Ainu language

Shibatani (1990:9) and Piłsudski (1998:2) speak of "Ainu languages" when comparing the varieties of Hokkaidō and Sakhalin. However, Vovin (1993) speaks only of "dialects". Refsing (1986) says Hokkaidō and Sakhalin Ainu were not mutually intelligible. Hattori (1964) considered Ainu data from 19 regions of Hokkaido and Sakhalin and found the primary division to lie between the two islands.

• Data on Kuril Ainu is scarce, but it is thought to have been as divergent as Sakhalin and Hokkaidō.
• In Sakhalin Ainu, an eastern coastal dialect of Taraika (near modern Gastello (Poronaysk)) was quite divergent from the other localities. The Raychishka dialect, on the western coast near modern Uglegorsk, is the best documented and has a dedicated grammatical description. Take Asai, the last speaker of Sakhalin Ainu, died in 1994.[3] The Sakhalin Ainu dialects had long vowels and a final -h phoneme, which they pronounced as /x/.
• Hokkaidō Ainu clustered into several dialects with substantial differences between them: the 'neck' of the island (Oshima County, data from Oshamambe and Yakumo); the "Classical" Ainu of central Hokkaidō around Sapporo and the southern coast (Iburi and Hidaka counties, data from Horobetsu, Biratori, Nukkibetsu and Niikappu; historical records from Ishikari County and Sapporo show that these were similar); Samani (on the southeastern cape in Hidaka, but perhaps closest to the northeastern dialect); the northeast (data from Obihiro, Kushiro and Bihoro); the north-central dialect (Kamikawa County, data from Asahikawa and Nayoro) and Sōya (on the northwestern cape), which was closest of all Hokkaidō varieties to Sakhalin Ainu. Most texts and grammatical descriptions we have of Ainu cover the Central Hokkaidō dialect.

Scanty data from Western voyages at the turn of the 19th–20th century (Tamura 2000) suggest there was also great diversity in northern Sakhalin, which was not sampled by Hattori.

Vovin (1993) splits Ainu "dialects" as follows (Vovin 1993:157):

• Proto-Ainu
  • Proto-Hokkaido–Kuril
    • Hokkaido dialects
    • Kuril dialects
  • Proto-Sakhalin
    • Sakhalin dialects

Ainu syllables are CV(C), that is, they have an obligatory syllable onset and an optional syllable coda. There are few consonant clusters.

Typologically, Ainu is similar in word order (and some aspects of phonology) to Japanese.

Ainu has a canonical word order of SOV,[4] and it uses postpositions rather than prepositions. Nouns can cluster to modify one another; the head comes at the end. Verbs, which are inherently either transitive or intransitive, accept various derivational affixes. Ainu does not have grammatical gender. Plurals are indicated by a suffix.[4]

Classical Ainu, the language of the yukar, is polysynthetic, with incorporation of nouns and adverbs; this is greatly reduced in the modern colloquial language.

Applicatives may be used in Ainu to place nouns in the dative, instrumental, comitative, locative, allative, or ablative roles. Besides freestanding nouns, these roles may be assigned to incorporated nouns, and such use of applicatives is in fact mandatory for incorporating oblique nouns. Like incorporation, applicatives have grown less common in the modern language.

Ainu has a closed class of plural verbs, and some of these are suppletive.

The Ainu language is written in a modified version of the Japanese katakana syllabary. There is also a Latin-based alphabet in use. The Ainu Times publishes in both. In the Latin orthography, /ts/ is spelled c and /j/ is spelled y; the glottal stop, [ʔ], which only occurs initially before accented vowels, is not written. Other phonemes use the same character as the IPA transcription given above. An equals sign (=) is used to mark morpheme boundaries, such as after a prefix. Its pitch accent is denoted by acute accent in Latin script (e.g., á). This is usually not denoted in katakana.

Rev. John Batchelor was an English missionary who lived among the Ainu, studied them and published many works on the Ainu language.[5][6] Batchelor wrote extensively, both works about the Ainu language and works in Ainu itself. He was the first to write in Ainu and use a writing system for it.[7] Batchelor's translations of various books of the Bible were published from 1887, and his New Testament translation was published in Yokohama in 1897 by a joint committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the American Bible Society, and the National Bible Society of Scotland. Other books written in Ainu include dictionaries, a grammar, and books on Ainu culture and language.[8]

The Ainu have a rich oral tradition of hero-sagas called yukar, which retain a number of grammatical and lexical archaisms. Yukar was memorized and told at get-togethers and ceremonies that often lasted hours or even days. The Ainu also have another form of narrative often used called "Uepeker", which was used in the same contexts.

