Miyako

The Miyakoan language ( Myākufutsu/Myākufutsї or Sumafutsu/Sїmafutsї) is a diverse dialect cluster spoken in the Miyako Islands, located southwest of Okinawa. The combined population of the islands is about 52,000 (as of 2011). Miyakoan is a Southern Ryukyuan language, most closely related to Yaeyama. The number of competent native speakers is not known; as a consequence of Japanese language policy which refers to the language as the , reflected in the education system, people below the age of 60 tend to not use the language except in songs and rituals, and the younger generation mostly uses Japanese as their first language. Miyakoan is notable among the Japonic languages in that it allows non-nasal syllable-final consonants, something not found in most Japonic languages. Variants The most divergent variant is that of Tarama Island, the farthest island away. The other variants cluster as Ikema–Irabu and Central Miyako. Given the low degree of mutual intelligibility, Tarama language is sometimes considered a distinct language in its own right. An illustrative lexeme is the name of the plant Alocasia (evidently an Austronesian loan: Tagalog ). This varies as Central Miyako (Hirara, Ōgami) , Ikema , Irabu (Nagahama) , Tarama . Phonology The description here is mostly based on the Ōgami variant, the Central Miyakoan variant of the smallest of the Miyako islands, from Pellard (2009). There is additional description based on the Irabu variant, the Ikema-Irabu variant of the second largest of the Irabu islands.