| Amami Ōshima | |
|---|---|
| Amami | |
| 島口/シマユムタShimayumuta | |
| Native to | Japan |
| Region | Amami Ōshima and neighboring islands,Kagoshima Prefecture |
Native speakers | ca. 12,000 (2004)[1] |
Japonic
| |
| Japanese | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either:ryn – Northernams – Southern (Setouchi) |
| Glottolog | oshi1235 |
 Tan in south:Southern Amami. Green, pink, and tan in north:Northern Amami. Each orange area indicates where people characterize the local dialect as being the same language as they speak. | |
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TheAmami language or languages (島口,シマユムタ,Shimayumuta), also known asAmami Ōshima or simplyŌshima ('Big Island'), is aRyukyuan language spoken in theAmami Islands south ofKyūshū. Thesouthern variety of theSetouchi township may be a distinct language more closely related toOkinawan than it is to northern Ōshima.
As Amami does not have recognition within Japan as a language, it is officially known as the Amami dialect (奄美方言,Amami Hōgen).
The number of native speakers is uncertain, but they are predominantly elderly. It is estimated that there are approximately 10,000 speakers of the Northern dialect and approximately 2,000 speakers of the Southern (Setouchi) dialect. The Japanese government, via the Ministry of Education, is implementing measures to protect these endangered languages.[1][2]
Linguists mostly agree on the validity of theAmami–Okinawan languages as a family. The subdivisions of Amami–Okinawan, however, remain a matter of scholarly debate, with two major hypotheses:
The two-subdivision hypothesis is convenient for discussing the modern languages since the posited linguistic boundary corresponds to the centuries-old administrative boundary that today separates Kagoshima and Okinawa Prefectures. In addition, severalisoglosses do group Northern and Southern Amami together. In Amami, word-medial/k/ is changed to/h/ or even dropped when it is surrounded by/a/,/e/ or/o/. This can rarely be observed in Okinawan. Japanese/-awa/ becomes/-oː/ in Amami and/-aː/ in Okinawan.[3]
The three-subdivision hypothesis is more phylogenetically-oriented. A marked isogloss is the vowel systems.Japanese language/e/ corresponds to/ɨ/ in Northern Amami Ōshima while it was merged into/i/ in Southern Amami Ōshima through Okinawan.[3]
The vowel system-based classification is not without complication. The northern three communities ofKikai Island share the seven-vowel system with Amami Ōshima and Tokunoshima to the south, while the rest of Kikai falls in with Okinoerabu and Yoron even further south.Based on other evidence, however, Karimata (2000)[3] and Lawrence (2011)[4] tentatively group Kikai dialects together.
Amami Ōshima can be divided intoNorthern Amami Ōshima andSouthern Amami Ōshima despite conflicting patterns of isoglosses.[5]The distribution of Southern Amami Ōshima roughly corresponds toSetouchi Town, including offshore islands. The rest of the main island speaks Northern Amami Ōshima.[5]
Shibata et al. (1984) takes a lexicostatistic approach to subgrouping Northern Amami Ōshima dialects:[6]
In addition, Sani, a small community on a peninsula at the northern tip of the island, is known to have distinct phonology.
Based on phonetic and lexical evidence, Shibata et al. (1984) subdivide Southern Amami Ōshima into
reflecting the administrative divisions during theEdo period. WhileUke Island belonged to the Nishi Magiri district, its dialect is closer to that of Higashi Magiri.[6]
Southern Amami Ōshima contrasts with Northern Amami Ōshima in its final unreleased consonants. For example, "shrimp" is[ʔip] in Ōshama[clarification needed] (Southern) and[ʔibi] inTatsugō (Northern); "blade" is[katna] in Ōshama and[katana] in Tatsugō.[7]
According toOsada Suma (1902–1998), the dialect of Yamatohama,Yamato Village of Amami Ōshima hadyumuta/ˈjumuθa/ for 'language',shimayumuta/simaˈjumuθa/ for 'island language' (i.e. Amami Ōshima) andYamatoguchi/ˈjamaθoɡuci/[clarification needed] for the language of mainland Japan (i.e. Japanese).[8] Another term,shimaguchi/simaɡuci/, is absent from Osada's dictionary. According to Kurai Norio (b. 1923), a local historian from Amami Ōshima,shimaguchi contrasted withYamatoguchi, whileshimayumuta was associated with accentual and intonational differences among variousshima (villages).[9]Ebara Yoshimori (1905–1988), a folklorist from Naze, Amami Ōshima, conjectured thatshimaguchi was of relatively recent origin, possibly made through analogy withYamatoguchi. He thought that the dialect of one's home community was better referred to asshimayumuta.[10]
Historically, vowel-initial words acquired anepenthetic glottal stop. When *wo and *we later became/u/ and/i/ without an initial glottal stop, the glottal stop elsewhere became phonemic. When still later initial vowels were elided, an initial glottal stop merged with the following consonant, establishing a series of "glottalized" consonants. While the nasals are trulyglottalized, the "glottalized" stops are merelytenuis[C˭], contrasting with the defaultaspirated stops[Cʰ].[11]
In the southern Shodon dialect, the consonants/pttɕkɕɾmn/ occur at the end of a word or syllable, as in/k˭upʰ/ 'neck',/sakʰɾa/ 'cherry blossom' and/t˭ɨɾɡjo/ 'well'.[14] Other dialects are similar. Final consonants are usually the result of eliding high front vowels. Elision is partly conditioned bypitch accent. In Shodon dialect, for example, the noun with accent classes 2.1 and 2.2[clarification needed] are realized as[⎞mɨtʰ][clarification needed] (water, 2.1) and[⎞ʔiʃ][clarification needed] (stone, 2.2) while 2.3-5 nouns retain final vowels, e.g.[mi⎛miː][clarification needed] (ear, 2.3),[ha⎛ɾiː][clarification needed] (needle, 2.4) and[ha⎛ɾuː][clarification needed] (spring, 2.5).[15]
There are seven distinct vowel qualities in Amami Ōshima, in addition to a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels and in some dialects oral and nasal vowels.[14]
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e | ɘ | o |
| Low | a |
/ɨ/ and/ɘ/ are generally transcribed "ï" and "ë" in the literature.
/ɨ/ derives from *e and merges with/i/ afteralveolar consonants./ɘ/ mostly derives from a merger of *ae and *ai, and so is usually long. In several northern dialects, the nasal vowels/ãõɨ̃ɘ̃/ developed from the loss of a word-medial/m/:
Kasarisani dialect has 11 oral and nasal vowels, while Sani dialect adds long vowels for a total of 18, the largest inventory of any Ryukyuan languages.
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