, so this seems in line with your point as well.

    3. The Okinawans I've met do not refer to their tongue as either Hogen or Okinawa-ben. Rather, they refer to it as "Uchinan-guchi" which means "Okinawan speaking" in their tongue. I use hogen as a reference because it is what most folks are familiar with (and it is shorter to write than Uchinan-guchi ).

    4. As an amateur linguist, I can tell you that there do seem to some shared patterns between Nihongo and Uchinan-guchi . This would make sense as I understand most, if not all, languages of the region spring from Chinese. So, I am relatively certain both Nihongo and Uchinan-guchi share a common ancestor, the question is how far removed is that ancestor? While many similar patterns exist, I also noted that some words/phrases were vastly different than their Nihongo counterparts (at least the counterparts I knew). This would seem to suggest some original source.

    5. I've also witnessed younger Okinawans & Japanese using English words for (example, "challenge") as if it were native Nihongo. When the concept of "loan words" was raised, several folks got very animated (not angry) and had to refer to dictionaries for proof of origin. They always assumed the word was Japanese. This phenomena is not unheard of in the US either. For example, many don't know that "honcho" is a word of Japanese origin.

    If there is a clear analog to Uchinan-guchi in the US, it might be Cajun which some might some argue is a French-laced English and others argue is English-laced French. Regardless of derivation, it is a relatively distinct language now. More to the point, if Uchinan-guchi is indeed a derivative of Nihongo, some folks may not recognize that fact for a variety of reasons, the least of which is simply not understanding the lingual history (like the loan words issue).

    All of that said, I think it is important that one understands that most Okinawans (at least in my experience) consider Uchinan-guchi to be a distinct and separate language. Some older Okinawans remember being forced to learn Japanese or English after the war and seem to resent the mainland Japanese as a result (although the devastation of WWII is a larger factor I am sure).

    While visiting Okinawa, I received broad smiles and looks of amazement for using the smattering of Uchinan-guchi I learned from my teacher. From friends to shopkeepers at Kokusai-dori, people (mostly 35 or older) expressed gratitude for taking the time to learn the "original" Okinawan language. I share this anecdote to illustrate that Okinawans hold their language as distinct and some (at least those I met) seem to appreciate attempts to speak and, therefore, preserve it.

    This topic has been raised before in this forum. You may want to check out the following thread: <a href="http://204.95.207.136/vbulletin/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2571">Linguistics and Ryukyu martial traditions</a>. Joe Svinth offers some great links there.

    I hope this little bit of rambling helps. Thanks for the education re: the meaning of hogen. I always enjoy learning new things.

    Regards,


    Doug Daulton

    PS: Is anyone aware of formal linguistic studies re: Uchinan-guchi (university or other)? If so, please post references.
    Hougen/ hogen was used to mean "okinawan language" by the Japanese when they were trying to assimilate the Okinawan people since Japan was trying to remove the OKinawan identity. Uchinaaguschi refers only to the language of Okinawa Island and its dialects- notably Shuri, and Nakajin. Uchinaaguchi is a Ryukyuan language. Most linguists consider the RYukyuan languages to be seperate from Japanese but belonging to the same language family like how French, Italian, and Spanish all belong to one language family but are different languages. The Ryukyuan languages were believed to have split from Japanese about 2000 years ago, before the romance languages split from vulgar latin. For this reason, the Ryukyuan languages all retain certain charecteristics and vocabulary of ancient Japanese but this dosn't make them a dialect of Japanese.

    The Japonic language family which consists of the Ryukyuan Languages and Japanese is not related to Chinese at all. Chinese is a sino-tibetan language that has tones, no conjugation, completely different word order, and there are many other differences. The ancestry of Japanese language is the issue of hot debate since some say its a language isoalate while others say its related to Korean. Approximately 50% of Japanese vocabulary is from Chinese origin, and about the same goes for Korean too. Uchinaaguchi is beleived to have less than this. Uchinaaguchi also brought in loanwords from a different time in Chinese history and much of them from a different dialect. Japanese, Vietnamese, and Korean took most of their chinese loanwords from Old Chinese which had aspirations, sounds, and consanant endings that no longer exist in Chinese or are only found in a few dialects/languages. It is also beleived that Chinese language and writing was brought over by Koreans so the sounds may have already been modified. Uchinaaguchi took most of the Chinese vocabulary from southern Chinese languages/dialects at a different time in history. For instance, "Chinese language" in Uchinaaguchi is "Kwanfa", in modern cantonese, the cantonese language is called "Guangwa" or "guangdongwa", the Goddess of mercy called "Kwan Nun" in Uchinaaguchi is called "Kuan Mun" in Cantonese. It is likely that Fujianese was the CHinese language that lent most of the loanwords to Uchinaaguchi.

