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Development of a Linguistic Ecosystem:
Creation and Management of Linguistic Resources on
the Ogasawara Islands
Daniel LONG
Graduate School of Humanities, Tokyo Metropolitan University
1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji-shi, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan
E-mail: dlong@tmu.ac.jp

Abstract
The Ogasawara Islands provide interesting examples of ways in which a linguistic ecosystem develops.
The natural sciences offer tools, concepts and terminology to help us make sense of an ever-evolving island
language. This paper, focuses on processes through which such a linguistic ecosystem expands, and proposes
the specific categories of naming, coinage and conceptualization. It also examines ways in which island
language can be managed, as other resources are, for the benefit of the islanders.
Key words :	coinage, conceputualization, island languages, language contact, naming

1. Aim of this paper
In this paper, I examine the language situation of the
Ogasawara Islands from the perspective of this special
issue, entitled Sustainable Management of Oceanic Island
Ecosystems: Lessons from a Natural World Heritage Site,
the Ogasawara Islands. The keywords sustainability,
management and ecosystems may also be applied tolanguage.
From the “Sustainability” aspect, one could discuss
whether or not the local words and phrases grouped
together under the name “Ogasawara kotoba” are being
passed down to younger generation speakers (i.e.,
whether the local language variety is being “sustained” ornot). Such sustainability questions are outlined in the
final two chapters of Long (2007) and expanded in thelast five chapters of Long (2018), so I will not rehashthose discussions here.
This paper will focus first on the ways in which the
linguistic and cultural “ecosystem” of Ogasawara hasformed the local language variety, and second on how
local linguistic resources are being used, i.e., the“management” of those resources. Since the object ofstudy is linguistics rather than the biological sciences, mydiscussion will necessarily take liberties in the analogies
made with natural science terms. From the standpoint thatan “ecosystem” is one in which organisms are born anddie and over the long term evolve to fit their environment,
I will look at the genesis of new linguistic forms on
Ogasawara. I propose categorizing this linguistic processes
as naming, coinage and conceptualization.
Global Environmental Research
23/2019: 063-068
printed in Japan

I must clarify at this point that my usage of someterms in this paper will diverge from established usages
in linguistics. Firstly, I should point out that the term“language management” already exists as a field ofsociolinguistics advanced by Jiří V. Neustupný (see forexample Neustupný, 2012) and others, with its own
academic association, the Society of Language
Management (https://lmtjapan.wordpress.com/). Secondly,
other linguists, namely Peter Mühlhäusler, have written
entire volumes outlining the new discipline of “Linguistic
Ecology” (Mühlhäusler, 1996) and academicorganizations exist to explore this field as well (TheInternational Ecolinguistics Association, 2019). My
observations below, however, using the terms“management” and “ecosystem” apply to the linguistic
situation of Ogasawara based on two decades of linguistic
fieldwork there, and are not based on the frameworks ofthese two disciplines.
As one initial step towards understanding an
ecosystem, biologists identify and catalog species. One
step in understanding a linguistic system is to identify
individual words and catalog them into a lexicon. Other
contrasts can be drawn between biology and linguistics.
Researchers in the former have a keen interest in labels,
but largely as a meta-analytical means towards the ends
of understanding species. For linguists, this labeling itself
is an object of research. Biologists label (name) a new
species by themselves according to the pre-ordained
system of classification (biosystematics, i.e., taxonomics)
when a researcher discovers it; linguists analyze (inaddition to things like grammar and pronunciation) the©2019 AIRES

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D. LONGlabels (vocabulary) which develop social processes
within a linguistic community and reflect folktaxonomies. In the next section, I will propose three
processes (sub-categories) by which the Ogasawara
linguistic system has been expanded: naming, coinage,
and conceptualization.

2. Naming“Naming” is simply the process under which a thingacquires a label. In linguistic terms, when naming occurs,
our island lexicon expands by one additional word. In anatural ecosystem, we could imagine the number of
species increasing, for example, from 781 to 782 throughthe introduction of an invasive species or through theslow processes of evolution. In linguistic terms, we could
think of our island lexicon (dictionary) increasing from
781 to 782 entry words. “Naming” is only one of ahandful of processes which give birth to new words andthus expand a linguistic system.
Some examples of “naming” occur through theborrowing of words from another language. One exampleof this is biide-biide, the name of an endemic species of‘coral tree’ Erythrina boninensis. The word derives fromthe Hawaiian wili-wili or vili-vili (E. sandwicensis), thename of a similar species endemic to those islands. Whenthe first European (including American) and PacificIslander settlers came to Ogasawara in 1830, only thelatter group had a possible name for this tree.
Some other examples of “naming” also make use ofpreexistent words but combine them into new
combinations. On Ogasawara, we see this process in theterms shimazushi and nanyō-odori. Shimazushi is thename given to a unique variety of sushi developed on theislands, in which sashimi (usually wahoo fish) is soaked
in soy sauce and flavored with mustard (rather thanwasabi as in mainland Japan). Nanyō-odori refers to akind of dancing which developed in Micronesia and had
no previous name in Japanese.

