Did Okinawa (Ryukyu Kingdom) use Chinese characters and surnames in ancient times? Are customs and habits very similar to those in southern Fujian (Quanzhou)?

At first, it refers to Shannan (also known as Nanshan), Zhongshan and Shanbei, which were established in the Ryukyu Islands in history, and later refers to the unified Ryukyu State (1429 to 1879). Ryukyu Kingdom, located between Taiwan Province Province of China and Japan, once paid tribute to the Ming and Qing Dynasties in China and the Satsuma and Edo shogunate in Japan. Ryukyu has been occupied by the Japanese many times. 1609, Samoans invaded and controlled the northern part of Ryukyu for a period of time. At this time, Ryukyu still paid tribute to China. Because of its special geographical location, Ryukyu is famous as a transit point for trade in Northeast Asia and Southeast Asia, and its trade is developed, so it is known as the "bridge of all nations". 1879 On March 30th, Japan annexed the Ryukyu Dynasty and the Ryukyu Kingdom perished. Most of the land was changed to Okinawa Prefecture, and the northern islands were included in Kagoshima Prefecture.

Like other countries in East Asia, Chinese characters are the official language of Ryukyu. Chinese is used in diplomatic exchanges with China, North Korea and Viet Nam. The inscriptions of Ryukyu people and the genealogy of the gentry are also recorded in Chinese. Communication with Ming and Qing Dynasties and Japan is often very important. During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Ryukyu sent overseas students to imperial academy in Nanjing and Beijing and Ryukyu Pavilion in Fuzhou to learn the language of China. According to the research on the preserved textbooks of Mandarin used by Ryukyu people, the Mandarin learned by Ryukyu people is influenced by Fujian dialect, especially Fuzhou dialect, which is strictly called "Fuzhou Mandarin". [53] In the early days, Ryukyu countries used Chinese in diplomatic occasions and official documents. In addition to Chinese characters, Ryukyu has its own characters, the so-called "ball character".

After the Samoyeds invaded Ryukyu in A.D. 1609, the official documents of Ryukyu (documents of the evaluation institute) began to be written in Hou language (classical Japanese), and Japanese diplomatic documents were also written in Hou language. In the biography of Zhongshan written by Xu Baoguang, the special envoy of King Shang Jing in Qing Dynasty, it is mentioned that Ryukyu has a different letter from China-Lu Hua. Ryukyu people use "I Lu Hua" mixed with a few Chinese characters as official documents and issue decrees. Xu Baoguang thinks that Lu Hua may be a "Japanese alphabet" (a pseudonym) or a simplified phonetic symbol of Chinese characters. However, according to the existing official documents of Ryukyu, Xu Baoguang's "Lu Hua" is Japanese Katakana, and the style of his official documents is Japanese Hou Wen. [53] Although Ryukyu issued decrees in Chinese after Shama's invasion, all foreign documents of Ryukyu Wang Fu were written in classical Chinese (except Japanese). At the end of the second Shang Dynasty, the commercial treaties signed between Ryukyu Wang Fu and western countries were also written in Chinese. The language commonly used in Ryukyu is Ryukyu. Ryukyu language has a certain approximate relationship with Japanese, and most scholars believe that it belongs to Altai language family, so Japanese language family is constructed to include it. However, there is another view in linguistics that Ryukyu language is closer to Austronesian language family.