Amami Ōshima (奄美大島, Okinawan: Uushima (ウーシマ); Amami: Ushima (ウシマ)), also known as Amami, is the largest island in the Amami archipelago between Kyūshū and Okinawa.It is one of the Satsunan Islands.. The island, 712.35 km 2 in area, has a population of approximately 73,000 people. Administratively it is divided into the city of Amami, the towns of …

The Okinawan language (沖縄口, ウチナーグチ, Uchināguchi, [ʔut͡ɕinaːɡut͡ɕi]) or Central Okinawan, is a Northern Ryukyuan language spoken primarily in the southern half of the island of Okinawa, as well as in the surrounding islands of Kerama, Kumejima, Tonaki, Aguni and a number of smaller peripheral islands. Central Okinawan distinguishes itself from the speech of …

Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands.The family is universally accepted by linguists, and significant progress has been made in reconstructing the proto-language. The reconstruction implies a split between all …

The Ryukyu Islands (琉球諸島, Ryūkyū-shotō), also known as the Nansei Islands (南西諸島, Nansei-shotō, lit."Southwest Islands") or the Ryukyu Arc (琉球弧, Ryūkyū-ko), are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with …

Population. There are 304,000 Deaf and Hard of Hearing people who are above age 18 in Japan (2008). However, there is no specific source about the number of JSL users because of the difficulty in distinguishing who are JSL users and who use other kinds of sign, like Taiou Shuwa and Chuukan Shuwa.According to the Japanese Association for Sign Language Studies, the …

The most widely spoken language in Japan is Japanese, which is separated into several dialects with Tokyo dialect considered standard Japanese.. In addition to the Japanese language, Ryūkyūan languages are spoken in Okinawa and parts of Kagoshima in the Ryūkyū Islands.Along with Japanese, these languages are part of the Japonic language family, but they are separate …

The Amami Islands (奄美群島, Amami-guntō) is an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is part of the Ryukyu Islands, and is southwest of Kyushu.Administratively, the group belongs to Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan.The Geospatial Information Authority of Japan and the Japan Coast Guard agreed on February 15, 2010, to use the name of Amami-guntō (奄美群島) for the …

Geography. Okinoerabujima is isolated from the other Amami islands, and is located in between Tokunoshima and Yoronjima, approximately 536 kilometres (289 nmi) south of the southern tip of Kyūshū and 60 kilometres (32 nmi) north of Okinawa.. In the eastern part of the island is an extensive limestone cave system, one of the largest in Asia. The coast of the island is …

There is a common misconception that sign languages are somehow dependent on spoken languages: that they are spoken language expressed in signs, or that they were invented by hearing people. Similarities in language processing in the brain between signed and spoken languages further perpetuated this misconception. Hearing teachers in deaf schools, such as …

The Japanese language has a system of honorific speech, referred to as keigo (Japanese: 敬語, literally "respectful language"), parts of speech that show respect.Their use is mandatory in many social situations. Honorifics in Japanese may be used to emphasize social distance or disparity in rank, or to emphasize social intimacy or similarity in rank.