Okinawan Alphabet & Kana

Central Okinawan, called Uchinaaguchi (うちなーぐち, also 沖縄口) by its speakers, is the language of the southern and central part of Okinawa Island and the small islands nearby. It is one of the Ryukyuan languages, a branch of the same Japonic family as Japanese, but it is a separate language: a Tokyo speaker who has never studied it cannot follow a conversation in it. The north of the island speaks a related language, Kunigami.

Since the days of the Ryukyu Kingdom Okinawan has been written with Japanese kana, sometimes mixed with kanji, and that is still how it is written on signs, in song books, textbooks and messages. Hiragana is the everyday choice; katakana is common in dictionaries, in learner books and wherever an Okinawan word sits inside Japanese text, as in ウチナーグチ or シーサー.

There is no single official spelling yet. Dictionaries and textbooks each use their own kana conventions, but they agree on most of the combinations shown in the grid, so a page written in one system is readable to someone used to another.

Okinawan sounds and the small kana that write them

Okinawan short vowels are mostly a, i and u: where Japanese has a short e Okinawan usually has i, and where Japanese has a short o it has u. Japanese kokoro 'heart' is くくる kukuru, kotoba 'words' is くとぅば kutuba, and the island Okinawa itself is うちなー Uchinaa. E and o survive mostly as long vowels, as in めんそーれ mensooree, 'welcome'.

This gives Okinawan syllables that kana cannot write with one sign. Japanese つ is tsu and ち is chi, so Okinawan tu and ti are spelled with a small vowel after the consonant: とぅ tu, どぅ du, てぃ ti, でぃ di. The sun is てぃーだ tiida, and the motto 'life is the treasure' is ぬちどぅたから nuchi du takara. Small ぁ ぃ ぇ also make ふぁ ふぃ ふぇ fa, fi, fe, as in にふぇーでーびる nifeedeebiru, 'thank you', and うぃ wi.

The small ゎ (katakana ヮ), almost unused in modern Japanese, is busy in Okinawan: くゎ kwa and ぐゎ gwa, as in くゎっちーさびら kwacchii sabira, said before a meal, or the diminutive ending -ぐゎー -gwaa. Okinawan also tells a plain w, y or n from one said with a glottal catch, and many spellings show the catch with a small っ in front: っわ, っや, っん. Older and literary texts sometimes use the old kana ゐ and ゑ for wi and we, where most modern writing has うぃ and うぇ.

Long vowels are marked with ー even in hiragana, which Japanese spelling mostly avoids: Japanese writes おかあさん, Okinawan writes うちなー, てぃーだ, めんそーれ.

How to type Okinawan on Windows, Mac and phone

Okinawan's common kana spellings use ordinary Japanese kana, so a Japanese input method can type them. On Windows add Japanese in Settings › Time & language › Language and switch to it with Win+Space; on a Mac add Japanese – Romaji in Keyboard › Input Sources and switch with Ctrl+Space or the Globe key. Then type in romaji and the input method turns it into kana.

The Okinawan combinations need a few romaji tricks that work in Microsoft IME, Google Japanese Input and the Mac: twu gives とぅ, dwu どぅ, thi てぃ, dhi でぃ, fa fi fe give ふぁ ふぃ ふぇ and wi gives うぃ. Any small kana can be typed alone with an x or l in front: xwa or lwa is ゎ, so くゎ is ku + xwa; xtu is a lone っ. The long-vowel mark ー is simply the minus key.

On a phone, use the Japanese kana keyboard: type the full-size kana, then press the 小 / ゛゜ key to shrink it, or switch to the romaji keyboard and use the same spellings as on a computer. Or simply tap the grid on this page to copy.

Where Okinawan is spoken, and who still speaks it

CLDR estimates Central Okinawan's population at roughly 950,000, all in Japan. CLDR says this estimate is meant to represent speakers and aims to approximate the literate, functional population able to read and write the language and use it with computers: after a century in which schools pushed Japanese, the people who speak Uchinaaguchi fluently are now mostly older, and most young Okinawans speak Japanese with Okinawan words mixed in. UNESCO lists Okinawan as definitely endangered.

The language is far from silent, though. It lives in shima-uta folk songs sung to the three-stringed sanshin, in eisaa drum dances, in theatre and radio, in local comedy, and in words every Okinawan uses daily. Okinawa Prefecture marks 18 September as Shimakutuba Day, the day of the island languages, and schools and community centres run classes. Emigrant families in Hawaii, Brazil, Peru and elsewhere keep greetings like はいさい alive too.

For standard Japanese kana, kanji and keyboard help see our Japanese collection; for the flag and emoji of the whole country see Japan.