Castaways and
Languages: Chinese and Japanese in the Context of Ryukyu-China Relations
The
Journal of Historical
Studies (Rekishigaku Kenkyu) 873, 2010.
[Abstract]
This
article examines the various aspects of the political significance of two
languages, Chinese and Japanese, in the context of Ryukyu-China relations. The
period under investigation is from the end of the 16th century, a period in
which the Ryukyu Islands became increasingly caught up between China and Japan.
Special attention is paid the case of “castaways” – persons who, as a result of shipwreck, unintentionally crossed
geographical borders established by the state.
The
Japanese language, which was not a means of mutual communication for either the
Ryukyus or China, served essentially as a political
barometer symbolizing Japan or the state of Ryukyu-Japan relations. From the
end of the 16th century to the early 17th century, a period characterized by
deteriorating relations between Japan and Ming China, the Japanese tongue
functioned as a yardstick for the Ming Dynasty in accordance with which it
decided whether the castaways were Japanese (enemies) or Ryukyuans
(allies).
After
the coming of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of its dominance toward
the end of the 17th century, the Japanese language gained a new political
connotation as a symbol of Ryukyu-Japan ties. This was in connection with the
Ryukyu national policy of concealing Ryukyu-Japan relations from the eyes of
the Qing rulers, a policy initiated around that time with the menace of the
Qing dynasty in the background. While this political connotation held little if
any significance for Qing China, it remained in force in the Ryukyus (and the regions in the vicinity of Japan)
throughout the 18th century. It was strengthened by the experiences of
castaways (a fate that could be suffered, theoretically speaking, by anyone),
and continued to affect the behavior and the way of life of the inhabitants.
On
the hand, Chinese was a useful means of mutual understanding between the Ryukyus and the Chinese (it was the diplomatic language
between them). For that reason, it was also an avenue through which individual Ryukyuans could advance their careers and get ahead in
life. On the main island of Okinawa, while the Royal Government had its own
system for recruiting and training persons fluent in Chinese, castaways played
a supplementary role for this system, supplying capable human resources. On the
two islands in the Okinawa chain most distant from the main island, where no
official interpreters were stationed, castaways came to possess even greater
significance. In other words,, by mobilizing persons who had learned Chinese
either incidentally or spontaneously as a result of becoming castaways, a sort
of “subsystem” came to function on these outlying isles, in correspondence with the
primary system for official handling of Chinese on the main island.
These
political connotations of Japanese and Chinese and the power balance between
the two languages underwent a major change in the latter half of the 19th
century as a result of the Ryukyu Shobun ( the Disposition of the Ryukyus)
by the Meiji Japanese Government .With this, the Chinese language lost its
political prestige, while Japanese was strategically spread as a “common language”, to a degree that its use was no longer
possible to “conceal”. This was the end of the traditional “international
order” of East Asia that constituted the major background of the political
significance of these two languages during the age of the Ryukyu Kingdom.