Articles
Written documents of the Ryukyu Kingdom of the sixteenth–nineteenth centuries
Evgeny Pustovoit
Vostok/Oriens '2017, №3
The geographical position of the island kingdom of Ryukyu has influenced its historical and cultural development directly during five hundred years. This situation reflected by the written tradition of the Ryukyus which absorbed the best achievements of linguistic, literature, and scholarship of China and Japan. This circumstance complicates the study of Ryukyuan written monuments. The author makes an attempt to present basic types of historical sources of the Ryukyu Kingdom from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, taking into account their authorships, functions and contents.
Keywords: Ryukyu, written sources, Chuzan, jireisho, kujisho, kimocho, Sai On, Sai Taku
Pages: С. 48–60
