This article is about the language spoken on Hokkaido. For the language family, see Ainu languages.
Not to be confused with Äynu language.
Hokkaido Ainu
アイヌ・イタㇰAinu-itak
Multilingual sign in Japanese, Ainu, English, Korean, and Chinese. The Ainu text, in katakana, is second down from the top on the right side of the sign. It reads イヤイライケㇾ (iyairaiker), meaning "thank you".
Pronunciation
[ˈainuiˈtak]
Native to
Japan
Region
Hokkaido
Ethnicity
25,000 (1986) to ca. 200,000 (no date) Ainu people[1]
Native speakers
5+ (2008)[2]
Language family
Ainu
Hokkaido Ainu
Writing system
Katakana (current)
Latin (current)
Language codes
ISO 639-2
ain
ISO 639-3
ain
Glottolog
ainu1240
ELP
Ainu (Japan)
Ainu (Japan)
Ainu is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
[3]
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An Ainu speaker, recorded in Japan
Ainu (アイヌ・イタㇰ, Ainu-itak), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu (Japanese: 北海道アイヌ語), is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate with no academic consensus of origin. It is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger.
Until the 20th century, the Ainu languages – Hokkaido Ainu and the now-extinct Kuril Ainu and Sakhalin Ainu – were spoken throughout Hokkaido, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and by small numbers of people in the Kuril Islands. Due to the colonization policy employed by the Japanese government, the number of Hokkaido Ainu speakers decreased through the 20th century, and it is now moribund. A very low number of elderly people still speak the language fluently, though attempts are being made to revive it.
^Poisson, Barbara Aoki (2002). The Ainu of Japan. Minneapolis: Lerner Publications. ISBN 9780822541769.
Ainu (アイヌ・イタㇰ, Ainu-itak), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu (Japanese: 北海道アイヌ語), is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the...
The Ainulanguages (/ˈaɪnuː/ EYE-noo), sometimes known as Ainuic, are a small language family, often regarded as a language isolate, historically spoken...
the Ainulanguage. This people's most widely known ethnonym, Ainu (Ainu: アィヌ; Japanese: アイヌ; Russian: Айны), means 'human' in the Ainulanguage, particularly...
Ainu is an extinct Ainulanguage, or perhaps several Ainulanguages, that was or were spoken on the island of Sakhalin, now part of Russia. The Ainu of...
East Ainulanguages, a family of languagesAinulanguage of Hokkaido Kuril Ainulanguage, extinct language of the Kuril Islands Sakhalin Ainulanguage, extinct...
Kuril Ainu or Kuril is an extinct and poorly attested Ainulanguage of the Kuril Islands. The main inhabited islands were Kunashir, Iturup and Urup in...
spoken Ryukyuan languages are classified by UNESCO as endangered. In Hokkaidō, there is the Ainulanguage, which is spoken by the Ainu people, who are...
The Ainu in Russia are an Indigenous people of Siberia located in Sakhalin Oblast, Khabarovsk Krai and Kamchatka Krai. The Russian Ainu people (Aine;...
their Ainu identity, Ainu culture is still retained among many groups. The Ainu way of life is called Ainupuri in the Ainulanguage (literally ainu + puri...
variously classified Hachijō language. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu, Austroasiatic, Koreanic...
inclusion of Ainu is not widely accepted by Altaicists. In fact, no convincing genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has...
Examining Language Attitudes in Recent Surveys on Ainu and Saami". Studia Orientalia Electronica. 117: 429–267. Fukazawa, Mika (5 June 2019). "Ainulanguage and...
Ainu cuisine is the cuisine of the ethnic Ainu in Japan and Russia. The cuisine differs markedly from that of the majority Yamato people of Japan. Raw...
indigenous languages. The former wider distribution of Ainulanguages is confirmed by placenames in northern Honshu ending in -betsu (from Ainu pet 'river')...
performer of Ainu music. The most useful English-language overview of Ainu music (with recordings and transcriptions) is by Chiba Nobuhiko. Ainu music carries...
produced in the language. The work of researcher Kayano Shigeru has been prominent in the revival of Ainu, including the recording of the Ainu oral epics known...
of the Ainu people, helped by a young Ainu girl named Asirpa. The Ainulanguage in the story is supervised by Hiroshi Nakagawa, an Ainulanguage linguist...
spoke an early variant of the Ainulanguages or an Ainu-like language, while some may have spoken a divergent Japonic language, similar to the historical...
Paleosiberian languages. Many words in the Nivkh languages bear a certain resemblance to words of similar meaning in other Paleosiberian languages, Ainu, Korean...
classified by UNESCO, the Yonaguni language is one of the most endangered languages in all of Japan, after the Ainulanguage. The table below shows the vowels...
at Ainulanguage § Special katakana for the Ainulanguage). For instance, the Ainu word up is represented by ウㇷ゚ (ウプ [u followed by small pu]). Ainu also...
bibliography of works on the Ainu people of modern Japan and the Russian Far East. Poisson, Barbara Aoki (1 April 2002). The Ainu of Japan. Lerner Publications...
spoken Ryukyuan languages are classified by UNESCO as endangered. In Hokkaidō, there is the Ainulanguage, which is spoken by the Ainu people, who are...
6, 2006) was one of the last native speakers of the Ainulanguage and a leading figure in the Ainu ethnic movement in Japan. Kayano was born in Nibutani...
some types of grammatically-marked pluractionality in other languages. The Ainulanguage of Japan has a closed class of 'count verbs'. The majority of...
[Strange Words in the Man'yoshū and the Fudoki and the Distribution of the AinuLanguage in the Japanese Islands in Prehistory] (PDF) (paper). International...
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