    There are currently 6 recognized languages in the Ryukyuan Languages- Miyako (myaaku hutsi)), Yaeyama (yaima munii)), yonaguni, Okinawa (uchinaaguchi), Ishigaki and Amami. They are all mutually unintelligible with any of the Japanese dialects and for the most part are mutually unintelligable amongst themselves. Oftentimes, dialects of these languages on the same island are also mutually unintelligible. "To eat" is "taberu" in Japanese but "Kamun" in Okinawan, and "Fo" in Miyako. Miyako is furthur distant from Japanese because it has consanant-endings which don't exist in any of the Japonic languages. For instance "I ate (informal)" is "Fostaz" in Miyako language wheras it would be "tabetta" in Japanese.

    I hope this helped. I would prefer that people don't use "Hogen/Hougen" because as was pointed out above, Hogen means "dialect" and Uchinaaguchi and the other Ryukyuan languages recieved that name because of Japans attempts to wipe out the language and Okinawan culture. Its also easier for the Japanese government to keep japanese society homogenous if Uchinaaguchi is called a "dialect" because then they can just say "lets speak the proper dialect" and then totally remove the language. Remember, the japanese have only recognized Okinawans as a seperate people when it suited them like in the Battle of Okinawa where Japanese generals actually wrote and said the Okinawan people were "expendable". The Japanese government still dosn't recognize Okinawans as a seperate people, the same goes for Koreans who still aren't recognized as a minority.

    And the resentment is true. My mom was beaten and publically humiliated for speaking Uchinaaguchi in school. This was in the 1960's. Today, Uchinaaguchi is dying out. Most of the younger generation can't speak it or what little they do, they mix with japanese to create a type of pidgin language that is painful to listen to. I'm not some older person ranting on the younger generation, I'm a junior highschool student who cares about my culture and language. Please learn the languages of my people. I'm sorry if this is ranting and really long, people need to know this.

    Nifedeebiru,
    Carlos

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    Default Thanks

    Carlos,

    Thanks for that. It was really educational.

    Mark
    Mark Tankosich

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    Default

    Here's an interesting datum about the Japanese language's apparent uniqueness from:

    http://www2.gol.com/users/hsmr/Conte...ory/roots.html

    That is, the modern Ainu language of Hokkaido is not a model for the ancient Jomon language of Kyushu. By the same token, modern Korean may be a poor model for the ancient Yayoi language of Korean immigrants in 400 B.C. In the centuries before Korea became unified politically in A.D. 676, it consisted of three kingdoms. Modern Korean is derived from the language of the kingdom of Silla, the kingdom that emerged triumphant and unified Korea, but Silla was not the kingdom that had close contact with Japan in the preceding centuries. Early Korean chronicles tell us that the different kingdoms had different languages. While the languages of the kingdoms defeated by Silla are poorly known, the few preserved words of one of those kingdoms, Koguryo, are much more similar to the corresponding Old Japanese words than are the corresponding modern Korean words. Korean languages may have been even more diverse in 400 B.C., before political unification had reached the stage of three kingdoms. The Korean language that reached Japan in 400 B.C., and that evolved into modern Japanese, I suspect, was quite different from the Silla language that evolved into modern Korean. Hence we should not be surprised that modern Japanese and Korean people resemble each other far more in their appearance and genes than in their languages.

    FWIW

    Mike

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    Default

    Carlos,
    You post is both informative and eloquent. Are these all you words?
    I only ask because you write far better than my own junior high son.

    Please check your PM.

    Best regards,
    Ray Baldonade
    Chibana-ha Shorin-ryu

    "Love many, trust few and do wrong to none". Chan Yau-man

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    Default

    On the flip-side of this discussion, most of the mainland Japanese consider Okinawa to be part of Japan, at least on the surface.
    Many young people are blissfully unaware that the Ryukyus were ever an independent kingdom - a mixture of a lack of education and anual media reminders of the return of Okinwawa to Japan in 1972.
    From the latter half of the 1990's, there was a wave of musicians from Okinawa who became very popular in the mainstream music scene, and the G7 summit held there in 2000 meant that TV viewers were exposed to nightly specials on "Okinawan Food", "Okinawan Music" and Okinawan what-have-you, while being led to believe the summit was all about the issue of US bases in the prefecture. Interestingly, Namie Amuro, the Okinawan pop star who was chosen to perform for the summit, couldn't (or wouldn't) sing the Japanese national anthem, claiming she never learned it at school.
    Okinawa still has one of the highest unemployment rates in Japan, but is also media fodder for its number of people aged over 100. It is seen as a place to escape to, all while being safely "at home". And if you're trying to break into the music industry, it doesn't hurt to be from there, either. It's conveniently far away enough from Tokyo for the government to accept the number of US bases there, but Japanese throughout the archapeligo still feel indignant about them.
    It's a complex issue, and I'd like to see some comments from our Japanese members on this.
    Andrew Smallacombe

    Aikido Kenshinkai

    JKA Tokorozawa

    Now trotting over a bridge near you!

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