てぃんさぐぬ花 Tinsagunu hana [Haisai Uchina]

Prefectures Festival, representing Okinawa.

Haisai Uchina - Tinsagunu hana.
Festival de las prefecturas, representando a Okinawa. 2007

Category:

Music

Tags:

• haisai
• uchina
• tinsagunu
• hana
• てぃんさぐぬ花
• APJ
• okinawa
• sanshin

[OldTimerGoGetter]

@nodeue Aha! Thank you. I just remembered how my French teacher (who also taught Spanish and German) once told me how Latin-based languages are related (and of course, how English is mostly Germanic and all). And it's true. I somehow vaguely understand when I hear, for example, Portuguese, Italian and Spanish; some German words (like "nacht"), and of course, Korean and Chinese (well, I can can't read Hangul, but some words sound pretty close to Chinse and/or Japanese)...

[nodeue]

@OldTimerGoGetter Before the Edo era - none. I think there's a bit of confusion here. Ryukyuan languages are related to Japanese, the same way Spanish is related to Italian. Thus, some words are similar, and using certain "rules" one can derive certain words, but this isn't because of mainland influence, it's due to things that happened almost 2000 years ago. To be sure, modern Okinawan certainly has some very minor influence from Japanese, but they are still completely distinct languages

[OldTimerGoGetter]

@nodeue Right, Ryukyu is it. I've this book and still is reading up on Ryukyu language and Okinawan dialect, and the morphing thereof. So I can't say for sure exactly when and how much of the mainland Japanese language got integrated before the Edo era (although I know that for some words, there's a rule for replacing a vowel with another, and the same for consonants).

I'm so thankful that people like Fuyuu Iha did their best, realizing the massive impact of the Meiji Restoration.

[nodeue]

@OldTimerGoGetter Historically, all the islands between Kyushu and Taiwan were united as one country, the Ryukyu Kingdom. For mainland Japanese dialects, yes, it is a question of "morphing", with younger generations speaking something between the local dialect and standard Japaneese. However, for the Ryukyuan languages, it is more a question of displacement - they are still very much separate languages, unfortunately they are not widely spoken by youth, who have adopted Standard Japanese.

[OldTimerGoGetter]

@nodeue

Thank you for pointing that out. I totally agree. Not only from a Linguistic point of view, but historically speaking, Okinawa (along with many other small islands down south and Hokkaido up north) was another country. (Well, and still is in a sense...but their language has since morfed into a dialect due to the influence of TV. I suppose you could say the same for almost all the other languages within Japan)

However, as Okinawa is now a part of Japan, I chose the word "dialect."

[nodeue]

@OldTimerGoGetter For linguists, Okinawan is a language, not a dialect of Japanese. Notice that Kagoshima dialect and Amami language, the closest of the dialects of mainland Japan and the languages of Okinawa, are still more different from each other than any two mainland Japanese dialects.

[skanthavelu]

Sounds so nice. Sounds almost Japanese-ish, but also uniquely Okinawan.

[YohanCn]

Thanks a lot!

[OldTimerGoGetter]

Haisai is "hello" said by an Okinawan male.

When said by a female, it would be "haitai."

(I'm not Okinawan, but there is a song called Haisai Ojisan ハイサイおじさん- Hello Uncle, an Okinawan Pop Rock written a while back...a conversational song between a youngster and an old man. I checked what the lyrics mean because for a Kanto Plane-ite, Okinawan Dialect is another language.)

[YohanCn]

What does Haisai means?