大和民族
There were disagreements about considering the Ryukyuans the same as the Yamato, or identify them as an independent but related ethnic group, or as a sub-group that constitutes Japanese ethnicity together with the Yamato. From the Meiji period onward, Japanese scholars supported the later discredited ideological viewpoint that they were a sub-group of the Yamato people. The Ryukyuans were assimilated into Japanese (Yamato) people with their ethnic identity suppressed by the Meiji government. Many modern day Japanese people in the Ryukyu Islands are a mixture of Yamato and Ryukyuan.