2011 Volume 7 Issue 4 Pages 15-29
This paper examines the transcriptions of Ryukyuan with Chinese characters in the Liuqiu ruxue jianwenlu (1763) in order to discover the sound values of the consonants in the syllables /ha/ and /ka/, and whether the consonant in the syllable /ki/ had palatalized or not. It is concluded that the sound value of /ka/ in some Ryukyuan words was not velar [ka] but instead was glottal [ha] like that of the modern Kudaka and Kikai-jima dialects, and that the consonant in /ha/ had already changed from bilabial plosive [p-] to [hw-] (or[Φ-]) with the exception of one word. It is also shown that the voiceless consonant in [ki] had not yet palatalized, but in some of the vocabulary [gi-] had palatalized to [dzi-]. Chinese characters used in the Liuqiu ruxue jianwenlu reflect the pronunciation of Nanjing Mandarin that Ryukyuan students learned in Beijing China. This is the reason why the Chinese character 色 is used in order to translate the Chinese word 蝦, 'shrimp' in English, Ryukyuan /see/. The pronunciation of 色 for Ryukyuan /see/ reflects the pronunciation of Nanjing Mandarin [s〓], not Beijing Mandarin [sai]. This is a good example to illustrate that Nanjing Mandarin is the base language which was used for the transcription.
