Reminder that the Ryukuan Islands (of which Okinawa is the largest) are under double colonization: they were initially colonized by the Japanese in 1879, and now the US actively reinforces that colonization. They have faced many of the classic effects of settler colonialism. Their language (the only extant relative of Japanese) [edit: Ryukyuan is actually a family of 6+ separate languages that exists within the larger Japonic family; Japanese is a separate branch] has been actively repressed and is on the decline. They are a marginalized minority. They are economically exploited by the mainland. And the US reinforces all of this through the very chaotic and violent military presence on the island.
About the language: every island in the Okinawan chain has its own language (ex: Yonaguni-go) and there are several “dialects” on the mainland that are unintelligible to speakers of standard Japanese (ex: Fukui-ben and Tsugaru-ben).
If you define a language as mutually intelligible speech, there are easily over a dozen languages in Japan. Many of them are unfortunately dying, though.
