CHINA, Kagoshima Prefecture--The dominance of standard Japanese in colloquial speech across the archipelago has obvious advantages. But it comes at the risk of killing off rare dialects spoken on remote islands.

This explains an eleventh-hour effort to preserve dialects that are unintelligible to the rest of the population.

Television is clearly a primary culprit as islanders have tended over the years to “correct” their way of speaking so their offspring wouldn’t face discrimination when they went job hunting or pursued higher education on the mainland.

Eight areas of Japan were included in the most recent “red list” of endangered languages and dialects.

Okinoerabujima island in Kagoshima Prefecture is one of the target areas, and concerted efforts are now under way to revive the local dialect.

Okinoerabujima became part of Japan’s Satsuma feudal domain after it belonged to the independent Ryukyu Kingdom, now Okinawa Prefecture.

That history created a distinct diversity to the island’s culture. The two towns on the island, China (pronounced chee-nah) and Wadomari, along with neighboring Tokunoshima island, each have different dialects.

That diversity, however, is now a candle flickering in the wind.

UNESCO released a list in 2009 of the world’s endangered languages.

Inscribed on the red list were eight local languages of Japan, including the “Kunigami” language spoken in an area including Okinoerabujima.

“There are ways to revive a local language,” said Masahiro Yamada, an associate professor with the Tokyo-based National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL).

Yamada, 42, leads a project titled “Research on the Conservation of Endangered Languages.”

The NINJAL approach being practiced for the first time on Okinoerabujima involves a method called Master-Apprentice devised in the United States in the 2000s.

The Master-Apprentice program relies on intensive, one-on-one dialogue between a “master,” who speaks a local language at risk of dying out, and a learner.

The idea is to develop new speakers of the language. The method has worked well with Native American dialects.

Starting in fiscal 2019, NINJAL officials have held “dialect salon” sessions on Okinoerabujima once a month, where they have taught, among other things, how to create a dictionary.

After explaining how the Master-Apprentice program works, NINJAL officials said 25 islanders signed up to stop their dialect from dying out.

Standard Japanese has long been the norm in speech on Okinoerabujima in school education and most households.

However, some islanders with a burning urge to pass on their dialectal tradition have been busy working on their own to keep the island’s language alive.

Mihoko Tanaka, who serves on Wadomari’s municipal board of education, is one of them.

Tanaka, 65, was a kindergarten teacher when she began, 20-odd years ago, making picture cards to go with local folklore told in the dialect which she was determined to pass on to children through reading sessions and other events.

“I always harbored a sense of alarm that the dialect could vanish soon,” Tanaka said.

“If you emphasize that, however, it’s like you are forcing your activities on others. I think there are more chances of success if you incorporate the dialect in an enjoyable way so people will take interest in it.”

Tsuruko Tanabe, a 63-year-old resident of China, became active after she took part in the dialect salon.

She set up a circle in her neighborhood last year and began collecting materials toward the goal of creating a dictionary for the dialect of the Tamina district, which is different from those of other districts.

Salt, or “shio” in standard Japanese, is called “mashu” in the Tamina dialect. “Nezumi” in standard Japanese, which refers to a mouse or a rat, is called “yumunu” in Tamina.

Tanabe’s group asked two women from the neighborhood, aged 98 and 99, to allow their speech to be recorded. So far, 1,200 words have been preserved for posterity, Tanabe said.

All the signs point to a future revival of the dialect.

Starting in fiscal 2017, NINJAL began enlisting the help of three-generation families on Okinoerabujima to get them to engage in fun activities that involve the use of the dialect during the annual summer break.

Yurika Maeda, 45, took part in the project with her parents, husband and three children. She previously seldom spoke the dialect, but she can now converse in it with her mother, 71-year-old Chizuko Katsuma.

Yurika’s husband Takuya, 43, and her second son Daishin, 18, also used to have difficulty even with listening comprehension. But they now understand 70-80 percent of what is being said in the dialect and speak it better, too.

Even when the summer vacation was over, members of the Maeda family continued learning from Chizuko and using the dialect when they talked among themselves at home or chatted on the Line free messaging app.

Thus, they ended up practicing the Master-Apprentice program without even being aware of it.

“I don’t know how I should describe this sense of satisfaction,” said Yurika of her newly acquired ability to converse in the dialect.

The project to revive the Okinoerabujima dialect has only just got under way, but Yamada, of NINJAL, is optimistic.

“The local community has already embraced the idea,” the linguist said. “The first local language to be revived will likely be either the Ainu language (in Hokkaido) or the dialect here.”