In the town of Miyakubo on the island, there exist a high incidence of congenital deafness.
These form the core of speakers of the language, though there are deaf members of other families who speak it as well.
There are also about 50 hearing neighbors and coworkers of the deaf (especially in the fishing industry) who know the language.
A number of hearing children pick it up from deaf classmates in preschool.
Currently the younger generations (born since the 1980s) are bilingual, but use Miyakubo Sign exclusively with older people, who find JSL unintelligible.