Okinawans push to preserve unique language

[Heather Souter]

Taanshi, hello, all,

For a more in depth interview/article with/on Fija Byron (Yes, this is the
correct spelling.), please see:

http://japanfocus.org/-Fija-Bairon/2586

 *“Wanne Uchinanchu – I am Okinawan.” Japan, the US and Okinawa’s
Endangered Languages*

*Fija Bairon and Patrick Heinrich *

*
*

*Patrick Heinrich interviews Fija Bairon on Okinawa’s endangered languages
and culture, and efforts to restore them.*


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,
Japanhas 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.

 Read full article at: http://japanfocus.org/-Fija-Bairon/2586



On Sat, May 19, 2012 at 8:13 PM, s.t. bischoff <bischoff.st at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> An interesting article in the Japan Times today about Uchiniaguchi....
>
> http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120519f1.html
> Okinawans push to preserve unique language
> By *AYAKO MIE<http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/JTsearch5.cgi?term1=AYAKO%20MIE>
> *
> Staff writer
> *Last in a series*
>
> 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."
>
> Fija actually teaches Uchinaguchi, the local language spoken on the
> southern half of the main island of Okinawa.
>
> http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/nn20120519f1.html
>
>
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