3. Naming and Coinage
Some instances of naming occur through, not just thecompounding of pre-existent words, but also through thecreation of new words, i.e., “coinage.” As seen in Fig. 1,

some words fit into both categories.
One Ogasawara word which fits the definition ofboth naming and coinage is guriin pepe, the name of a
local bioluminescent mushroom (Mycena chlorohos).
Guriin pepe are tiny and white, growing wild in theisland’s jungles and glowing faintly green at night. They
are well known even among Ogasawara’s tourists. Guriin
pepe is one of those rare cases in language history where
we can point to the exact individual who named a thing(for details of this and others etymologies, see Long &Hashimoto, 2005).
Another such term is akapoppo, coined as anickname for an endemic bird (‘redheaded wood pigeon’
Columba janthina nitens). This critically endangered
bird’s official name is akagashira-karasubato, so a moreeasily memorable term was needed for increasing publicawareness. This is another case where we know thecoiner’s identity The name was created by the Institute ofBoninology’s Hajime Suzuki.
It is not only biological organisms which need andacquire labels. High schools and colleges in Japan holdyearly school festivals and Ogasawara High School’s iscalled the Biide Sai. Biide is a shortening of biide-biide,combined with sai, the word for ‘festival.’
Of course, few coinages are truly 100% new. The
first elements of the compound words guriin pepe andakapoppo are the Japanese color terms for ‘green’ and‘red.’ The name akapoppo is reminiscent of akakokko(‘Izu thrush’ Turdus celaenops), a different species foundon the neighboring Izu Islands and the naming reflects
onomatopoeic associations with “hato” as in Japanesechildren’s song, “Poppoppo, hato poppo.”
One word which has no obvious antecedents is kaka,a term coined around 1987 to refer to a newly createdpercussion instrument (a hollowed out log used as adrum). The term seems to be onomatopoeic, i.e.,
representing the sound of tapping a log.
In some cases the details of the naming process have
yet to be uncovered. The Ogasawara Islands were notinhabited by humans until 1830, so their history is lessthan 200 years. Just the same, 190 years is plenty of time
when it comes to forgetting who named things. The birdnames wirowiro ‘petrel’ Pterodroma hypoleuca and kiikii‘rock thrush’ Monticola solitaries, as well as the shellfish
umpōshi ‘cowry’ Mauritia mauritiana were bestowed so

Fig. 1 Word creation through naming, coinage and conceptualization.

Development of a Linguistic Ecosystemlong ago that no one remembers why, how, when or
where these names came about.
One word formed from parts of pre-existent words isgyosan, a type of sandal worn by almost all residents of
Ogasawara. Their design is different from the beachsandals worn on mainland Japan. They have become so
iconic as part of the Ogasawara brand that even whensold in mainland Tokyo or in Okinawa they are marketedas Ogasawara gyosan. The word is a blend of gyogyō(fishing) and sandaru (sandal).
Although this term is similar to the compound words
shima zushi and nanyō-odori discussed above, gyosancombines only parts of words (bound morphemes) rather
than whole words (independent morphemes) as in thosecases. What this means is that a person who had neverheard the former terms could nonetheless figure out themeaning. Any Japanese knows what the four words sushi,
shima, odori and nanyō mean. On the other hand, thewords gyo and san do not exist on their own. For thisreason, shima zushi and nanyō-odori are not regarded ascoinage, but gyosan is.

4. Coinage Only
The common trait in the “naming” processes
examined here is that all the names came into being in
response to the questions “What do you call that food?,”“What do you call that dance?,” etc.
There are however, cases of coinage which do not fit
these notions of naming. These are shown in the middleof Fig. 1. The term on Ogasawara corresponding to thereflexive first person plural pronoun ‘ourselves’ is jibura.
It would be jibun-tachi in Standard Japanese. An island
term for ‘clothing’ is kirui, which probably comes from a
blend of kirumono and irui. At any rate neither of thesewords would have been in a dictionary. These arecoinages based on their constructions, but the former
term is just a pronoun and the latter is just a generic word
for clothing. In the sense that nobody would look atclothes and ask “what do you call those?”, the words can
not be said to have been created through the process ofnaming.

