NAHA, Okinawa Pref. -- For goodbyes, Okinawans no longer say "anayagabu sabira" -- Ryukyuan for "I pray for your happiness." They sing it.

Maki Tsuwayama, 7, follows her teacher's instructions during her "sanshin" music lessons in Tomigusuku, Okinawa.

As the sky darkens on Taketomi Island, the tones of a "sanshin," a traditional three-stringed instrument, resonate. From somewhere in the rice fields, a man's voice rises and sings the words to the melody. Soon, a woman's voice joins the refrain.

The song came about to raise people's spirits under the harsh rule of the Shimazu clan of the Satsuma domain (today's Kagoshima Prefecture) on Taketomi Island in the 19th century, when an 83 percent tax on produce was exacted.

While the original 900 dialects of the Okinawa islands are gradually fading, songs are one opportunity for regional tongues of the past to be remembered.

"The range of dialects is becoming increasingly narrow," said Yukio Uemura of the University of Okinawa and one of the founders of the Okinawa Institute of Language. "People use dialects only when they drink or sing. They use standard Japanese for official use and business."

In the case of Ryukyuan, the standard dialect in Okinawa used during the Ryukyu kingdom, only a diluted version remains.

Like taco rice and "goya" (bitter melon) burgers at Jeff's drive-in, Okinawan dialects have absorbed mainland Japanese, English and words from other parts of Asia to the point that a "pure dialect" is no longer spoken.

Some say the U.S. forces stationed in Okinawa influenced the language by mixing in English words. The trend was also hastened by the advent of the nuclear family as the young could no longer hear the dialects of the elders around them.

Add to this the erosive effects of radio, television and the Education Ministry's education curricula, and you get a strata of "Okinawan dialects" for each generation. All the while, Okinawa's version of standard Japanese gradually closes in on that of the mainland.

An increasing number of people say they can't speak the dialect anymore, and some have begun taking classes to get in touch with their heritage.

"My parents forbade me from speaking in dialect when I was growing up," Toyohama, 26, said. "Now I feel like I'm missing out."

Speaking the dialect would help her bridge generation gaps, she said: "I see people speak in dialect and it's like they're family."

Fumiko Ikari, 69, a news reader who does her programs in Ryukyuan for the radio station Radio Okinawa, said she refuses to believe that it is dying out.

"So much flavor is lost, life becomes so bland, when you lose dialects," said Ikari, who also teaches the dialect at schools and community centers. "It's such a warm and rich dialect."

Preserving Ryukyuan also has academic value, say linguists who believe the dialect is essential to further understand the development of the Japanese language.

"It is the only sister dialect to the group of dialects spoken on the mainland," said Uemura of the University of Okinawa.

To the unpracticed ear, Okinawa's dialects sound completely different from mainland Japanese, but although different vowel and consonant sounds are used, comparisons show that both share many of the basic words.

"We can see how the Japanese language developed in different areas, isolated from the mainland. It's like having our very own Galapagos (for Japanese linguistics)," Uemura says.

Attempts are under way to try to save recordings or manuscripts to preserve Okinawan dialects that have been used throughout history.

Universities approach the problem by putting recordings of senior citizens on the Internet.

Today's emphasis on promoting native tongues is in stark contrast to previous eras in which using them was actually a punishable offense.

Meiji government policies in the late 19th and early 20th century sought to eradicate the Ryukyuan dialect. In the education system, especially, the government took a hardline approach. Students caught speaking the Okinawan dialects were made to wear a "dialect tag" around their necks.

The only way to redeem oneself was by catching another student or teacher speaking the Okinawan dialect and passing on the tag.

Activists say past efforts to homogenize Japanese culture crippled the Ryukyu dialect and now they believe the central government has the obligation to help preserve it.

But Uemura said evolution is to blame.

"Times change, trends change," he said. "There are always going to be outside forces on language."

Although with each passing generation fewer people are using a pure Okinawa dialect, it at least seems to have a direction; a number of Okinawans want to speak their language.

And that differentiates it from another of Japan's endangered dialects, Ainu, in that some Ainu want to abandon speaking their language to alleviate the discrimination they face.

In Okinawa, the issue is more about quality of life. "People think it would be more fun if they could speak the dialect," he said. Although the current education system and the pressure of entrance exams prevent schools from teaching it, many students value the language their ancestors have bequeathed to them, he said.

"It's not endangered, and it's not that they don't want to speak it. Times are changing, it's evolving," Uemura said. "People in Okinawa are free to speak what they want. There's no need to be sentimental."

Linguists, especially, praise the Ryukyu dialect's ability to incorporate characteristics from outside languages.

Some say the tendency to incorporate outside culture with its own was developed during Okinawa's years of openness and trade, and its location at the center of cultural currents from Japan, China and Polynesia.

In songs, too, "champuru" -- or mixing -- takes place.

"The songs that sell are the ones that incorporate Western and mainland trends to make a pop version of the 'shimauta' (Okinawan traditional folk songs)," said Sadao China, the producer of the group Nenes, which is known for its popular arrangements of folk songs.

"But then again, these songs are trends and die out," China said. "There is no trend with shimauta."

Then there are Okinawa's classics, the themes and melodies of which are 100 years old and passed on from generation to generation.

But will these endure much longer?

Not on the mainland, where audiences have come to expect Okinawan songs in mainland dialect.

But some believe the Ryukyuan dialect may be easier to accept abroad in Asia.

Kyoko Gushiken, a folk singer popular in Okinawa, is one example.

Her sound, thought "too strident and harsh" according to one reviewer for mainland listeners, has been embraced by producers at Pacific Moon Records, now seeking to market her CDs in Asia.

The melodies of Gushiken include love songs that she heard growing up on the island of Kume, close to the main island.

Gushiken, who also teaches sanshin and singing in Tomigusuku, said she was compelled to sing in her youth "because life was hard.'

The eldest daughter of seven children, Gushiken said that while growing up, she saw things that her siblings didn't.

"One by one, my mother's kimonos disappeared from inside a wooden box where she put her treasured things," she said. "They were being used for diapers. They were that poor."

At the end of a long day of working in the fields, her father -- who valued his sanshin more than anything -- would sing with his daughter on his lap and a bowl of "awamori" rice liquor next to him.

"It's what I heard as I grew up," Gushiken said. "To me, these melodies are what Okinawa is about."

One of her pupils, Maki Tsuwayama, 7, who was visiting from Yokohama and was learning to play sanshin, agrees.

Maki's parents are Okinawan and their business takes them to Naha for about three months every year.

Asked why she started her lessons, she said, "Because I want to remember Okinawa."