“Words That Open Your Heart”—Overcoming Social Barriers to Heritage Language Reclamation in Ishigaki City

Ishigaki Yaeyaman, a heavily minoritized Southern Ryukyuan language, is not language of commerce, education, media, or government validated by the socioeconomic center. Nevertheless, it holds certain value for group people in City that intangible and deeply personal. In keeping with goal this special issue—to step out established dichotomies impede vision practice learning—this work sheds light on ideologies practices new speakers who traverse ‘third space’ their use between public-and-private, polite-and-rude, spoken-and-written, Japanese-and-Ryukyuan. It builds author’s findings, including field observations made during doctoral research at University Ryukyus. A participatory action methodology employed, drawing upon qualitative data from semi-structured personal interviews in-person observation Master–Apprentice learning sessions within local grassroots initiative begun December 2019. The analysis suggests need to break away dictating environment situations which may interact traditional among themselves. This recommended take form training context encourages transformation attitudes awareness, creating ‘safe dialogic, collaborative, transdisciplinary.