Spoken on a long archipelago of small islands south of the main islands of Japan, Okinawan (family) is a language family comprising two to eleven languages (depending on who you ask).
In the post “Language revitalization and liberation,” Ingrid Piller describes how language has been used in Okinawa as a political statement, and how a switch occurred from Okinawan to Japanese with the occupation of the US army after World War II.
For more information about Okinawa, see the International Association of Ryûkyûan/Okinawan Studies (IAROS).
Living Languages 