Dialect card

After the Meiji Restoration the government, in emulation of the European nation states, sought to create a standard Japanese speech.

A Tokyo dialect, specifically that of the upper-class Yamanote area, became the model for Standard Japanese, widely used in schools, publishing, and radio broadcasting.

[3] The use of hogen fuda was most prominent in the Tōhoku, Kyushu and Ryukyu Islands (including Okinawa) as they are geographically and linguistically most distant from the Tokyo dialect.

In Okinawa, the card was initially voluntarily adopted by Okinawan students at the start of the 20th century, but became mandatory as assimilation policies increased following 1917.

[5] Keiichiro Nemoto also created a short film inspired by the similarities between the history of Okinawan dialect card and Welsh Not in Wales.