2022 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

Comparative historical research on Ryukyuan by using linguistic family trees

Research Project

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Project/Area Number	17H06115
Research Category	Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (S)
Allocation Type	Single-year Grants
Research Field	Japanese linguistics
Research Institution	University of the Ryukyus
Principal Investigator	Karimata Shigehisa 琉球大学, 戦略的研究プロジェクトセンター, 産学官連携研究員 (50224712)
Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha)	木部暢子大学共同利用機関法人人間文化研究機構国立国語研究所, 言語変異研究領域, 特任教授 (30192016) 金田章宏千葉大学, 大学院国際学術研究院, 名誉教授 (70214476) 下地理則九州大学, 人文科学研究院, 准教授 (80570621) 白田理人広島大学, 人間社会科学研究科(教), 准教授 (60773306) 津村宏臣同志社大学, 文化情報学部, 准教授 (40376934) 木村亮介琉球大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 教授 (00453712) 岡崎威生琉球大学, 工学部, 教授 (90213925)
Project Period (FY)	2017-05-31 – 2022-03-31
Keywords	琉球諸語 / 九州方言 / 比較歴史言語学 / 集団遺伝学 / 言語系統樹
Outline of Final Research Achievements	The aim of the project has been to uncover the phylogenetic relationship between the Ryukyuan languages and Kyushu dialects by using methods applied in population genetics. The methods include transforming various linguistic information of these languages into numerical sequences, plotting the information as genetic network figures and ADMIXTURE and combining them with geolinguistic maps. The results show that of the three Southern Ryukyuan languages, Miyako, Yaeyama and Yonaguni, the former two constitute a subgroup against Yonaguni, against the general consensus that the latter two constitute a subgroup. Another finding is about grammatical and lexical differences (tense-aspect systems and vocabularies of rice cultivation) between Northern and the Southern Ryukyuan languages in a diachronic perspective. Such differences may support our hypothesis that there were two waves of massive migration from Kyushu to the area where Northern Ryukyuan was spoken.
Free Research Field	言語学
Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements	比較言語学も言語地理学も少数の単語を使って言語史を解明する。そこには単語の選択に恣意性が働く懸念が付きまとう。比較言語学は2地点間の関係を明らかにするだけである。集団遺伝学は対象地点数にも使用する単語数にも制限が無い。系統ネットワーク図は分岐だけでなく地点間の距離や言語接触の様も可視化できる。GISデータを組み込めば系統ネットワーク図等から言語地図を描ける。集団遺伝学的研究の確立は琉球諸語と日本語方言の研究に大きな革新をもたらす。