あし 【足】 : ashi | define meaning

Cognate with standard Japanese あし【足】 ashi "leg, foot".

Historical Ryukyuan attestations

• A Voyage of Discovery to the North Pacific Ocean, 1795-1798 (1804), by William Robert Broughton, records "Shee, A foot".
• 沖縄語典 Okinawa goten (Okinawan language dictionary) (1896), by Masayo Nakamoto, records "「あし、ひさ、しに」足（アシ）、脚".
• Essay in Aid of a Grammmar and Dictionary of the Luchuan Language (1895), by Basil Hall Chamberlain, records "Ashi, the leg, the foot [...] : ufē ashi hayamiri, lit. hasten your legs a little, —as we might phrase it, move your stumps,— in speaking to a coolie. (Jap. ashi.)" and notes "The latter language draws a distinction, fisha being an honorific and ashi a rude term. A Luchuan set forth to us the difference thus: 'You must say the fisha of a gentleman, but the ashi of such creatures as pigs or coolies.'".