As for the Taipei dot, notice how Japanese land is drawn very detailed, and the rest is rather half-assed. I’m guessing the Taipei dot is just half-assed because it’s not meant to be such a detailed map of anything but Okinawa really.

Look closely and you’ll notice Tsushima is drawn in great detail like the rest of Japan. Someone probably just used a large select lasso, selected Japanese territory first, colored it, and then half-assed the rest and in this half-assing mistakenly got Tsushima as well.

someone highlighted tsushima with a red circle, i wonder red means something in the legion? and the dot is just a very small circle?

1st, it is theory, not conclusive.

2nd, there have been different claims.

this is from the same entry of wiki
—
The Okinawan language is only 71% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese[citation needed]. Even the southernmost Japanese dialect (Kagoshima dialect) is only 72% lexically similar to the northernmost Ryukyuan language (Amami). The Kagoshima dialect of Japanese, however, is 80% lexically similar to Tokyo Japanese. Other Ryukyuan languages such as Miyako, Yaeyama, and Yonaguni are even further from Tokyo Japanese.

Since the beginning of World War II, most Mainland Japanese, and even many Ryukyuans, have regarded the Ryukyuan languages as a dialect or group of dialects of Japanese. Experts, however, regard them as separate languages.
—

This is another wiki entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austronesian_languages

“It has also been proposed that Japanese may be a distant relative of the Austronesian language family. The evidence for this is slight, and many linguists think it is more likely that Japanese was instead influenced by Austronesian languages, perhaps by an Austronesian substratum. Those who propose this scenario suggest that the Austronesian family once covered the islands to the north of Formosa (western Japanese areas such as the Ryukyu Islands and Kyushu) as well as to the south.”

—

Genetically, you are right that the spectrum is continuous and ryukyu mix with all its neighbors. But if you are willing to go as far as Ainu, here is some of the genetic studies, which show what Ainu, Rykyu have in common — in fact, also with Melanesian, aborigine Taiwanese, Korean, Han Chinese, etc. That is probably the genetic similarities you talk about. I would be surprice if you find a common gene between Ainu and Ryukyo and mainland japanese, that isn’t shared by also the Korean and Chinese.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/AJHG/journal/issues/v64n1/980634/980634.tb2.html?erFrom=6429271143681448791Guest

Genetically, the Okinawan people are Japanese as well. They’re a the closest people to the Ã�§Ã�¸â��žÃ�¦â��â��â��¡Ã�¤Ã�ºÃ�º (Jomon-jin) which are the prehistoric Japanese of all the modern Japanese families. (However something that would counter that, or make it appear to be just a coincidence is the thought that people came to Okinawa on a giant land bridge from China — The Okinawan islands are not volcanic, did not appear from an earthquake, but are in fact nothing but coral so it’s possible that there was once more coral that went all the way to the Chinese mainland.) They are part of the Old-Mongoloid (as are the Japanese) family, have similar genetics to the various types of Japanese including the Ainu. They also have similarities with South-Eastern Chinese and Koreans which can partially be attributed to the trading done with China, Korea and Japan since as long as boats made it possible.

Okinawan people are closer to the aborignies of Taiwan and Philippinos than Japanese, genetically and linguistically.

u r probably right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ryukyuan_language

2. as some of us probably know, okinawa is only annexed by japan fairly recently (i.e. shortly after Meiji Restoration). Okinawan people are closer to the aborignies of Taiwan and Philippinos than Japanese, genetically and linguistically. So it cannot rule out someone intentionally or subconsciuosly did that, even though there is not much talk about independence (being part of Japan makes Okinawa wealthier than, say Guam)

e.g this post talks about the eccentric and daft non-main-stream(?) korean paper called Jang Ang.

Sankei is as barny as Jang Ang over territory, and that enhance such image for Japan as well. Similarly, we can find equivalents in China and many otherr countries. What I try to say is, this does not change my image of that country. They are isolated incidence and worth a laugh for the readers, and that only.

most newspapers are barny. all blogs are barny as well.