Yonaguni phrasebook Attractions & Activities - The Best Holiday Destinations for 2020
Yonaguni is a language spoken solely on the island of Yonaguni at the westernmost tip of the Yaeyama Islands, Japan. Of the roughly 1700 inhabitants, about half can speak the dialect.
If you're really interested in the language, the Yonaguni Ethnographic Museum sells a small dictionary written by an island auntie who is the museum's curator, Nae Ikema. The same woman, 87 years old, is also the last remaining soul with a traditional knowledge of the island's peculiar writing system known as "kaida dii" (two symbols found carved in the underwater ruins closely resemble the local characters for horse and goat, respectively).
The Most Frequently Asked Travel Questions about Yonaguni phrasebook
