page_title: Ryukyuan languages
section_title: Orthography
hierarchical_section_title: Ryukyuan languages / Orthography
caption_attribution_description: 琉球国金丸世主書状 (Ryukyukoku Kanamaru yononushi shojo, Letter of Kanamaru yononushi (King Shō En) to Shimazu Oyakata, 1471) 日本語: 琉球国金丸世主書状（1471年）。薩摩藩島津宛の金丸（尚円王）のかな交り書状 中文: 琉球國金丸世主書狀（1471年）。即金丸（尚圓王）給島津的平假名書狀 English: A letter (1471) written in Kana and Kanji from Kanamaru (King Shō En, 1415-1476) of Ryūkyū Kingdom to Shimazu clan.
context_page_description: The Ryukyuan languages, also Lewchewan languages, are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language, they make up the Japonic language family. The languages are not mutually intelligible with each other. It is not known how many speakers of these languages remain, but language shift towards the use of Standard Japanese and dialects like Okinawan Japanese has resulted in these languages becoming endangered; UNESCO labels four of the languages "definitely endangered" and two others "severely endangered".
context_section_description: Older Ryukyuan texts are often found on stone inscriptions. Tamaudun-no-Hinomon (玉陵の碑文 "Inscription of Tamaudun tomb") (1501), for example. Within the Ryukyu Kingdom, official texts were written in kanji and hiragana, derived from Japan. However, this was a sharp contrast from Japan at the time, where classical Chinese writing was mostly used for official texts, only using hiragana for informal ones. Classical Chinese writing was sometimes used in Ryukyu as well, read in kundoku (Ryukyuan) or in Chinese. In Ryukyu, katakana was hardly used.
  Historically, official documents in Ryukyuan were primarily written in a form of classical Chinese writing known as Kanbun, while poetry and songs were often written in the Shuri dialect of Okinawan.
  Commoners did not learn kanji. Omoro Sōshi (1531–1623), a noted Ryukyuan song collection, was mainly written in hiragana. Other than hiragana, they also used Suzhou numerals (sūchūma すうちゅうま in Okinawan), derived from China. In Yonaguni in particular, there was a different writing system, the Kaidā glyphs (カイダー字 or カイダーディー). Under Japanese influence, all of those numerals became obsolete.
  Nowadays, perceived as "dialects", Ryukyuan languages are not often written. When they are, Japanese characters are used in an ad hoc manner. There are no standard orthographies for the modern languages. Sounds not distinguished in the Japanese writing system, such as glottal stops, are not properly written.
  Sometimes local kun'yomi are given to kanji, such as agari (あがり "east") for 東, iri (いり "west") for 西, thus 西表 is Iriomote.
caption: A letter from King Shō En to Shimazu oyakata (1471); an example of written Ryukyuan.
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