Ishigaki Island of the Yaeyama Islands maintains the traditional dichotomy of Okinawa (ʔukïnaː) and Yaeyama (jaima), and therefore feel a clear sense of otherness to Okinawa. The same holds true for the Miyako Islands. Nevertheless, Okinawa Prefecture has been there for generations, and young people in the Yaeyamas is developing the notion that they belong to Okinawa although it remains completely natural to say "go to Okinawa" when they fly from Ishigaki to Naha. Ryūkyū The un-Ryukyuan nature of Ryūkyū Ryūkyū is a rare word, if any, in Ryukyuan languages. In fact, it is not uncommon that a dictionary or glossary of a Ryukyuan language has no entry for Ryūkyū. Even for the male samurai register of Shuri Okinawan, Shimabukuro Seibin (1890–1970) explained the word ruucuu (the Shuri speech form) in the Okinawa-go Jiten (1963) as follows: Ironically, Ryūkyū sounds very un-Ryukyuan. The prohibition of word-initial /r/ is an areal feature that is not limited to Ryukyuan but to Altaic languages, which cover wide areas of Eurasia. In fact, Ryūkyū is an exonym recorded by the Chinese. The fact that the Chinese characters assigned to Liuqiu have changed over time (流求, 留仇, 流虬, 瑠求, 琉球, etc.) indicates that it was borrowed in turn from some non-Chinese language. Because Ryukyuan is unlikely to be the donor of the un-Ryukyuan word, most scholars seek its etymological root in Austronesian languages of Taiwan. It was only an accident of history that Ryūkyū came to point to Okinawa Island. Chinese Liuqiu was first attested in the Book of Sui (636), which stated that Sui China had sent expeditions to what it called Liuqiu (流求) three times in 607 and 608. The fragmentary and apparently inconsistent description in the Book of Sui is the source of a never-ending scholarly debate over what was referred to by Liuqiu: Taiwan, Okinawa Island or both. Chinese records written during the Mongol Yuan dynasty suggested that Liuqiu was Taiwan. For example, the Wenxian Tongkao (1317) stated that Liuqiu was located to the east of Quanzhou, a port city facing the Taiwan Strait, and was visible from the Penghu Islands in the middle of the strait. Similarly, the History of Yuan (1369), which was compiled by the succeeding Ming dynasty, reinforces the identification of Liuqiu as Taiwan. According to the book, the Mongol Empire tried in vain to subjugate what it called Liuqiu (瑠求) twice in 1292 and 1297. The