Resources
About the list
The following list of resources is provided for ease of access only, and does not represent the full extent of works dealing with each topic.
If you would like to suggest the addition of other online published works dealing with the Japonic languages and dialects, please feel free to send an e-mail to [email protected]
Japanese-Ryukyuan
- Origins of the Verbalizer Affixes in the Japonic Languages, by Tyler Lau
- Reevaluating the Diphthong Mergers in Japono-Ryukyuan, by Tyler Lau
- A reconstruction of the accentual history of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages, by Moriyo Shimabukuro
- Long vowels in Proto-Japanese, by Alexander Vovin
- Endangered Languages of Japan: Lexical database, by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics
- (ja) The Dialect Study Room - illustrative maps of dialectal words and expressions, by the National Institute for Japanese Language
Japanese
- An Extensive List of Japanese Learning Resources, by Flaminius
- Jim Breen's List of Resources
- Japanese Dialect Ideology from Meiji to the Present, by Nao Okumura
Historical Japanese
- (Portuguese) Arte da Lingoa de Iapam (1604), by João Rodrigues (Alternative version)
- (French) Élémens de la grammaire japonaise [abridged from Arte da lingoa de Iapam] (1835), by M.C. Landresse
- (Latin) Ars grammaticae Iaponicae linguae (1632), by Diego Collado
- Diego Collado's Grammar of the Japanese Language, translated and edited by Richard L. Spear
- (French) Dictionnaire Japonais-Français (Translation of the 1603 Nippo Jisho), 1868, by Léon Pagés (Alternative version)
- A Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary (1872), by James Curtis Hepburn
- Oxford Corpus of Old Japanese
General Dialects
- (ja) Ibaraki Database
- (ja) The Dialect Study Room - illustrative maps of dialectal words and expressions, by the National Institute for Japanese Language
- (ja) Linguistic Atlas of Japan, by the National Institute for Japanese Language
- The languages of Japan, by Masayoshi Shibatani
- A reference grammar of Japanese, by Samuel Elmo Martin
- (ja) List of Wikipedia articles on Japanese dialects (English)
- The phonetics of Japanese maid voice I: A preliminary study, by Shigeto Kawahara
- Prosodic structures of different Japanese dialects and the universality of the syllable, by Wan-Lung David Li
- (ja) Body parts and other expressions in the dialects of northern Japan
Aichi Dialect
- Coalescence in Japanese Dialects is Diachronic [Status of coalescence in the Owari dialect of Japanese], by Connor Youngberg
Hiroshima Dialect
- Hiatus Resolution in Hiroshima Japanese (PPT version), by Shigeto Kawahara and Yurie Hara
Ibaraki Dialect
- Valency Classes in Japanese II: Dialects (Mitsukaido dialect) (Alternative version), by Kan Sasaki
- What can the Mitsukaido dialect case system tell about syntactic theory?, by Kan Sasaki
- Hardening Alternation in the Mitsukaido Dialect of Japanese, by Kan Sasaki
Kagoshima Dialect
- (ja) Kagoshima Dialect (+phonology, morphology) & Dictionary
- (ja) Overview of the Kagoshima Dialects
- (ja) Dictionary of the Kagoshima Dialect
- (ja) Basic phonology and grammar overview of the dialect
- Kagoshima dialect (Satsugu dialect), Wikipedia
- (ja) The Accent of Koshikijima Japanese, by Haruo Kubozono
- (ja) Tearu and Teoru as Seen in Russian Materials Reflecting the Early 18th Century Kagoshima Dialect, by Ai Kubozono
- (ja) The Vowel e in Satsugu Dialect in the Eighteenth Century : Based on Ronichi tangoshu, by Shoji Komabashiri
