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Paper short abstract

This presentation reports on a language revitalization effort for Dunan Munui (Yonaguni language) and argues that the school and community domains can provide alternative spaces to use the language innovatively for the next generation, since it is no longer transmitted within the family.

Paper long abstract

In this presentation, the language revitalization effort of Dunan Munui (Yonaguni language) on Yonaguni Island in the Southern Ryukyu will be the focus. The issues of language revitalization in the context of Yonaguni are: 1) the 70s and 80s fluent Dunan speakers are aging, and 2) the children leave the island at15 years old, since there is no senior high school (16–18 years old) in Yonaguni. Once they left, they were immersed in Japan's societal language entirely in their late teens and were not exposed to or naturally raised in Dunan, the language of their island.

This presentation will report on the implementation of Video Workshop (VW) on Yonaguni Island in 2025, a new pedagogy applied at the school and community. It is a creative approach in nature and an art based program for school pupils, initially programmed by a video artist and a junior high school art teacher in Tottori prefecture. In our case study, VW was planned by the video artist, Yonaguni Education Authority, and a researcher (the author), contextualizing it as a pedagogy of language revitalization: making a Japanese/Dunan bilingual movie at a junior high school and a ‘Dunan word chain game (Dunan Shiritori asobi)’ movie at an event in town.

The latter event, with 20 mixed participants, turned out to be an active Dunan learning space where both full speakers and new speakers worked as a team and made a short movie. The elderly speaker helped Dunan, and the younger new speaker helped handle the iPad. This is one way to create Dunan learning materials in the community, and in the process of making the movie, the language could be well used and passed on from the full speaker to the new speaker. Those ‘Dunan word chain game’ movies were shown in the entrance hall of DiDi Yonagui Exchange Center for one month, informing other islanders about the Dunan language to raise their awareness.

The language is no longer actively transmitted in the family, therefore, school, and community domains can provide alternative spaces to use the language in an innovative way for the next generation