Preface; Introduction to the Handbooks of Japanese Language and Linguistics; Table of contents; Acknowledgements; Contributors; List of tables; List of figures; List of abbreviations; Introduction: Ryukyuan languages and Ryukyuan linguistics; I. Overview; 1. The Linguistic archeology of the Ryukyu Islands; 2. Proto-Ryukyuan; 3. A Sketch History of Pre-Chamberlainian Western Studies of Ryukyuan; 4. B.J. Bettelheim 1849: The first grammar of Ryukyuan; II. Linguistic features; 5. Ryukyuan languages: A grammar overview; 6. A generative approach to focusing in Okinawan; 7. Lexicon.

8. Phonological aspects of Ryukyuan languages9. Intonation in Okinawan; 10. The tense-aspect-mood systems of the Ryukyuan languages; 11. Tense, Aspect, and Mood in Miyara Yaeyaman; 12. Okinawan kakari musubi in historical and comparative perspectives; III. Grammars of individual languages; 13. Amami grammar; 14. Okinoerabu grammar; 15. Shuri Okinawan grammar; 16. Tarama Miyako grammar; 17. Hateruma Yaeyama grammar; 18. Dunan grammar (Yonaguni Ryukyuan); IV. Sociolinguistics; 19. Substrate-influenced Japanese and code-switching; 20. Local language varieties and the media.

21. Uchinaaguchi in the linguistic landscape of Heiwa Dori and Makishi Market22. Uchinaaguchi as an online symbolic resource within and across the Okinawan diaspora; 23. Orthography development; V. Sociology of language; 24. Japanese language spread; 25. Language shift; 26. Language and identity in Okinawa and Amami: Past, present and future; 27. Linguistic and cultural revitalization; 28. Chinese kanwa textbooks: Language education, power and cultural expansion; 29. Ryukyuan languages in Ryukyuan music; VI. Bibliography; 30. A selected bibliography of Ryukyuan dialectology; Index.