- (ja) Descriptive grammar of the Koshikijima dialects, by Haruo Kubozono
- (ja) Moraic TBU's and Intonation in Izumi (Kagoshima) Dialect, by Kodama Nozomi
- (ja) Kagoshima dialect recording materials (1965), published by the National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics
- (ja) Velar and Alveolar Consonants in Kagoshima and Tōhoku Dialects
Kansai Dialect
Kumamoto Dialect
Miyazaki Dialect
- (ja) The Boundaries of the Miyazaki Dialects, by Shinsuke Kishie
Oita Dialect
Uchinaa-Yamatoguchi Dialect
- Uchinaa-Yamatoguchi: Yet another endangered variety on Okinawa?, by Josef Holmér
Hachijo-Daito
- (ja) Sample Clip and Transcription of Hachijo
- (ja) Brief Summary of the Hachijo Dialect
- (ja) Comprehensive study on the state of extinction and preservation of the Hachijo Dialects (alternate version)
- (ja) Phonology of the Hachijo Dialects, by Toshio Matsuura
- (ja) Old forms and recent changes in the Hachijo language, by Akihiro Kaneda (alternate version)
- (ja) Hachijo dictionary
Ryukyuan
- An introduction to Ryukyuan languages, by Michinori Shimoji & Thomas Pellard
- Ryūkyuan: Past, present, and future, by Akiko Matsumori
- Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages: History, Structure, and Use (book preview), by Patrick Heinrich, Shinsho Miyara and Michinori Shimoji
- (ja) Comparison of a few expressions used in Kyushu and Ryukyu, by Mitsuyoshi Nohara
- When and from where did the Japonic language enter the Ryukyus?, by Leon A. Serafim
- (ja) Shimakutuba Handbook (example phrases for beginners)
Amami
- Shodon: A Dialect of the Northern Ryukyus, by Samuel E. Martin
- (ja) The Phonemes of the Shodon dialect in Amami-Oshima (Part 1) (Part 2)
- How Do We Describe Demonstratives in Yuwan Ryukyuan?, by Yuto Niinaga
- (ja) Phonological characteristics of Northern Amami dialects, by Masao Ono
- (ja) Phonological characteristics of Kikaijima, by Nobuko Kibe
- (ja) Kikai Island Pitch Accent
- (ja) Kikai Island Dialect Survey Report, by Zendou Uwano
- The nominalizer su and sentence-final soo in Kikaijima Ryukyuan: Comparison with Japanese no(da) and (no)dewanaika, by Lukas Rieser and Rihito Shirata
- (ja) Verb morphology of the Ura dialect of Amami Ōshima, in northern Ryukyu, by Hiromi Shigeno
- (ja) Amami dialects: Kana transcription, by Takahiro Okamura
- (ja) Lexical Characteristics of Onomatopoeia in the Kikai Dialect of Kagoshima Prefecture, by Kouko Takeda
Miyako
- (fr) Ogami — Éléments de description d'un parler du Sud des Ryukyu (English), by Thomas Pellard
- Converbs and their desubordination in Ōgami Ryukyuan, by Thomas Pellard (mirror)
- Irabu Ryukyuan (Sketch), by Michinori Shimoji
- Foot and Rhythmic Structure in Irabu Ryukyuan, by Michinori Shimoji
- Epistemic Modality in Irabu Ryukyuan, by Michinori Shimoji
- (ja) Copula sentence structure in Irabu Ryukyuan
- Property concepts in Irabu Ryukyuan, by Michinori Shimoji
- An instrumental analysis of the two tone system in Ikema Ryukyuan, by Yuka Hayashi, Yosuke Igarashi, Yukinori Takubo and Tomoyuki Kubo
- Tonal Alternation and Rhythmic Structure in Irabu Ryukyuan, by Michinori Shimoji and Hayashi Yuka
- Descriptive units and categories in Irabu, by Michinori Shimoji
- (ja) On the Obstruentization of Old Japanese /w/ : Focusing on the Miyako and Yaeyama Dialects, by Chokujin Uchima
- (ja) Some verbal paradigms in Miyako, by Nakama Mitsunari
- Pragmatic factors in the development of a switch-adjective language: A case study of the Miyako-Hirara dialect of Ryukyuan, by Yulia Koloskova and Toshio Ohori
