After becoming entranced by Okinawan folk singer Rimi Natsukawa’s version of Shima Uta, I was browsing more of her performances on YouTube and found the equally enchanting Asadoya Yunta.

The song is sung in the Okinawan dialect of Japanese, making some of the words and phrases difficult for me to understand. I tried Google for an English translation of the lyrics but netted no results. Still curious about the meaning, I decided to translate it myself. This time I attempted a Google search for a version of the lyrics translated from the Okinawan dialect into plain Japanese, and instead found a curious mystery.

There appear to be at least two versions of Asadoya Yunta floating around the internet and performed by singers in Japan. The first is the version sung by Rimi Natsukawa, and we shall begin with that.

Asadoya Yunta (Rimi Natsukawa)

This version of the song seems fairly modern. It is sung in a lighter Okinawan dialect. The vocabulary, accent, and grammar differ from everyday Japanese, but the song is reasonably understandable.

Lyrics:

*(Saa, yui yui) is simply a melodic phrase which is said to have no meaning, much like singing “lalala” in English.

**Matahaari nu tsindara kanushamayo is a very mysterious phrase. It seemed that a lot of natives of Okinawa believed these words to be from a dialect of Taketomi Island where the song was written. Those who asked their aging Okinawan parents and grandparents were told it meant something like “Such a lovely girl.” However, the fellow at the website above wrote that the sentence was actually in Malay, a language spoken in Indonesia. Unsure if I could take his claims for granted, I looked it up myself. You can see the truth at the following links.

MATAHARI – (sun)
MU – (your)
CINTARA – (to love)
KAMI – (we)
SAMA-YO (equally)

The phrase can be interpreted as “Your sun loves us equally.” How interesting to find the translation of 300-year-old lyrics so easily. A look at Wikipedia lists Austronesia as a trading partner in Okinawa‘s history, a group of peoples and languages in which Malay is included, which may explain the way the language found its way into the song.

Asadoya Yunta (Traditional)

The language used in this version is far more antiquated and difficult to understand. The only video I could find to match with the following lyrics is here, where the computer voice sings a verse from Rimi Natsukawa’s version followed by the equivalent verse in the (presumably) more traditional version below.

Original lyrics & plain Japanese translation found at this page.

*(Saa, yui yui) is simply a melodic phrase which is said to have no meaning, much like singing “lalala” in English.

**Matahaari nu tsindara kanushamayo is a very mysterious phrase. It seemed that a lot of natives of Okinawa believed these words to be from a dialect of Taketomi Island where the song was written. Those who asked their aging Okinawan parents and grandparents were told it meant something like “Such a lovely girl.” However, the fellow at the website above wrote that the sentence was actually in Malay, a language spoken in Indonesia. Unsure if I could take his claims for granted, I looked it up myself. You can see the truth at the following links.

MATAHARI – (sun)
MU – (your)
CINTARA – (to love)
KAMI – (we)
SAMA-YO (equally)

The phrase can be interpreted as “Your sun loves us equally.” How interesting to find the translation of 300-year-old lyrics so easily. A look at Wikipedia lists Austronesia as a trading partner in Okinawa‘s history, a group of peoples and languages in which Malay is included, which may explain the way the language found its way into the song.