The "Japanese" in his tweets is Okinawan. It's a separate language that is written with the Japanese writing system, for obvious reasons. Most people in Okinawa speak an Okinawan dialect of Japanese, but this is different. It's a bit like Welsh or Irish in regards how the population is treated.
Hm. It's the combination of it being 80% understandable as heavily-inflected Japanese and the people responding to him in perfectly understandable Japanese that threw me, then.
Well some of his writing is just Okinawan dialect, and not actual Okinawan. Though I don't know how much the average Japanese person understands of Okinawan. Though I've always been curious.
The "Japanese" in his tweets is Okinawan. It's a separate language that is written with the Japanese writing system, for obvious reasons. Most people in Okinawa speak an Okinawan dialect of Japanese, but this is different. It's a bit like Welsh or Irish in regards how the population is treated.
Hm. It's the combination of it being 80% understandable as heavily-inflected Japanese and the people responding to him in perfectly understandable Japanese that threw me, then.
Well some of his writing is just Okinawan dialect, and not actual Okinawan. Though I don't know how much the average Japanese person understands of Okinawan. Though I've always been curious.