- Standard Japanese and the Hirara Dialect: A Case of Linguistic Convergence, by John J. Chew
- (ja) On origin of the 'predicative verb form' in Miyako dialects, by Shigehisa Karimata
- A Grammar of Irabu, a Southern Ryukyuan Language, by Michinori Shimoji
- (ja) Accent neutralization and merging in the Southern Ryukyuan Ikema dialect of Miyako, by Yosuke Igarashi and Takubo Yukinori
- (ja) Phonemic structure of the Miyako dialect of Southern Ryukyu, by Hayato Aoi
- Miyako-Ryukyuan and its contribution to linguistic diversity, by Aleksandra Jarosz
- (ja) General Study for Research and Conservation of Endangered Dialects in Japan – Research Report on Miyako Ryukyuan, by Nobuko Kibe
- Nikolay Nevskiy's Miyakoan Dictionary: reconstruction from the manuscript and its ethnolinguistic analysis, by Aleksandra Jarosz
- Contrastive topic =gyaa in Ikema-Nishihara Miyakoan of Southern Ryukyus, by Natsuko Nakagawa and Yuka Hayashi
- Miyako-Ikema Online Dictionary (2018) (online)
- OLAC resources in and about the Miyako language (links to other resources)
Okinawan
- Dictionaries:
- (ja) Konkoukenshuu – Words of the Royal Palace (Oldest Okinawan dictionary, 1711) (alternate web version)
- Vocabulary of the language spoken at the Great Loo-Choo island in the Japan Sea (1818), by Herbert John Clifford
- (ja) Okinawan language dictionary (1896), by Masayo Nakamoto
- (ja) Okinawan language dictionary (1963), published by the National Institute for Japanese Language (mirror)
- (ja) Excel spreadsheets of the 9th edition of Okinawan language dictionary (2001), published by the National Institute for Japanese Language
- Okinawan-English Wordbook: a short lexicon of the Okinawan language with English definitions and Japanese cognates (2006), by Mitsugu Sakihara et al.
- (ja) Ajimaa: Dictionary of Okinawan (online)
- (ja) Waryu jiten: Japanese-Ryukyuan Dictionary (2018) (online)
- (ja) Kozaweb dictionary of Okinawan (online)
- (ja) Dictionary of the Kudaka Island dialect, by Tomokuni Fukuji and Shin'ichi Kajiku
- (ja) Dictionary of Okinawan Collocations (aka Dictionary of the Practical Use of Okinawan), by Shinsho Miyara (text database)
- (ja) Haisai - Okinawan words, published by Churaneko
- Introductory works for beginners:
- (ja) Shimakutuba guidebooks (multiple student-friendly visual pdfs), by Okinawabon
- Memrise: (Okinawan) Learn Basic Uchinaaguchi (learning app)
- Aloha Uchinaaguchi (lessons and tests)
- Useful Okinawan phrases, Omniglot
- How to learn the Okinawan language, Uchinaguchi (YouTube video series)
- Introduction To The Okinawan Language: Uchina Guchi (2002)
- Byron Fija on Ryukyuan Languages in Uchinaaguchi (2012) (YouTube video)
- Let's speak Uchinaaguchi! (2022) (YouTube video series)
- Uchinaguchi Study Group (Okinawan language) (2021-2022) (YouTube video series)
- Aspect and Modality in Luchuan: In The Case of The Shuri dialect, by Tomoko Arakaki (PostScript file)
- (ja) The Dative Particles "-Nkai" "-nakai" "-ni" "-ga" and "-kai" of the Shuri Dialect of Okinawan : In Contrast with the Particles "-ni" and "-e" of Standard Japanese, by Satoshi Nishioka
- (ja) A number of resources on Okinawan, Haisai.co.jp
- Small Linguistics: Phonological history and lexical loans in Nakijin dialect Okinawan, by Stewart A. Curry
- (ja) On the relation between the particles 'ga' and 'nu' in Urasoe, by Satoshi Uchima
- (ja) Particles in the Maejima dialect of Southern Okinawa, by Kumiko Arakaki
- (ja) Descriptive study of Maejima dialect phonology, by Kumiko Arakaki
- Clausal Focus Structure in Okinawan, by Shinsho Miyara
