The Okinawan language shares about 70% of its lexicon with Standard Japanese, resulting in loaning of Okinawan words into Japanese speech.[4] There are a number of aspects of Okinawan Japanese that are borrowed from Standard Japanese, but have different uses or meanings. For example, a number of verb inflections and words indicating aspect and mood are the same in Standard Japanese and Okinawan Japanese, but have different uses in both. Hazu means "due, scheduled, or supposed to occur", which indicates a high degree of probability in Standard Japanese. Yet in Okinawan Japanese it indicates a much lower degree of probability, more like "probably" or "may occur". In Standard Japanese, the auxiliaries mashou, you, and ou are combined with the particle ne after a verb and used to make a suggestion. An example is ikimashou ne (Let's go). In Okinawan Japanese, this would express a speaker's will. It would mean "I will go" instead.
Particles and demonstratives are another aspect of Okinawan Japanese grammar that differ from Japanese. The particle kara which means "from" or "since" in Japanese, means "as" or "because" in Okinawan Japanese. So, kara is used in Okinawan Japanese where wo or de is used in Japanese.
Some words have different meanings in Standard Japanese. For example, aruku means "go around" or "work" in Okinawan Japanese, but means "walk" in Standard. Korosu means "hit" in Okinawan Japanese and "kill" in Standard.
Many Okinawan youth use words borrowed from Japanese slang, such as mecchaa (very) and dasadasa (country bumpkin).