What is Japonic languages?
The '''Japonic languages''' are a [[language family]] made up of languages native to the [[Japan|Japanese islands]]. Known members of the language family are [[Japanese language|Japanese]] and the [[Ryukyuan languages]] ([[Okinawan language|Okinawan]], [[Kunigami language|Kunigami]], [[Amami language|Amami]], [[Miyako language|Miyako]], [[Yaeyama language|Yaeyama]] and [[Yonaguni language|Yonaguni]]). All Japonic languages are [[Agglutinative language|agglutinative languages]] with a simple [[Syllable|syllable structure]] and [[Word order|SOV word order]]. They have many similar features, but they are not [[Mutual intelligibility|mutually intelligible]], which means native speakers of one language will not understand the other language without already knowing it. While Japanese is the ninth most spoken language in the world,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/the-10-most-spoken-languages-in-the-world/|title=What Are The 10 Most Spoken Languages In The World?|last=Babbel.com|last2=GmbH|first2=Lesson Nine|website=Babbel Magazine|language=en|access-date=2019-07-20}}</ref> the Ryukyuan languages are critically endangered, which means there are very few speakers left. This was largely because of the Japanese government's [[Cultural assimilation|assimilation]] of Ryukyu into the mainland Japanese culture. During the [[Meiji Restoration|Meiji Era]], the Japanese government called the Ryukyuan languages “[[Dialect|dialects]] of Japanese”. This was used to forbid Ryukyuans from speaking the Ryukyuan languages and to force them to speak Japanese. In fact, Okinawan soldiers and civilians were put to death for speaking Okinawan during World War II. The Japanese military would accuse them of being spies so they could have an excuse to put them to death. All of the languages write using a combination of [[Chinese characters]], called [[kanji]] in Japanese, and [[kana]], a Japanese-made [[Syllabary|syllabic writing system]] made for writing [[Phonetic transcription|phonetically]]. This was true even before