- Wh-Concord in Okinawan = Syntactic Movement + Morphological Merger, by Kunio Kinjo
- Nominalization in Okinawan: From a diachronic and comparative perspective, by Rumiko Shinzato
- The case markers -ga and -no in Old Okinawan, by Thomas Dougherty
- (ja) Iha Fuyū's collection of Okinawan books (alternate version)
- (ja) Accentuation of One and Two Syllables in Southern Okinawa, by Masachie Nakamoto
- (ja) Accent Classification for Nouns in the Kin Dialect of Mainland Okinawa Island, by Akiko Matsumori
- (ja) Pitch accent system of the Kin dialect of Okinawan, by Akiko Matsumori
- (ja) Indicative Accent Patterns and Their Sequences in the Kin Dialect of Okinawa Main Island, by Akiko Matsumori
- (ja) Evidentials in Ryukyuan: the Shuri Variety of Luchuan: A Typological and Theoretical Study of Grammatical Evidentiality, by Tomoko Arakaki
- Examining the Grammatical Functions of the Auxiliary Verb Rijun in the Shuri Dialect of Ryukyuan Languages, by Yan Kit Kwong
- (ja) A Prosodic Analysis of Two Speech Recordings of Nago Dialect, by Nozomi Kodama
- (ja) The Expression of Possibility and Ability in the Koki Dialect of Nago, Northern Ryukyuan, by Shigehisa Karimata
- (ja) Onomatopoeic words in the Nago dialect of Okinawa, by Shigehisa Karimata
- (ja) Onomatopoeic words in the Nago dialect of Okinawa (Nago>Japanese dictionary), by Shigehisa Karimata
- (ja) Onomatopoeic words in the Nago dialect of Okinawa (Japanese>Nago dictionary), by Shigehisa Karimata
- (ja) True adjectives in the Nago dialect of Okinawa, by Shigehisa Karimata
- (ja) Particles in the Sesoko dialect of Motobu city, Okinawa, by Chokujin Uchima
- (ja) Pitch accent system of Takazato dialect, located in the town of Ōgimi, Kunigami District, by Wayne Lawrence
- The perfective use of -ti in Shuri Ryukyuan (abstract), by Griesenho
- A reconstruction of Old Okinawan: A corpus-based approach, by Chihkai Lin (requires library access)
- (ja) Honorific verbs in the Shuri dialect, by Satoshi Nishioka
- (ja) Pronouns of the Northern Ryukyu Torishima dialect, by Gijs van der Lubbe
- (ja) Pronouns, Demonstratives and Interrogatives in the Soukei Dialect of Ginoza, Okinawa, by Gijs van der Lubbe
- The Past Form of Stative Verbs in South-Central Okinawan, by Gijs van der Lubbe
Okinoerabu
- (ja) Okinoerabu Dictionary
- (ja) Examples of Vocabulary of the Okinoerabu Island Dialect of Japanese with Particular Reference to Prosodemes: Part 4, by Zendo Uwano
- Geographical Distribution of Mimetics in Amami-Okinoerabu Island, by Akiko Tokunaga
- (ja) A grammar of Okinoerabu - Kunigami dialect, Ryukyuan, by Akiko Tokunaga-Yokoyama
Tarama-Minna
- (ja) On Phonemes and Phonetic Changes of the Miyako-Tarama Dialect (mirror), by Kayoko Shimoji
- (ja) Correlation between lexical meaning and form of adjectives: Ryukyu Tarama dialect
- (ja) On the -ja Construction in the Tarama Dialect of Southern Ryukyuan, by Kayoko Shimoji
- (ja) Representation of space and time in Tarama, by Kayoko Shimoji
- (ja) A Reconsideration of Case in Tarama (South-Ryukyuan): Focusing on -ni: and -Nka Forms, by Kayoko Shimoji
- (ja) The Three-Patterned Accent System in Miyako-Tarama Variety of Southern Ryukyuan: Its Properties and Accent Neutralizations, by Hayato Aoi
- (ja) Phonology and sound changes in the Tamara dialect of Miyako, by Kayoko Shimoji
- (ja) Expressions of space and time in the Tarama dialect, by Kayoko Shimoji
- (ja) Comparative Study of an Adjectives in Ryukyu Dialects: Tsuken dialect and Tarama dialect
