Hateruma[]
The Hateruma dialect contains seven vowels, with no distinction between long-short vowel length, and sixteen consonants. Hateruma is noted for having more vowels than any other dialect. A pharyngeal e is believed to be a result of "the coalescence of Proto-Yaeyama diphthongs '*ai and *aɨ.'"
There are three accent pitches present in Hateruma: falling, level, and rising accents. To correlate pitches, there are three classes of words under an "A, B, C" system; class A words correlate with the falling pitch, and class B and C are shown to have "an uneven correspondence with the Level and Rising patterns."
The Hateruma dialect is regarded as an innovative variety of Yaeyama Ryukyuan. It is the only dialect of the Yaeyama group to feature the pharyngeal eˤ, sonorant devoicing, noun-final consonant epenthesis and spirantization of voiceless velar stop before the vowel *i. It is also considered to have the strongest aspiration among of the Yaeyama dialects, and is also the only variety to display nasal and liquid devoicing.
The pharyngeal eˤ may be regionally expressed as /ɛ/, especially among those over the age of 90.
| Front | Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Close | i | ɨ | u |
| Mid | e eˤ | o | |
| Open | a |
Additionally, Hateruma has the following sixteen consonants:
| Bilabial | Alveolar | Palatal | Velar | Glottal | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nasal | m | n [n~ŋ~ɴ~m] | |||
| Stop | p [p~ps] b | t d | c [t͡s~t͡ɕ] | k ɡ | |
| Fricative | f (ɸ) | s [s~ɕ] z [z~ʑ~d͡z~d͡ʑ] | h [h~ç] | ||
| Liquid | r [r~ɾ] | ||||
| Approximant | w | j |
Hatoma[]
The Hatoma dialect contains two "tonal categories", denoted as marked and unmarked. Words of the marked class are analyzed as being "high from the syllable containing the second mora" and unmarked words begin from a low pitch but end with a low pitch. "Peripheral tone classes" are also noted in certain nouns and adverb.
Hatoma is noted for having the simplest verb conjugation and morphophonology of the Yaeyama dialects. One phonological process is a sequence of i, followed by e, becoming e in the case of i being in a light syllable and ja(a) in a heavy syllable. There is also a process of a sequence u, followed by a sequence becoming a long o with u in a light syllable and uwa(a) in a heavy syllable.
Miyara[]
The Miyara subdialect of Ishigaki has 21 consonants and 6 vowels in its inventory. It is noted that e and o are always long.