Abstract
The article is composed of the following: 1. Ryukyuan language, its definition, history and the present state 2. Some comments on the methodology of the phonetic research 3. Phonological characteristics of the Ryukyuan dialects as compared to mainland Japanese 4. Differences between the phonetic characteristics of the Amami-Okinawa dialect group and those of the Miyako-Yaeyama dialect group 5. Vowel phoneme systems of Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni Dialects 6. Some characteristics of Ryukyuan consonant phonemes, including the phonemic contrasts between the laryngealized unaspirated consonants and the consonants without laryngealization 7. Further sub-classification of the above two dialect groups
