The Yonaguni language (与那国物言/ドゥナンムヌイ Dunan Munui) is a Southern Ryukyuan language spoken by around 400 people on the island of Yonaguni, in the Ryukyu Islands, the westernmost of the chain lying just east of Taiwan. It is most closely related to Yaeyama. Due to the Japanese policy on languages, the language is not recognized by the government, which instead calls it the Yonaguni dialect (与那国方言). As classified by UNESCO, the Yonaguni language is one of the most endangered languages in all of Japan, after the Ainu language.

Phonology

Vowels

The table below shows the vowels present in the Yonaguni language. Vowels which are only allophonic or marginal appear in parentheses.

Consonants

The table below shows the consonants present in the Yonaguni language. Plosive and affricate phonemes have three-way contrast. Hirayama et al. (1967) describe the contrast as voiceless non-laryngealized, voiceless laryngealized, and voiced. Yamada et al. (2015) describe the contrast as fortis (unaspirated and tense), lenis (weakly aspirated and lax), and voiced. The lenis/fortis distinction neutralized in word-medial positions, both becoming phonetically fortis. In positions other than prevocalic, all nasals are phonetically homorganic with a following consonant (e.g. ng, nd , nb ). Nasals are velar in final position.

Phonological cognates

As a Southern Ryukyuan language, Yonaguni, similar to Miyakoan and Yaeyama, has in place with Standard Japanese, such as Yonaguni ('stomach, belly'), cognate with Japanese ('guts, bowels'). Yonaguni also has where Japanese and other Ryukyuan languages have (orthographically y). Thus, for example, Yonaguni ('mountain') is cognate with Japanese and Yaeyama ('id.'). Yonaguni is probably a recent development from an earlier, however, judging from the fact that even the in loanwords of Sinitic origin is pronounced by speakers of the Yonaguni language, such as dasai 'vegetables' from Middle Chinese. An entry in the late-15th-century Korean annals Seongjong Taewang Sillok records the local name of the island of Yonaguni in Idu script as 閏伊是麼, which has the Middle Korean reading zjuni sima, with sima glossed in the text as the Japonic word for 'island'. That is direct evidence of an intermediate stage of the fortition - > - > -, leading to the modern name 'Yonaguni'. The Yonaguni language exhibits intervocalic voicing of plosives, as do many Japonic languages. It also exhibits the tendency for, especially when intervocalic, to be pronounced as a velar nasal , as in Standard Japanese.

Syllable structure

Below is the syllable template for Dunan: The onset allows for a single consonant with the occasional presence of a glide. The nucleus can contain up to two vowels. The only allowable coda is a moraic nasal.

Writing system

Yonaguni was once written with a unique writing system called Kaidā logograms. However, after conquest by the Ryukyu Kingdom and later annexation by the Empire of Japan, the logograms were replaced by Japanese kana and Kanji.

• /m/ before labial consonants and /ŋ/ before velar consonants. Example ディンブンキルン dimbuŋkirun.