Are there more Ryukyu natives or Japanese in Naha, Okinawa?

Ryukyu itself was once a vassal and independent country of China.

Chinese characters are the official language of Ryukyu, and the language is Ryukyu. Ryukyu language and Japanese have a certain approximate relationship. Communication with Ming and Qing Dynasties and Japan is often very important. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Ryukyu sent overseas students to imperial academy in Nanjing and Beijing and Ryukyu Pavilion in Fuzhou to learn the language of China.

Ryukyu people have their own language-Ryukyu language. Although Ryukyu belongs to the same language family as Japanese, its pronunciation, grammar and vocabulary are quite different from Japanese. Ryukyu people don't have their own characters. /kloc-After the 6th century, some upper-class people began to record with Chinese characters and Japanese pseudonyms. A hieroglyph called "Qiu Si Code" is very popular in the lower classes. Some people keep records by tying ropes. After Ryukyu was incorporated into Japan, the Meiji government pursued the assimilation policy, forcing Japanese to be widely used in Ryukyu Islands. Now many young people in Ryukyu can't speak Ryukyu.

The culture of Ryukyu people is deeply influenced by China and Japanese mainland. From a religious point of view, there are Buddhists, Shintoists and many Taoists among Ryukyu people. Like the Han people in China, they have the custom of sweeping graves in Tomb-Sweeping Day. They also like to place a statue of a stone lion on the roof and a stone beast named "Shi Gandang" at the intersection of major traffic routes, which is similar to the customs in some areas in southern China. In terms of diet, Ryukyu people like to drink a kind of white wine called "Paosheng", eat greasy vegetables and eat pig's trotters. These customs are different from Yamato nationality.

3. Language

(1) The Formation and Development of Japanese

Japanese is the inherent language of Yamato people, and belongs to Altai language family with Korean and Mongolian. Japanese has been greatly influenced by Chinese and other languages in its emergence and development. Some Japanese linguists believe that some common words in Japanese, such as "Ma", "Mei" and "Mi", are very similar to Chinese in pronunciation, probably because of the influence of China people. The formation of Chinese characters is deeply influenced by Chinese in China.

Japan has a relatively short written history. The earliest existing written materials were produced in the 5th century A.D. and recorded in Chinese. In 478 AD, one of the Japanese rulers at that time, Japanese Wu Wang's credentials to the emperor of the Southern Dynasties in China were also written in Chinese. Later (about AD 10 century), the Japanese created Japanese letters-Hiragana (such as an-ぁ; with-ぃ； yu-ぅ； Yi-ぇ: Yu-ぉ), created katakana (such as a-; i-ィ； Yu-ゥ； jiang-ェ； Yu-ォ), thus gradually forming a Japanese writing method combining Chinese characters with pseudonyms, which has been used to this day.

At present, there are 198 1 Chinese characters in the list of commonly used Chinese characters published by the Japanese government.