ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a description of the various dialects of Ryukyu-substrate Japanese, that is, informal varieties of Japanese with substratal influence from Ryukyuan languages. Ryukyu-substrate Japanese has developed along with the language shift process over the last century as each generation adopts or discards certain features of their local language. Since younger generations have not acquired their local language, they assign new functions to linguistic items heard in the speech of their elders, or otherwise create new ones based on Ryukyuan word formation rules. The text summarizes the most important studies of geographical and generational variation in phonological, grammatical and lexical contact effects on the Japanese spoken in Amami, Okinawa, Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni.