5. Conceptualization
Look again at Fig. 1 and notice the term
“conceptualization.” I shall explain what this term meansand how it differs from the other two.
On Ogasawara, if you say tobikomi, any personfamiliar with the island will have a concrete and fairly
precise idea of exactly what you are talking about. The
same can be said for the term miokuri. If you were tolook these terms up in a dictionary, tobikomi would betranslated as something like “jump into” and miokuri
would be rendered as something like ‘see (someone) off.’
Both are noun (nominal) forms of verbs (tobikomu,

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miokuru). When I say that these terms have been“conceptualized,” that means that on Ogasawara theseterms are no longer just general terms for ‘jump into’ and‘see someone off,’ but have more specific and concreteconnotations. On Ogasawara, tobikomi is the term used
for islanders jumping into the sea from boats or from apier as a sendoff for the ship which weekly carries seven
hundred passengers, mostly tourists, back to the mainislands of Japan. It could also mean “to jump into theocean when the ship is not leaving,” but this is not the
principal connotation understood on the islands. It could
also mean to jump into the swimming pool at the local
elementary school, but this is not the main connotation on
the islands. A quick photo search on the internet (of theseterms in general, not of their usage on Ogasawara) is allthat is needed to back up my claim. Searching fortobikomi, one finds many photos of swimmers jumping
into pools, many of these in high diving competitions.
There are several photos of non-humans acting out
tobikomi, namely polar bears, dogs and seabirds. And yes,
there are also many photos of people jumping into theocean, from cliffs, from kayaks or diving boats,sometimes in just swim suits, sometimes with snorkelingor scuba gear. But none of these tobikomi divers are doing
this action for the purpose of sending off tourists leaving
their islands. On Ogasawara, yes, the term tobikomi could
point to the actions in any of these images. It could intheory, but it does not in everyday life. On Ogasawara, if
you ask someone if they did tobikomi, the first thingwhich pops into their minds is a person jumping into thesea while waving to 700 passengers departing on theweekly ship. This is an example of “conceptualization,”or rather this is an example of how a couple of generalterms have undergone a specific conceptualization on
Ogasawara. Another aspect of this conceptualization isthat the terms now occupy a semantic place different
from what used to be their fellow terms. For example, on
mainland Japan tobikomi has no more special significancethat similar bodily actions such as tobihane (jumping up
into the air), or tobiori (jumping in the sense of falling, aswith suicides), or tobiagari (jumping up, as a sleeping
person awaken by an earthquake). On Ogasawara,
however, tobikomi no longer belongs on the same generallevel as these nominal verbs. It has become “a thing,” inthe sense that Americans would say tobikomi? Has that
become a thing now?” Becoming “a thing”; this is what I
mean by “conceptualization.”
Incidentally, I recently purchased a topical pictorial
dictionary of another island language. This was the
Hawaiian language and even though it is called adictionary, it is not organized in alphabetical order as
most dictionaries are, but according to themes. There is a
page with pictures of food and the names of those foods
written under them. Another page is family relations,another is for clothing, things in the house, hunting andfishing, etc. One page is for sporting activities. Alongside