It is often reported that Ainu was the language of the indigenous Emishi people of the northern part of the main Japanese island of Honshu.[10] The main evidence for this is the presence of placenames that appear to be of Ainu origin in both locations. For example, the -betsu common to many northern Japanese place names is known to derive from the Ainu word pet "river" in Hokkaidō, and the same is suspected of similar names ending in -be in northern Honshū and Chūbu, such as the Kurobe and Oyabe rivers in Toyama Prefecture (Miller 1967:239, Shibatani 1990:3, Vovien 2008). Other place names in Kantō and Chūbu, such as Mount Ashigara (Kanagawa–Shizuoka), Musashi (modern Tokyo), Keta Shrine (Toyama), and the Noto Peninsula, have no explanation in Japanese, but do in Ainu. The traditional Matagi hunters of the mountain forests of Tōhoku retain Ainu words in their hunting vocabulary.[11][12]

Under pressure from the Japanese conquest, some Emishi migrated north to Tohoku and Hokkaido. The historical Ainu of (southern) Hokkaido appear to be a fusion of this culture, known archeologically as Satsumon, and the very different Nivkh- and Itelmen-like Okhotsk culture of (northern) Hokkaido, with Satsumon being dominant.[13] The Ainu of Sakhalin and the Kurils appear to have been a relatively recent expansion from Hokkaido, displacing the indigenous Okhotsk culture (in the case of Sakhalin, Ainu oral history records their displacement of an indigenous people they called the Tonchi who, based on toponymic evidence, were evidently the Nivkh),[14] and indeed a mixed Kamchadal–Kuril Ainu population is attested from southern Kamchatka.

Many of the speakers of Ainu lost the language with the advent of Japanese colonization. During a time when food production methods were changing across Japan, there was less reason to trade with the Ainu, who mainly fished and foraged the land. Japan was becoming more industrialized and globalization created a threat to Japanese land. The Japanese government, in an attempt to unify their country to keep out invasion, created policy for the assimilation of the Ainu diversity, culture, and subsistence.[15][16][17] The assimilation included exploitation of land, commodification of culture, and placing Ainu children in schools where they only learned Japanese.[15][16][17]

More recently, the Japanese government has acknowledged the Ainu people as an indigenous population. As of 1997 they were given indigenous rights under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to their culture, heritage, and language.[15][16][18]

The Ainu Cultural Promotion Act in 1997 appointed the Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC).[18] This foundation is tasked with language education, where they promote Ainu language learning through training instructors, advanced language classes, and creation and development of language materials.[18]

In general, Ainu people are hard to find because they tend to hide their identity as Ainu, especially in the young generation. Two thirds of Ainu youth do not know that they are Ainu.[19] In addition, because of Ainu students being strongly discouraged from speaking their language at school,[20] it has been challenging for the Ainu language to be revitalized.

Despite this, there is an active movement to revitalize the language, mainly in Hokkaido but also elsewhere such as Kanto.[21] Ainu oral literature has been documented both in hopes of safeguarding it for future generations, as well as using it as a teaching tool for language learners.[22] Beginning in 1987, the Ainu Association of Hokkaido with approximately 500 members[21] began hosting 14 Ainu language classes, Ainu language instructors training courses and Family Ainu Learning Initiative[19] and have released instructional materials on the language, including a textbook.[22] Also, Wajin linguists teach Ainu and train students to become Ainu instructor in university.[19] In spite of these efforts, as of 2011 the Ainu language is not yet taught as a subject in any secondary school in Japan.[21]

Due to the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act of 1997, Ainu dictionaries transformed and became tools for improving communication and preserving records of the Ainu language in order to revitalize the language and promote the culture.[23] As of 2011, there has been an increasing number of second-language learners, especially in Hokkaido, in large part due to the pioneering efforts of the late Ainu folklorist, activist and former Diet member Shigeru Kayano, himself a native speaker, who first opened an Ainu language school in 1987 funded by Ainu Kyokai.[24] The Ainu Association of Hokkaido is the main supporter of Ainu culture in Hokkaido. Ainu language classes have been conducted in some areas in Japan and small numbers of young people are learning Ainu. Efforts have also been made to produce web-accessible materials for conversational Ainu because most documentation of the Ainu language focused on the recording of folktales.[25] The Ainu language has been in media as well; the first Ainu radio program was called FM Pipaushi,[26] which has run since 2001 along with 15-minute radio Ainu language lessons funded by FRPAC,[27] and newspaper The Ainu Times has been established since 1997.[24] In addition, the Ainu language has been seen in public domains such as the outlet shopping complex's name, "Rera", which means "wind" in the Minami Chitose area and the name "Pewre" meaning "young" at a shopping centre in the Chitose area. There is also a basketball team in Sapporo named "Pera Kamuy" which means "God of Wind".[21] The well-known Japanese fashion magazine's name Non-no is also in the Ainu language, which means "flower".

