Shin'ichirō Tawata (, Tawata Shin'ichirō, 1947 – 15 May 2026) was a Japanese linguist who specialised in Japanese linguistics and historical linguistics. He was a professor emeritus at Hiroshima University.
Life and career Tawata was born in 1947 in Okinawa Prefecture, and raised in Ginowan. He graduated from the Faculty of Humanities at Shizuoka University in 1970. He then entered Tokyo Metropolitan University, where he completed his master's program in Humanities in 1972 and advanced to the doctoral program. In 1973, he studied abroad at the Korean Language Institute of Yonsei University in South Korea. He withdrew from the doctoral program at Tokyo Metropolitan University in 1978 after completing the required course credits. In 1995, he obtained a PhD (Academic) with his dissertation, Foreign Sources-Based Historical Study on the Phonetics and Phonology of the Okinawan Language.
He worked as a lecturer at the Japanese Language School for Foreign Students attached to the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. In 1985, he became an associate professor in the Faculty of Education at Hiroshima University, and was promoted to full professor in 1990, serving within the International Student Center and the Graduate School of Education. He retired and was granted the title of professor emeritus in 2012.Biography and Works of Prof. Shin'ichirō Tawata, Farewell Words. Hiroshima University Journal of Japanese Language Education, (22), 75–81, 2012.
Throughout his career, Tawata received several major accolades for his dialectological research. In 1984, he won the Kinjō Chōei Award from the Okinawa Cultural Association for his historical studies on Ryukyuan phonology. In 1994, he was awarded the Okinawa Study Encouragement Prize by the Okinawa Association for his research on historical Korean records related to Okinawa. In 2021, he received the prestigious Shinmura Izuru Prize for his monograph, Historical Study on the Morphological Changes of Okinawan Verbs.
Tawata died from pancreatic cancer on 15 May 2026, at the age of 78.
Selected publications A Study of the "Ryūkyū Luzon Hyōkaeroku": Customs and Language of Ryukyu and Luzon Two Hundred Years Ago (), Musashino Shoin, 1994. A Historical Study of the Phonetics and Phonology of the Okinawan Language Centered on Foreign Materials (), Musashino Shoin, 1997. A Study of Chinese Character Materials in the Okinawan Language (), Keisuishe, 1998. A Historical Study of Okinawan Phonology (), Keisuisha, 2010. Thinking About Changes in the Okinawan Language Through Toponyms: For Example, How "Zerikaku" (Jichaku) Became "Jicchaku" (), Keisuisha, 2012. A Historical Study on the Morphological Changes of Okinawan Verbs (), Musashino Shoin, 2019.
Co-authored & Edited Departure for Japanese (), Kindai Bungeisha, 1993. System and Structure of Language (), Lecture Series on Japanese Language Education Vol. 6, 3A Network, 2006.
See also Ryukyuan languages Okinawan language
References
External links KAKEN database profile