Wiktionary:About Kunigami

This page deals with the considerations on Wiktionary for the Kunigami language.

Dialects

The default dialect in Kunigami is Nakijin-Yonamine. If any other dialect is listed, please specify it with the parameter |a= of the {{IPA}} template.

Southern Okinawa dialects belong to the Okinawan language (ryu), not here.

Phonology

For more information on the phonology, see Nakasone (1983:629-632). All transcriptions here are converted to standard IPA notation. There is no mark for unaspirated/glotallized stops in world-medial position.

Vowels

Nakijin-Yonamine dialects have the vowels [i], [ɛ], [a], [o], [u].

Consonants

The Nakijin-Yonamine dialect differs between aspirated and unaspirated consonants. See also the orthography section below.

There are several phonetic variations in the Nakijin-Yonamine dialect. The following list contains phonemes with variations:

• ヒ /hi/ [hi ~ çi]; [çi] will be transcribed on Wiktionary
• フ /hu/ [hu ~ ɸu]; [ɸu] will be transcribed on Wiktionary
• ン /'ɴ/ [m ~ n ~ ŋ ~ ɴ]; [ɴ] will be transcribed on Wiktionary
• All ジ /z/ phonemes vary between [dʑV- ~ ʑV]; [dʑV] will be transcribed on Wiktionary.
• ソ /so/ [so ~ ɕo] [ɕo] will be transcribed on Wiktionary
• ス /su/ [su ~ ɕu] [ɕu] will be transcribed on Wiktionary
• ッ /ꞯ/ is a geminate consonant.

The syllables シ /si/ and セ /se/ are phonetically [ɕi] and [ɕe].

Orthography

There is no general consensus for a orthographic system for Kunigami languages. Sometimes, the language will be written in katakana. For example, Hirayama Teruo (平山照男) 1992-1994's 現代日本語方言大辞典 (Dictionary of Japanese Dialects) spells entries in a katakana format (including the Sesoko dialect of Kunigami). In Nakasone (1983)'s Nakijin Hōgen Jiten, the aspirated stops are transliterated in katakana, while the unaspirated/glotallized stops are transliterated in hiragana. The typical Japanese linguistic tradition is to leave aspirated consonants unmarked, while unaspirated consonants are marked. Only in word-initial position can an aspirated consonant occur, otherwise it is always unaspirated.

If you spell the entry in kanji, be sure to either use the etymological spelling (e.g. 大和世 (yamatūyū, “an era where the Ryukyuan Islands are under Japanese control”) or the semantic spelling (e.g. 北 (nishii, “north”)).

The transliteration uses Sakihara (2006)'s transcription; it is similar to the modified Hepburn romanization, but all long vowels are represented by a double vowel (e.g. しまー (shimaa, “island”)). An aspirated stop is marked with an -h-, as in くちー (khuchii, “mouth”).

Prosody

A three-class distinction exists in the Nakijin-Yonamine dialect of Nakijin, though classes B and C merge in trisyllables.

Disyllables:

• A: LHː/Hː
• B: LRː/Rː
• C: HL

Entries

The head should be {{xug-head|pos}} (replace pos with any part-of-speech).

Making references

If you are making an entry on the Kunigami language, it is highly recommended to cite the sources for the dictionaries. The template {{R:xug:Nakasone 1983}} can be used for the Nakijin-Yonamine dialect while {{R:xug:Oshio 1999}} can be used for the Ie-jima dialect.