Another Ainu language revitalization program is Urespa, a university program to educate high-level persons on the language of the Ainu. The effort is a collaborative and cooperative program for individuals wishing to learn about Ainu languages.[28] This includes performances which focus on the Ainu and their language, instead of using the dominant Japanese language.[28]

Another form of Ainu language revitalization is an annual national competition, which is Ainu language-themed. People of many differing demographics are often encouraged to take part in the contest. Since 2017, the popularity of the contest has increased.[29]

On 15 February 2019, Japan approved a bill to recognize the Ainu language for the first time.[30][31]

No genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated, despite numerous attempts. Thus, it is a language isolate. Ainu is sometimes grouped with the Paleosiberian languages, but this is only a geographic blanket term for several unrelated language families that were present in Siberia before the advances of Turkic and Tungusic languages there. The most frequent proposals for relatives of Ainu are given below.

Until the 20th century, Ainu language was also spoken throughout the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and by small numbers of people in the Kuril Islands. Only the Hokkaido variant survives, in three main dialects,[21] the last speaker of Sakhalin Ainu having died in 1994. Hokkaido Ainu is moribund, though attempts are being made to revive it. The Japanese government made a decision to recognize Ainu as indigenous in June 2008.[21] As of 2017, the Japanese government is constructing a facility dedicated to preserving Ainu culture, including the language.[43]

According to UNESCO, Ainu is an endangered language.[21] As of 2016, Ethnologue lists Ainu as class 8b: "nearly extinct".[44] It has been endangered since before the 1960s. As of 2012 there are approximately 30,000 Ainu people in Japan,[19] though that number is uncertain because not all ethnic Ainu speakers report themselves as such.[24] As of 2011, there are only 15 speakers remaining, along with 304 people understanding the Ainu language to some extent.[24]

• List of Proto-Ainu reconstructions (Wiktionary)
• Ainu music
• Kannari Matsu
• Kyōsuke Kindaichi
• Category:Ainu language (Wiktionary)
• Bibliography of the Ainu

• Bugaeva, Anna (2010). "Internet applications for endangered languages: A talking dictionary of Ainu". Waseda Institute for Advanced Study Research Bulletin. 3: 73–81.
• Hattori, Shirō, ed. (1964). Bunrui Ainugo hōgen jiten [An Ainu dialect dictionary with Ainu, Japanese, and English indexes]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
• Miller, Roy Andrew (1967). The Japanese Language. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle.
• Refsing, Kirsten (1986). The Ainu Language: The Morphology and Syntax of the Shizunai Dialect. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. ISBN 978-87-7288-020-4.
• Refsing, Kirsten (1996). Early European Writings on the Ainu Language. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-7007-0400-2.
• Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-36918-3.
• Tamura, Suzuko (2000). The Ainu Language. Tokyo: Sanseido. ISBN 978-4-385-35976-2.
• Vovin, Alexander (2008). "Man'yōshū to Fudoki ni Mirareru Fushigina Kotoba to Jōdai Nihon Retto ni Okeru Ainugo no Bunpu" [Strange Words in the Man'yoshū and the Fudoki and the Distribution of the Ainu Language in the Japanese Islands in Prehistory] (PDF). Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Sentā. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-11. Retrieved 2011-01-17. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

