Translating songs between endangered and modernized languages: The case of Ryukyuan in Okinawa, Japan

Examining the severely endangered languages of the Ryukyuan Archipelago from a translation studies perspective reveals that song is the only domain where translation is occurring, and that this translation has hardly been researched. This leads to more serious questions that remain understudied, such as how to translate indigenous languages and indigenous nonconformist concepts into the world’s modern dominant languages or how to address all the sociolinguistic issues that accompany those decisions. A song translation studies perspective provides an insightful metric for exploring how translation is taking place in Okinawan music. This study investigates three translation projects, including an archival documentation of song translations from Ryukyuan into Japanese, English subtitles for videos, and singable cover versions of songs translated from Japanese into Ryukyuan. The problems and decisions made in these contexts are documented to foster discussion and to encourage further translation research into indigenous languages.