Okinawans push to preserve unique language (fwd link)

[Phillip E Cash Cash]

40 YEARS AFTER REVERSION

Okinawans push to preserve unique language

By AYAKO MIE
Staff writer
JAPAN

NAHA, Okinawa Pref. — Byron Fija, 42, has an identity crisis.

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.

Fija is often asked why he speaks in Okinawa "hogen" (dialect), from people
who assume he is a foreigner.

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.

"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."

Access full article below:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120519f1.html
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