Taanshi, hello, all,<br><br>For a more in depth interview/article with/on Fija Byron (Yes, this is the correct spelling.), please see:<br><br><a href="http://japanfocus.org/-Fija-Bairon/2586">http://japanfocus.org/-Fija-Bairon/2586</a><br>
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<span class="external_edit_hide"><p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="color:black">“Wanne Uchinanchu – I am Okinawan.” Japan, the US and Okinawa’s Endangered Languages</span></strong></p><p class="MsoNormal"><strong><span style="color:black">Fija Bairon and Patrick Heinrich </span></strong></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="color:black"><br></span></em></p><p class="MsoNormal"><em><span style="color:black">Patrick Heinrich interviews Fija Bairon on Okinawa’s endangered languages and culture, and efforts to restore them.</span></em></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black"><br></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color:black">The proportion of
languages and of nation states stands roughly at a relation of 1 to 30.
Hence, the predominant number of nation states is multilingual. Japan,
notwithstanding its modern monolingual self-perception, is no exception.
As with many other nation states, </span><span style="color:black">Japan</span><span style="color:black">
has merely been invented as an “imagined community” of monolingual and
monocultural members. The effects of monolingual and monocultural nation
imagining are far-reaching for linguistic and cultural minorities, in
Japan as in many other places across the world. For minorities,
modernisation and incorporation often went hand in hand with pressures
to abandon local languages and cultures. Monolingual nation-imagining
ideology is one of the major forces behind the unprecedented loss of
linguistic diversity we are witnessing today. Experts project that only
10-15% of the world's 6,000 languages are safe from extinction. In
Japan, the Ainu languages, the Ryukyuan languages and Ogasawara-Creole
English are extremely endangered while Japanese and Japanese sign
language are safe. Many minority community members are aware of such
“dark sides of modernity.” In this article Okinawan language and
cultural activist Fija Bairon speaks on the discovery of his Okinawan
identity and on his attempts to maintain and revitalize Uchinaguchi, one
of five Ryukyuan languages. An introduction addresses issues of
Ryukyuan language endangerment and the local attempts of language
revitalization.</span></p></span><div style="text-align:left"><span class="external_edit_hide"><br></span></div>
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</div>Read full article at: <a href="http://japanfocus.org/-Fija-Bairon/2586">http://japanfocus.org/-Fija-Bairon/2586</a><br><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br>On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 8:13 PM, s.t. bischoff <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:bischoff.st@gmail.com" target="_blank">bischoff.st@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hello all,<br><br>An interesting article in the Japan Times today about Uchiniaguchi....<br><br><a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120519f1.html" target="_blank">http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120519f1.html</a><br>
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Okinawans push to preserve unique language</h1>
<div>By <b><a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/JTsearch5.cgi?term1=AYAKO%20MIE" target="_blank">AYAKO MIE</a></b></div>
<div>Staff writer</div>
<div><i>Last in a series</i></div>
<p>NAHA, Okinawa Pref. — Byron Fija, 42, has an identity crisis.</p>
<p>Part of it is his looks. He's Japanese, born to a
white American father and an Okinawan mother, a couple who never
married, and he seems to take more after his dad. But it's when he
speaks that people are really taken aback.</p>
<p>Fija is often asked why he speaks in Okinawa "hogen" (dialect), from people who assume he is a foreigner.</p>
<p>More disconcerting is that he is asked this by
fellow Okinawans, who should recognize what he is saying. Most recently,
this occurred when he was asked about the Okinawan language during the
taping of a Naha TV program.</p>
<p>"I don't speak a dialect (of Japanese)," Fija
protested when an Okinawa-born comedian questioned him about the way he
speaks. "I speak Uchinaguchi, which is an independent language."</p>
<p>Fija actually teaches Uchinaguchi, the local language spoken on the southern half of the main island of Okinawa.</p><p><a href="http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120519f1.html" target="_blank">http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120519f1.html</a></p>
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