| Amami Ōshima | |
| Also Known As: | Amami |
| Nativename: | 島口/シマユムタ |
| States: | Japan |
| Region: | Amami Ōshima and neighboring islands, Kagoshima Prefecture |
| Speakers: | ca. |
| Date: | 2004 |
| Ref: | e18 |
| Familycolor: | Altaic |
| Fam1: | Japonic |
| Fam2: | Ryukyuan |
| Fam3: | Northern Ryukyuan |
| Fam4: | Amami |
| Lc1: | ryn |
| Ld1: | Northern |
| Lc2: | ams |
| Ld2: | Southern (Setouchi) |
| Glotto2: | oshi1235 |
| Glottorefname2: | Oshima |
| Map: | Northern_Amami_Oshima_linguistic_sameness.svg |
| Mapcaption: | Tan in south: Southern Amami. Green, pink, and tan in north: Northern Amami. Each orange area indicates where people characterize the local dialect as being the same language as they speak. |
| Notice: | IPA |
| Script: | Japanese |
The Amami language or languages (島口, シマユムタ,), also known as Amami Ōshima or simply Ōshima ('Big Island'), is a Ryukyuan language spoken in the Amami Islands south of Kyūshū. The southern variety of the Setouchi township may be a distinct language more closely related to Okinawan than it is to northern Ōshima.
As Amami does not have recognition within Japan as a language, it is officially known as the .
The number of competent native speakers is not known, but native speakers are found mostly among old people—as a result of Japan's language policy which suppresses proliferation of minority languages, the younger generations speak mostly Japanese as their first language. Estimates run around 10,000 for the northern variety and 2,000 for the southern (Setouchi) variety.
Linguists mostly agree on the validity of the Amami–Okinawan languages as a family. The subdivisions of Amami–Okinawan, however, remain a matter of scholarly debate, with two major hypotheses:
The two-subdivision hypothesis is convenient for discussing the modern languages since the posited linguistic boundary corresponds to the centuries-old administrative boundary that today separates Kagoshima and Okinawa Prefectures. In addition, several isoglosses do group Northern and Southern Amami together. In Amami, word-medial pronounced as //k// is changed to pronounced as //h// or even dropped when it is surrounded by pronounced as //a//, pronounced as //e// or pronounced as //o//. This can rarely be observed in Okinawan dialects. Standard Japanese pronounced as //-awa// becomes pronounced as //-oː// in Amami and pronounced as //-aː// in Okinawan.
The three-subdivision hypothesis is more phylogenetically-oriented. A marked isogloss is the vowel systems. Standard Japanese pronounced as //e// corresponds to pronounced as //ɨ// in Northern Amami Ōshima while it was merged into pronounced as //i// in Southern Amami Ōshima through Okinawan.
The vowel system-based classification is not without complication. The northern three communities of Kikai Island share the seven-vowel system with Amami Ōshima and Tokunoshima to the south, while the rest of Kikai falls in with Okinoerabu and Yoron even further south.Based on other evidence, however, Karimata (2000) and Lawrence (2011)[2] tentatively group Kikai dialects together.
Amami Ōshima can be divided into Northern Amami Ōshima and Southern Amami Ōshima despite conflicting patterns of isoglosses.[3] The distribution of Southern Amami Ōshima roughly corresponds to Setouchi Town, including offshore islands. The rest of the main island speaks Northern Amami Ōshima.[3]
Shibata et al. (1984) takes a lexicostatistic approach to subgrouping Northern Amami Ōshima dialects:[4]
In addition, Sani, a small community on a peninsula at the northern tip of the island, is known to have distinct phonology.
