Yonaguni language

Vowels

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

^a [o] can also be recognized as an independent phoneme and not just as an allophone of /u/. However, its distribution is very limited. Excluding a few interjections, the only morpheme in which it appears is the sentence-final, exclamatory particle do.

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.^[5] 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.^[4]

In positions other than prevocalic, all nasals are phonetically homorganic with a following consonant (e.g. ng [ŋɡ], nd [nd], nb [mb]). Nasals are velar ([ŋ]) in final position.^[4]

Phonological cognates

As a Southern Ryukyuan language, Yonaguni, similar to Miyakoan and Yaeyama, has /b/ in place with Standard Japanese /w/, such as Yonaguni /bata/ ('stomach, belly'), cognate with Japanese /wata/ ('guts, bowels'). Yonaguni also has /d/ where Japanese and other Ryukyuan languages have /j/ (orthographically y). Thus, for example, Yonaguni /dama/ ('mountain') is cognate with Japanese and Yaeyama /jama/ ('id.'). Yonaguni /d/ is probably a recent development from an earlier */j/, however, judging from the fact that even the */j/ in loanwords of Sinitic origin is pronounced /d/ by speakers of the Yonaguni language, such as dasai 'vegetables' from Middle Chinese *jia-tsʰʌi (野菜). 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 *j- > *z- > d-, leading to the modern name /dunaŋ/ 'Yonaguni'.^[6]

The Yonaguni language exhibits intervocalic voicing of plosives, as do many Japonic languages. It also exhibits the tendency for /ɡ/, especially when intervocalic, to be pronounced as a velar nasal /ŋ/, as in Standard Japanese.

Syllable structure

Below is the syllable template for Dunan:

(C (G) ) V₁ (V₂) (N)

• C = consonant
• G = glide [w] or [j]
• V = vowel
• N = moraic nasal

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.