World Language Map

Where is Kikai spoken?

Kikai (シマユミタ) is a Japonic language, spoken in Japan. It is marked on the map by a ringed point.

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Key

Language families (largest ten)

  • Atlantic-Congo
  • Austronesian
  • Sino-Tibetan
  • Indo-European
  • Afro-Asiatic
  • Nuclear Trans New Guinea
  • Otomanguean
  • Austroasiatic
  • Tai-Kadai
  • Pama-Nyungan

Everything else

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  • Point A language with no area map. The dot sits at its Glottolog position, in its family colour.

How to read the map. Each colour is a language family: a group of languages that share a common ancestor. The ten largest families have their own colour and every other family is grey. Areas are see-through, so where two languages share a place the colours mix. Tap anywhere to list every language whose area covers that spot. Areas are generalisations drawn from published atlases, many of them decades old, and cities are multilingual, so an area never says that everyone there speaks the language. A dot marks a language that has no area map. The family name is always given in words, because colour alone is hard to tell apart for some people.

Where Kikai is spoken

Kikai is spoken in one country: Japan.

Country
Japan

Kikai has no area on the map because no open area map covers it. The ringed point is the position Glottolog gives for the language.

How many people speak Kikai?

Wikidata gives about 13,000 first-language speakers (ethnologue.com, 2000). These figures are approximate: they come from different sources, years and definitions of a speaker.

Status: Moribund. Glottolog lists it as moribund: the youngest speakers are middle-aged or older, and children are no longer learning it.

Where Kikai sits in the language family tree

Glottolog classifies Kikai as follows, from the largest family down to the language itself.

  1. Japonic
  2. Ryukyuan
  3. Northern Ryukyuan
  4. Amami
  5. Kikai

Related languages

Other languages in the Amami group:

More about Kikai

Codes: ISO 639-3 kzg, Glottolog kika1239. Glottolog macroarea: Eurasia.

Questions about Kikai

Where is Kikai spoken?

Kikai is spoken in Japan. On the map it is shown as a single point, because no open area map covers it.

How many people speak Kikai?

Wikidata gives about 13,000 first-language speakers (ethnologue.com, 2000). Speaker numbers are approximate and differ between sources: counting who is a speaker, and whether to include second-language speakers, is not settled.

Which language family is Kikai in?

Glottolog places Kikai in the Japonic family, in the branch Ryukyuan, Northern Ryukyuan and Amami.

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