Based on phonetic and lexical evidence, Shibata et al. (1984) subdivide Southern Amami Ōshima into
reflecting the administrative divisions during the Edo period. While Uke Island belonged to the Nishi Magiri district, its dialect is closer to that of Higashi Magiri.[4]
Southern Amami Ōshima contrasts with Northern Amami Ōshima in its final unreleased consonants. For example, "shrimp" is pronounced as /[ʔip]/ in Ōshama (Southern) and pronounced as /[ʔibi]/ in Tatsugō (Northern); "blade" is pronounced as /[katna]/ in Ōshama and pronounced as /[katana]/ in Tatsugō.[5]
According to Osada Suma (1902–1998), the dialect of Yamatohama, Yamato Village of Amami Ōshima had pronounced as //ˈjumuθa// for 'language', pronounced as //simaˈjumuθa// for 'island language' (i.e. Amami Ōshima) and pronounced as //ˈjamaθoɡuci// for the language of mainland Japan (i.e. Standard Japanese).[6] Another term, shimaguchi pronounced as //simaɡuci//, is absent from Osada's dictionary. According to Kurai Norio (b. 1923), a local historian from Amami Ōshima, shimaguchi contrasted with Yamatoguchi, while shimayumuta was associated with accentual and intonational differences among various shima (villages).[7] Ebara Yoshimori (1905–1988), a folklorist from Naze, Amami Ōshima, conjectured that shimaguchi was of relatively recent origin, possibly made through analogy with Yamatoguchi. He thought that the dialect of one's home community was better referred to as .[8]
Historically, vowel-initial words acquired an epenthetic glottal stop. When *wo and *we later became pronounced as //u// and pronounced as //i// without an initial glottal stop, the glottal stop elsewhere became phonemic. When still later initial vowels were elided, an initial glottal stop merged with the following consonant, establishing a series of "glottalized" consonants. While the nasals are truly glottalized, the "glottalized" stops are merely tenuis pronounced as /[C˭]/, contrasting with the default aspirated stops pronounced as /[Cʰ]/.[9]
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Post- alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
| Plosive/ Affricate | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |||||
| pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Fricative | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| (pronounced as /link/) | ||||||||
| Approximant | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | ||||||
| Flap | pronounced as /link/ | |||||||
In the southern Shodon dialect, the consonants pronounced as //p t tɕ k ɕ ɾ m n// occur at the end of a word or syllable, as in pronounced as //k˭upʰ// 'neck', pronounced as //sakʰɾa// 'cherry blossom' and pronounced as //t˭ɨɾɡjo// 'well'. Other dialects are similar. Final consonants are usually the result of eliding high front vowels. Elision is partly conditioned by pitch accent. In Shodon dialect, for example, the noun with accent classes 2.1 and 2.2 are realized as pronounced as /[⎞mɨtʰ]/ (water, 2.1) and pronounced as /[⎞ʔiʃ]/ (stone, 2.2) while 2.3-5 nouns retain final vowels, e.g. pronounced as /[mi⎛miː]/ (ear, 2.3), pronounced as /[ha⎛ɾiː]/ (needle, 2.4) and pronounced as /[ha⎛ɾuː]/ (spring, 2.5).[12]
There are seven distinct vowel qualities in Amami Ōshima, in addition to a phonemic distinction between long and short vowels and in some dialects oral and nasal vowels.[13]
| High | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mid | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | pronounced as /link/ | |
| Low | pronounced as /link/ |
pronounced as //ɨ// and pronounced as //ɘ// are generally transcribed "ï" and "ë" in the literature.
pronounced as //ɨ// derives from *e and merges with pronounced as //i// after alveolar consonants. pronounced as //ɘ// mostly derives from a merger of *ae and *ai, and so is usually long. In several northern dialects, the nasal vowels pronounced as //ã õ ɨ̃ ɘ̃// developed from the loss of a word-medial pronounced as //m//:
*pama > pronounced as /pʰaã/ 'shore', *jome > pronounced as /juw̃ɨ̃/ 'bride', *kimo > pronounced as /k˭joõ/ 'liver', *ɕima > pronounced as /ɕoõ/ 'island', *mimidzu > pronounced as /mɘɘ̃dza/ 'earthworm'
Kasarisani dialect has 11 oral and nasal vowels, while Sani dialect adds long vowels for a total of 18, the largest inventory of any Ryukyuan dialect.