The Yaeyama language (, , ) is a Southern Ryukyuan language spoken in the Yaeyama Islands, the southernmost inhabited island group in Japan, with a combined population of about 53,000. The Yaeyama Islands are situated in the Southern Ryukyu Islands, southwest of the Miyako Islands and to the east of Taiwan. Yaeyama (Yaimamunii) is most closely related to Miyako. The number of competent native speakers is not known; as a consequence of Japanese language policy which refers to the language as the , reflected in the education system, people below the age of 60 tend to not use the language except in songs and rituals, and the younger generation exclusively uses Japanese as their first language. As compared to the Japanese kokugo, or Japanese national language, other Ryukyuan languages such as Okinawan and Amami have also been referred to as dialects of Japanese. Yaeyama is noted as having a comparatively lower "language vitality" among neighboring Ryukyuan languages.
Yaeyama is spoken in Ishigaki, Taketomi, Kohama, Kuroshima, Hatoma, Aragusuku, Iriomote and Hateruma, with complications of mutual intelligibility between dialects as a result of the Yaeyama Islands' large geographic span. The speech of Yonaguni Island, while related, is usually considered a separate language. The Taketomi dialect may instead be a Northern Ryukyuan language common to Okinawan dialects that later converged with the other Yaeyama dialects. The Ryukyuan languages split from Proto-Japonic in the last 2,000 years, though estimates offer different potential time periods ranging from 2 BCE to 800 CE.
The Yaeyaman languages are classified under a Macro-Yaeyama branch of the Southern Ryukyuan languages. Innovations in Southern Ryukyuan languages, splitting Macro-Yaeyama and Miyako language families, include an "irregular shift from tone class B to A in 'how many' and a special form for 'garden'". Macro-Yaeyama innovations, grouping together Yaeyama languages and Dunan contain the "grammaticalization of 'know' as a potential auxiliary", similarities between multiple special forms such as "bud", "happy", "fresh", and "dirt", as well as a semantic conflation of "nephew" to mean either "nephew" or "niece". Yaeyaman dialects are differentiated from Dunan by innovations regarding a replacement of the verb "sell" with a causative form of "buy", a special form of "get wet", as well as an irregular shift of "*g>n" in 'beard'.
There are three accent pitches present in Hateruma: falling, level, and rising accents. To correlate pitches, there are three classes of words under an "A, B, C" system; class A words correlate with the falling pitch, and class B and C are shown to have "an uneven correspondence with the Level and Rising patterns."
The Hateruma dialect is regarded as an innovative variety of Yaeyama Ryukyuan. It is the only dialect of the Yaeyama group to feature the pharyngeal eˤ, sonorant devoicing, noun-final consonant epenthesis and spirantization of voiceless velar stop before the vowel *i. It is also considered to have the strongest aspiration among of the Yaeyama dialects, and is also the only variety to display nasal and liquid devoicing.
{| class="wikitable" style="text-align:center"
|+Hateruma vowel sounds
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!Front
!Central
!Back
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!Close
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!Mid
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!Open
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Additionally, Hateruma has the following sixteen consonants: "Peripheral tone classes" are also noted in certain nouns and adverb. Long vowels are often shortened before the moraic nasal. Verbal inflection expresses two types of indicatives, an imperative form, as well as a cohortative and prohibitive ending. Adjectives, nouns and verbs also compound and reduplicate, especially in producing adverbs from adjectives.
Hateruma has a case system with nine case markings and particles. There are eleven auxiliary verbs to denote forms of mood and aspect.
Ishigaki
The Ishigaki dialect is noted for having a peculiar expression of cardinal directions. It is found that when speaking to other native speakers, Ishigaki-speakers use an "intrinsic" and "relative" frame of reference system in which "north" and "south" are expressed in an intrinsic frame of reference as the verbs agaru ("go up, climb") and oriru ("go down, descend"), instead of Standard Japanese kita ("north") and minami ("south"). It is found that most speakers express "east" and "west" as Standard Japanese hidari ("left") and migi ("right") in a relative frame of reference.
Wh-Questions
In Yaeyama, wh-phrases are marked with du, in contrast to Standard Japanese ka.
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! Subject wh-question and answer
! Object wh-question and answer:
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Omitting du from a wh-phrase is considered incorrect grammar. Yet, du marking is optional for adverbial or adjunct wh-phrases. In questions with multiple wh-words, only one can be marked with du. Further research is needed to learn more about Wh-questions in Yaeyama.
Endangerment and revitalization
The endangerment of Ryukyuan languages is attributed to historical and governmental factors. Originating in the 1872 annexation of the Okinawan Islands to Japan and the creation of Okinawa Prefecture in 1879, there has since been a movement referred to as the "Japanization of the Luchuan Islands". A national language movement known as kokugo has developed in result of this. The kokugo movement includes the 1907 implementation of the Ordinance of Dialect Regulation, demoting diverse Ryukyuan languages to the status of "dialects" (hogen) and discouraging of speaking these dialects in the Japanese school system. There have been many revival societies and movements erected to preserve Ryukyuan languages and culture. The earliest language revival movement is regarded as being part of the Koza Society of Culture, instituted in 1955. A large benefactor to preserving and reviving Ryukyuan languages is the Society for Spreading Okinawan (Uchinaguchi fukyu kyogikai), whose constitution is dedicated to initiating dialect classes and Okinawan teacher training programs, as well as advancing towards a singular Okinawan orthography.