Did people living in Ryukyu Islands in ancient China use Chinese or Japanese?

Ryukyu Kingdom has its own characters, but Chinese characters are the official characters.

In the Ming Dynasty, 45 characters such as り, に and き were recorded by Chen Kan. In the section of Yu Yi Fu, Chen Kan marked its Chinese pronunciation, such as "mountain" pronounced as "Maya girl" and "chicken" pronounced as "Tali". In the biography of Zhongshan written by Xu Baoguang, the special envoy of King Shang Jing in Qing Dynasty, it was mentioned that there was a different letter from China in Ryukyu Kingdom-Lu Hua. Ryukyu people use "I Lu Hua" mixed with a few Chinese characters as official documents and issue decrees. Xu Baoguang thinks that Lu Hua may be a "Japanese alphabet" (a pseudonym) or a simplified phonetic symbol of Chinese characters.

During the Ming and Qing Dynasties, Ryukyu Kingdom sent overseas students to imperial academy in Nanjing and Beijing and Ryukyu Pavilion in Fuzhou to learn the language of China. According to the research on the preserved textbooks of Mandarin used by Ryukyu people, the Mandarin learned by Ryukyu people is influenced by Fujian dialect, especially Fuzhou dialect, which is strictly called "Fuzhou Mandarin". Chinese characters have become the official language of Ryukyu Kingdom and are used in diplomatic exchanges with China, North Korea and Viet Nam. The official documents, diplomatic treaties, official history and genealogy of Ryukyu gentry are all written in Chinese. Only Japanese diplomatic documents are used in Hou Wen. Ryukyu literature is written under the pseudonym of Japan. In addition, according to the records of Ryukyu Shinto in Japanese monk's bag, there used to be an "ancient Ryukyu word" for divination in Ryukyu history, with the word * * *17; According to Ryukyu folklore, this word was handed down from the gods. It used to have more than 100 words, but now there are only 17 words left.

Ancient Ryukyu Kingdom Ceremony