• John Batchelor (1905). An Ainu–English–Japanese Dictionary, including A Grammar of the Ainu Language (2, reprint ed.). Tokyo: Methodist Publishing House; London, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co. p. 525. Retrieved March 1, 2012. (Digitized by the University of Michigan December 8, 2006)
• Basil Hall Chamberlain; John Batchelor (1887). Ainu grammar. Tokyo: Imperial University. p. 174. Retrieved March 1, 2012. (Digitized by Harvard University November 30, 2007)
• John Batchelor (1897). 聖書・新約: アイヌ. Yokohama Bunsha. p. 706. Retrieved March 1, 2012. (Harvard University) (Digitized October 8, 2008)
• John Batchelor (1896). 聖書・新約: アイヌ. Yokohama Bunsha. p. 313. Retrieved March 1, 2012. (Harvard University) (Digitized October 8, 2008 )
• British and Foreign Bible Society (1891). St Mark, St Luke and St John in Ainu. London: British and Foreign Bible Society. p. 348. Retrieved March 1, 2012. (Harvard University) (Digitized June 9, 2008)
• Kyōsuke Kindaichi (1936). アイヌ語法概說. 岩波書店. p. 230. Retrieved March 1, 2012. (Compiled by Mashiho Chiri) (University of Michigan) (Digitized August 15, 2006)
• Miyake, Marc. 2010. Is the itak an isolate?

Ainu language test of Wikipedia at Wikimedia Incubator

Wikivoyage has a travel guide for Ainu phrasebook.

• Literature and materials for learning Ainu
• The Book of Common Prayer in Ainu, translated by John Batchelor, digitized by Richard Mammana and Charles Wohlers
• Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Ainu in Samani, Hokkaido
• A Grammar of the Ainu Language by John Batchelor
• An Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary, including A Grammar of the Ainu Language by John Batchelor
• "The 'Greater Austric' hypothesis" by John Bengtson (undated)
• Ainu for Beginners by Kane Kumagai, translated by Yongdeok Cho
• (in Japanese) Radio lessons on Ainu language presented by Sapporo TV
• (in Japanese) Ainu word list (Archived 2009-10-24)
• A talking dictionary of Ainu: a new version of Kanazawa's Ainu conversational dictionary, with recordings of Mrs. Setsu Kurokawa
• Bronisław Piłsudski (1998). Alfred F. Majewicz (ed.). The Aborigines of Sakhalin. The Collected Works of Bronisław Piłsudski. I. Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter. p. 792. ISBN 978-3-11-010928-3.
• Hattori, Shirō, ed. (1964). Bunrui Ainugo hōgen jiten [An Ainu dialect dictionary with Ainu, Japanese, and English indexes]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.
• Miller, Roy Andrew (1967). The Japanese Language. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle.
• Murasaki, Kyōko (1977). Karafuto Ainugo: Sakhalin Rayciska Ainu Dialect—Texts and Glossary. Tokyo: Kokushokankōkai.
• Murasaki, Kyōko (1978). Karafuto Ainugo: Sakhalin Rayciska Ainu Dialect—Grammar. Tokyo: Kokushokankōkai.
• Refsing, Kirsten (1986). The Ainu Language: The Morphology and Syntax of the Shizunai Dialect. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. ISBN 87-7288-020-1.
• Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36918-5.
• Tamura, Suzuko (2000). The Ainu Language. Tokyo: Sanseido. ISBN 4-385-35976-8.
• Vovin, Alexander (1992). "The origins of the Ainu language" (PDF). The Third International Symposium on Language and Linguistics: 672–686.
• Vovin, Alexander (1993). A Reconstruction of Proto-Ainu. Leiden: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-09905-0.
• Vovin, Alexander (2008). "Man'yōshū to Fudoki ni Mirareru Fushigina Kotoba to Jōdai Nihon Retto ni Okeru Ainugo no Bunpu" [Strange Words in the Man'yoshū and the Fudoki and the Distribution of the Ainu Language in the Japanese Islands in Prehistory] (PDF). Kokusai Nihon Bunka Kenkyū Sentā. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2014-02-11. Retrieved 2011-01-17. Cite journal requires |journal= (help)

Proposed classifications

• Bengtson, John D. (2006). "A multilateral look at Greater Austric". Mother Tongue. 11: 219–258.
• Georg, Stefan; Michalove, Peter A.; Ramer, Alexis Manaster; Sidwell, Paul J. (1999). "Telling general linguists about Altaic". Journal of Linguistics. 35: 65–98. doi:10.1017/s0022226798007312.
• Greenberg, Joseph H. (2000–2002). Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-3812-5.
• Patrie, James (1982). The Genetic Relationship of the Ainu Language. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii. ISBN 978-0-8248-0724-5.
• Shafer, R. (1965). "Studies in Austroasian II". Studia Orientalia. 30 (5).
• Street, John C. (1962). "Review of N. Poppe, Vergleichende Grammatik der altaischen Sprachen, Teil I (1960)". Language. 38 (1): 92–98. doi:10.2307/411195. JSTOR 411195.