Okinawa is the largest island in the Ryukyu chain of islands.
In older times, the Ryukyu kingdom referred to the islands governed over by the Ryukyu royal family, who were based in Shuri castle, Okinawa.
There are two kanji used to form the word Ryukyu.
The top kanji, which is pronounced ‘ryu’, is made up of three elements. There is one on the left, which looks like a capital letter ‘I’, and two on the right, one on top of the other.
The left hand element, is the word for XXXXX,
The top right hand element is the word for XXXXX which can be interpreted as “a formal study”, or a “set of rules”.
The bottom right hand element is the word for XXXXX which means “flow”, like a river.
Together they might be interpreted as a “well structured flow, led by the king”, or a society led by a royal leader.
The bottom kanji is made up of two elements.
The left hand element is the same as the left hand in Ryu – referring to the king or royalty.
The right hand element refers to water.
Together, this kanji means “pearls”
In Chinese, these kanji mean “string of pearls” which refers to the way the islands of the Ryukyu chain are laid out in the water – on a map, they look like a string of pearls laid in the ocean
