Wiktionary:About Proto-Ryukyuan

Proto-Ryukyuan is the language of the ancestral Ryukyuan language family. As Proto-Ryukyuan is a reconstructed language, all entries must be in the Reconstruction mainspace.

Abbreviations

 * PJ - Proto-Japonic
 * PR - Proto-Ryukyuan
 * OJ - Old Japanese
 * EMJ - Early Middle Japanese
 * JPN - (Modern) Japanese

Phylogeny
The descendants of Proto-Ryukyuan include: means do not include it in the descendants. The following list may not have every Ryukyuan dialect.

Yonaguni also has some shared innovations with Yaeyama, leading Pellard to believe that Yonaguni should be grouped into Yaeyama (Macro-Yaeyama), while the actual Yaeyama language family is called Nuclear Yaeyama. Thorpe believes Yonaguni should be considered a third branch of Ryukyuan, descending from an early dialect in Okinawa. He also posits Taketomi as an early South Okinawan dialect that was reshaped by neighboring Yaeyaman varieties, and that the Yuwan dialect in Amami Ōshima is derived from a back-migration from Yoron Island.

Do not reconstruct a Proto-Ryukyuan term if the term is isolated. Isolated examples include, , Shuri  , , , Ishigaki  , etc., as they are almost certainly borrowings from Japanese.

It's best to put sources for the descendants (e.g. PR ). Either directly use the references manually, or you can use in an entry (has pre-made reference templates).

Reconstructions
See Category:Proto-Ryukyuan lemmas.

Transcription and phonology
The transcription uses modified.

Vowels
Five vowels can be reconstructed for Proto-Ryukyuan :

Unknown vowels
If a word cannot be determined an unraised vowel, or a type of vowel is unknown, these cover symbols are used:
 * Unknown back vowel */o/ or */u/: *U
 * Unknown front vowel */e/ or */i/: *I

Consonants
Proto-Ryukyuan has the consonants *p, *t, *k, *b, *d, *g, *m, *n, *s, *z, *r, *w, and *y (*). It is quite likely that the voiced consonants were prenasalized.

Prosody
Tone classes must be included in all Proto-Ryukyuan entries, if possible. Three classes have been reconstructed: A, B, and C. Tone classes C often has a either an accented first mora, a lengthened first mora in Asama and Shuri, or has a falling pitch at the end of the word (in case of Wadomari and Yonaguni). Tone neutralization has occurred in Tarama, but the former state of affairs is revealed with the suffix -mai, meaning "also".

Key

 * H - High pitch.
 * L - Low pitch.
 * R - Rising pitch.
 * F - Falling pitch.

Verbs
Verbs must be reconstructed as root + infinitive suffix.

In the Ryukyuan languages, some verbs are derived from the + *worV-, an auxiliary suffix cognate with.

An example:


 * Proto-Ryukyuan
 * Kikai
 * Okinawan

Adjectives
Use only the adjective root, not a suffix added to it. For example, descends from, without a **-sV suffix. Exceptions are : e.g.,.