- (ja) Prosodic Structure of the Tarama Dialect : Description and Interpretation of the Tonal Pattern of the Fused Progressive Verbal Forms, by Kenan Celik and Hayato Aoi
- (ja) Southern Ryukyu Miyako language Tarama dialect dictionary, by Kenan Celik and Shunei Tokuyama
Tokunoshima
- (ja) Tokunoshima Island Dictionary
- Standardization and Dialect Leveling in Tokunoshima, by Motoei Sawaki, Yumi Nakajima and Chitsuko Fukushima
- Accent Data from the Asama Dialect in Tokunoshima, Amami (Part 1), by Zendo Uwano
- Accent Data from the Asama Dialect in Tokunoshima, Amami (Part 4), by Zendo Uwano
- Accent Data from the Asama Dialect in Tokunoshima, Amami (Part 5), by Zendo Uwano
- Tokunoshima Language Dictionary
Yaeyama
- (ja) Phonological comparison of Yaeyama dialects, by Shigehisa Karimata
- The Disappearing /ï/ and Lenition of /p/ in the Ishigaki Dialect : Fieldwork on the "Island of Songs", by Yuko Yoshida
- Surface Position and Focus Domain of the Ryukyuan Focus Particle du: Evidence from Miyara Yaeyaman, by Christopher Davis
- Moraicity of initial geminates in the Tedumuni (Taketomi) dialect of Okinawa, by Shigeko Shinohara and Masako Fujimoto
- The Role of Focus Particles in Wh-Interrogatives: Evidence from a Southern Ryukyuan Language, by Christopher Davis
- Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Miyara Yaeyaman, by Christopher Davis and Tyler Lau
- (ja) Participles in the Hateruma dialect of Yaeyama: the additional function of the plain and cliticized forms, by Aso Reiko
- (ja) An Acoustic Phonetic Analysis of Two Varieties of Hateruma Dialect, by Giuseppe Pappalardo
- (ja) Sound correspondances and sound changes in the Hateruma dialect of Yaeyama, by Makio Oono
- (ja) Phonological Reduction and the (Re)emergence of Attributive Forms in Yaeyama Ryukyuan, by Tyler Lau and Christopher Davis
- (ja) Plurality and distributivity in Yaeyaman wh-questions, by Christopher Davis
- (ja) Phoneme inventory of the Kohama dialect of Yaeyama, by Jou Nakahara
- Shiraho Devoicing and Pitch Accent, by Tyler Lau
- (ja) About the Yaeyama dialect of Hateruma Island, by Akihiro Kaneda
- (ja) A Grammar of the Shiraho Dialect of Yaeyama, by Natsuko Nakagawa, Tyler Lau and Yukinori Takubo
- (ja) A Grammar Outline of the Southern Ryukyu Yaeyama Iriomote Island Funauki Dialect, by Yuko Urabe
- (ja) Fundamental research on comparative historical dialectology of the Ryukyu Yaeyama dialect, by Shigehisa Karimata
- (ja) Basic Vocabulary of the Taketomi Dialect: Plants, by Shin'ichi Kajiku
Yonaguni
- (ja) About the Yonaguni language, by Kaijiku Shinichi
- (ja) Yonaguni verb accent, by Nishioka Satoshi
- Yonaguni – Introduction and Phonology, by Atsuko Izuyama
- (ja) The phylogenetic position of the Yonaguni dialect, by Wayne Lawrence
- (ja) Simplified Grammar and Natural Discourse Materials of Dunang (Yonaguni) Language, by Masahiro Yamada, Thomas Pellard, Michinori Shimoji
- Dunan grammar (Yonaguni Ryukyuan), by Masahiro Yamada, Thomas Pellard, Michinori Shimoji
- Phonological and Morphological Changes in Yonaguni Dialect, by Kohei Nakazawa
- Verb morphology and conjugation classes in Dunan (Yonaguni), by Thomas Pellard and Masahiro Yamada
Yoron
- (ja) Nominalization in Yoron, by Machi Hiromitsu
- (ja) Let's speak Yoron (sample text with translation), by Hideshi Kiku
- Plural Forms in Yoron-Ryukyuan and Address Nouns in Ryukyuan Languages, by Nobuke Kibe, Hajime Oshima and Masahiro Yamada
- Towards a Description of the Case System of Yoron Ryukyuan: The Nominative Case Particles Ga/Nu and the Bare Case, by Nana Tohyama and Tohru Seraku