Basil Hall, who as captain of His Majesty's Ship Lyra stayed in Ryükyü for forty days in 1816, wrote, “Two of the natives have been studying English with great assiduity, and with considerable success. One is called Madera, the other Anya… They are both keen fellows, and always amongst the strangers.” These two officials were Fusaaki Maehira and Masasuke Aniya.
This paper intends to follow Aniya's activities as an interpreter by examining the books of Captain Beechey, C. Gutzlaff, W. Williams and P. Parker, who successively came to Ryükyü from 1820s to 1840s.
When the British warship Blossom, the British ship Lord Amherst and the American ship Morrison arrived at Naha port, the crew were surprised by being warned by a native interpreter, “What for come Doo-choo? How many guns? Plenty guns?” in broken English. He was Aniya who had learnt English when the Alceste and Lyra stayed in Ryükyü in 1816.
Though Ryükyü Kingdom strictly denied trading with foreign countries, native government treated foreigners kindly, supplying water and food without demanding any payment. Captain Beechey who came to Ryukyu in 1827 and other authors of log-books praised Aniya as an able interpreter and recognized Ryukyu kingdom as a very polite and amicable country.
When Commander Perry's squadron came to Ryukyu on its way to Japan in 1853 and 1854, Chôten Itarajiki (later Chôchfi Makishi), who had studied English from Aniya (later Yoseyama) played a remarkable role in his difficult negotiations with Americans. English studies in Ryükyü were initiated by Maehira and Aniya, and then were succeeded by Itarajiki.
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