Is there a "right" or "best" way to write this Okinawan expression for "cheers"?


When I was still in Okinawa I learned how to say "cheers" / "乾杯{かんぱい}".

You can either say just **karii** or you can use the extended version I pefer
**karii sabira**.

My question is how to write it? I have found things saying katakana is best
and others saying hiragana is best, but I'm also not sure the best way to
write the long "i".

  * かりいさびら
  * かりーさびら
  * カリイサビラ
  * カリーサビラ

Then while I was looking up just a bit earlier I was surprised to find at
least one way to write it in Kanji!

  * 嘉例
  * 佳例

This is just the **karii** part, so the other options would be the same for
the **sabira** part.




As far as I know, there's nothing like the Joyo list for Okinawan, so there's
no "right" way in that sense. Ryukyu University is probably the closest thing
to an authority in this area; I'm pretty sure they would write "カリー サビラ" (note
space!). I couldn't find it in their Shuri-Naha dialect dictionary, but they
did have "クヮッチー サビラ":

<http://ryukyu-lang.lib.u-ryukyu.ac.jp/srnh/details.php?ID=SN11854>

My understanding is that they use katakana because their orthography is to be
understood as strictly sound-based; not sure if it's also a political
statement to emphasize the language/dialect distinction.

However, Ryukyu University are not philosopher-kings of the Ryukyus and so the
languages there are written in all kinds of ad-hoc ways. In particular a lot
of people write in hiragana because nowadays those are the "friendly"
characters, the ones kids learn first and the default for non-foreign words.

I don't think it's possible to boil down the preferences of the entire speech
community, but my subjective impression (as an outsider) is that people who
are passionate about the language as part of their cultural heritage, with no
particular connection to linguistics as an academic discipline, do tend to
prefer hiragana.

