Southern Ryukyuan languages

They are spoken on the Sakishima Islands in Okinawa Prefecture.

While the majority of Ryukyuan languages have used Chinese or Japanese script for writing, the Yaeyama Islands never had a full-featured writing system.

Islanders developed the Kaidā glyphs as a simple method to record family names, items, and numerals to aid in tax accounting.

This system was used until the 19th century introduction of Japanese-language education.

[4] Proto-Sakishima, the proto-language ancestral to the Southern Ryukyuan languages, has been reconstructed by Bentley (2008).