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D. LONGsoccer, baseball, basketball, etc. this dictionary gives theterm ka lele with a picture of a boy jumping off a bridge
into the sea (Housman, 2012).
I checked the similar, but much more extensive,
Oxford-Duden Pictorial English-Japanese Dictionary. It
is also a topical illustrated dictionary organized on thesame principles but it has 28,000 objects in 384 fields
covering 864 pages compared to the 1,000 words in 34
fields covering 67 pages of the Hawaiian picture
dictionary, and no such picture or word is given there.
The closest things in the English-Japanese Dictionary
index are the terms high jump and long jump listing on
the “Athletics (Track and Field)” page. The Japaneseindex guides us to tobikomi terms on the swimming page
but all are pool terms translated as ‘highboard diving,’‘competitive diving,’ etc. In Hawaii, ‘jumping off into’ is“a thing,” it is conceptualized to a further extent than inmainstream English language varieties.
Miokuri refers to the action of islands giving theweekly ship a sendoff. This can be done standing on thepier and waving to departing tourists lined up at therailing on the decks. It might also be waving to the shipfrom one of the six or eight smaller scuba diving or whale
watching boats which run alongside the ship for fifteen
minutes as it navigates its way out of the harbor andheads into the open sea for its 24 hour journey back toJapan. A mainland Japanese person might think the term
miokuri could also apply to a B & B owner giving a ride
to departing guests to the dock, but driving away without
waving them off; for an Ogasawaran simply driving
someone to the dock would not qualify as miokuri. The
way in which expressions like tobikomi and miokuri,
which are vague in mainland Japan, have come todescribe more specific phenomena in Ogasawara isshown in Fig. 2.
Not all examples of conceptualization are abstract
objects. The term wentoru ‘young green sea turtle’
Chelonia mydas is also an example of conceptualization.
The term refers not just to a sea turtle of any age, but one
in young adulthood. This is being differentiated from fullgrown turtles in a similar way that puppy, kitten, colt andcalf are different concepts from dog, cat, horse and cow.
If we think of naming as developing in response to
the question “what do you call that?”, we could think ofconceptualization as something of the opposite.
Conceptualization would ellicit the reaction “Wow, youhave a special word just for that?”

6. Branding
The term “branding” is from the world of advertisingand different scholastic disciplines use the term in
different ways. I will use it here to mean not simply that acertain word has strong associations with Ogasawara, butrather that these associations have become so strong thatwhen people hear the word it triggers thoughts of
Ogasawara. In other words, not only do people think of
the word when they hear Ogasawara, but they think ofOgasawara upon hearing the word.
In this sense one could say that “Broadway
musicals” have become a brand for Manhattan, or that“safari” has become a brand for the sub-Saharan Africa
region. I would claim then that guriin pepe has achieved
branding for Ogasawara. The reader may think “but mostpeople in Japan have never heard of guriin pepe” or “mostpeople in the world have never heard of Ogasawara,” butsuch comments would be missing the point. That is, whenpeople hear guriin pepe if they have heard the term anddo associate it with any place, that place will be
Ogasawara rather than Okinawa or Hachijo or Saipan.
Another example of branding is nanyō-odori, discussed
at length in a paper by Junko Konishi in this special issue.
One can think of “branding” as the association of aname (word) with a specific product. Tamana is the nameof a bakery on Chichi-Jima, and in the sense that the termis the name of a business, we can think of this usage as akind of branding. When we consider that islanders saythings like “Tamana no kashipan wo katte kita yo” (Ibought Tamana’s pastries for us) we see that the use of
tamana as the name of this bakery can be consideredbranding.
One way we can distinguish between “naming” andFig. 2 Processes of “conceptualization” in Ogasawara.

Development of a Linguistic Ecosystem“branding” is that the former is the “primary” usage of aterm, while the latter is a “secondary” usage. What does
this mean in everyday language usage? On Ogasawara
there are bioluminescent mushrooms called “guriin
pepe.” There is also a restaurant with this name. “Guriinpepe” is actually the name of the mushroom; this is
primary usage. The restaurant, on the other hand is named
after the mushroom, a fact that is clear by the usage of
pictorial mushroom design on the restaurant’s sign. Cases
such as this in which a restaurant is named after a fungus
are “secondary” usages of a term, and can be thought of akind of branding.
Shops and products whose names use island words(including place names) may be considered cases ofbranding. There is a restaurant named Heart Rock, using
the name of a cliff at the southern end of Chichi-Jima
with a red, heart-shaped rock face. On Haha-Jima, there
is an inn called Anna Biichi from a place name evolved
from Anya Biichi and thought to originally derive fromthe English “Onion Beach.” Also on Haha-Jima is a Villa
Kobunoki, which takes its name from an endemic speciesof tree (Elaeocarpus photiniifolius).
Recently the village of Ogasawara has started the“Ogasawara Brand.” The campaign posters for“Ogasawara Brand” show various products made on theisland which are marketed to tourists (passion fruit jam,honey, dyed cloth, laser carved wood products from theinvasive bishop wood tree Bischofia javanica, etc.). Thereis branding involved here. Branding in this sense is theprocess through which the village wants to create theimpression in the minds of tourist consumers that acertain passion fruit juice has more value because it is
Ogasawara passion fruit juice and not just any old passion
fruit juice.
Product branding is the attempt to associate a
product with value in the minds of consumers through theuse of names or symbols. Marketers say “There are a lotof colas out there, but we want consumers to think ofPepsi brand cola.” In the same way, one can think “There
are a lot of honeys out there, we want potential buyers to67

think of Ogasawara honey.” Marketing experts are trying
to create an impression of value in the consumers mind.
They need a mental tie up with the product. One way they
do this is through product names, and names arelanguage, the object of study in linguistics. Just as
Ogasawara uses island things as tourism resources,
Ogasawara can also use island words to illicit reactions inpeople’s minds. This is the use of words for branding.
“This isn’t just any old beach, it’s Kopepe,” “This isn’t
just any old mushroom, it’s a Guriin Pepe.” “This is notjust any old bird, it’s an Akapoppo.” “This is not just any
old sandal, it’s a Gyosan.” The local language is not being
branded; it is being used as a tool to accomplish thebranding. As I have attempted to illustrate in Fig. 3,
language is being used as the glue to link the product tothe impression of value.

7. Linguistic Resource Management
One of the implications of being designated a World
Heritage Site is that the human community must
appropriately manage their resources but balance thisagainst local residents’ need to sustain their economic
standard of living. This balance is sought through means
such as eco-tourism. In other papers, I have referred tosituations wherein local residents try to manage theircultural resources to support their economic stability
while at the same time trying to avoid damaging thosecultural resources as “cultural eco-tourism.” Language
can be used as a cultural eco-tourism resource if thelinguistic resources are managed properly so as not tocheapen their value.
For example, the Ogasawara expression mata miru
yo has been used on the tanktop shirts made by the island
hula group in Ogasawara. Since the group chose to print
this island phrase on their shirts rather than wearing shirtswith nothing printed, we can say that the island language
variety was tapped as a linguistic resource to add value(if not economic, then emotional) to the shirts.
Linguistics has a centuries old legacy of benefiting

Fig. 3 Branding: Using words as a glue to link products and perceptions of value.

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D. LONG

from biological concepts and terminologies (linguistic
genealogy, glottochronology, the founders principle, etc.).
An anonymous reader has pointed out possible analogies
which could be drawn between, on the one hand,biosystematics and the linguistic processes of naming andcoinage, and, on the other hand, between biology’s
concept of ecosystems and the linguistics processes ofconceptualization. This reader has pointed out that it is
the linguistic changes brought about by conceptualization
which more closely reflect the social environment of theisland. Such stimulating observations indicate directions
for future contemplation.
Let us recall for a moment that the title of thisvolume is Sustainable Management of Oceanic Island
Ecosystems: Lessons from a Natural World Heritage Site,
the Ogasawara Islands. While the concept of “sustainable
management” does not directly apply to language in thatwords (unlike trees and fish) do not disappear justbecause we overuse them, nonetheless we can find somehelpful metaphorical applications of the term“management.” “Management” is the “planned usage ofresources,” so in the future we must surely consider the
management (planned usage) of Ogasawara’s linguistic
resources as well.
References
Housman, Kākau ‘ia na A. and Kaha ki‘I ‘ia na Eve F. (2012) Ke
Ao Nani, He Puke hua’ōlelo 1000 (Hawaiian Pictorial
Dictionary). University of Hawaii Press.
International Ecolinguistics Association (2019) Language &Ecology. Retrieved from http://ecolinguistics-association.org/(Accessed 20 December 2019)
Long, D. and Hashimoto N. (2005) Talking Dictionary of the Bonin
Islands, Kagoshima, Nampo Shinsha.
Long, D. (2007) English on the Bonin (Ogasawara) Islands.
Publications of the American Dialect Society 91, Durham, N.C.,
Duke University Press.
Long, D. (2018) The History and Structure of the Ogasawara
Mixed Language: language Contact in Japan’s OriginalMulticultural Society, Tokyo, Hituzi.
Mühlhäusler, P. (1996) Linguistic Ecology: Language Change andLinguistic Imperialism in the Pacific Region, London, Routledge.
Neustupný, J. V. (2012) Theory and Practice in Language
Managemen, Journal of Asian Pacific Communication, 22(2)295-301.
Gendai Kikaku Ltd. (1997) Oxford-Duden Pictorial EnglishJapanese Dictionary, Oxford University Press.

Daniel LONG
Daniel Long was born in 1963 in Tennessee,
USA. He is currently Professor of Japanese
Linguistics at Tokyo Metropolitan University.
His publications include English on the Bonin(Ogasawara) Islands (Duke Univ. Press, 2007)
and Talking Dictionary of the Bonin Islands
Language with CD-ROM (2005).
(Received 29 October 2019, Accepted 27 December 2019)