The only other indigenous language is Ainu, spoken by the Ainu people. The origins of this language are unclear and up to now it has been grouped with some north-eastern Asian languages. There is no evidence of ethnic links between the Ainu and the Japanese people and although there are many similarities with Japanese (for example, god is kami in Japanese and kamui in Ainu), these are most probably the result of close contact between the two peoples and a two-way exchange between the languages. The Ainu language has the same five vowels as Japanese but only 12 consonants whereas Japanese has 19. The sentence order of SOV (subject, object, verb) is the same as Japanese (whereas English is SVO) and, like Japanese, there is no plural or gender. Ainu dialects were once very numerous but, by the time people began studying Ainu from the end of the 19th century, only two remained, that of the Hokkaido Ainu and the Sakhalin Ainu (an island north of Hokkaido). These two dialects were so different that speakers of each could hardly understand the other. There has never been a written Ainu language and stories and songs were passed down orally from generation to generation. The Ainu language today is spoken by only a small number of Ainu people living on the north island of Hokkaido and very few of these use it as their main language. It has essentially been a dying language, disappearing rapidly as the Ainu people are assimilated more and more into the general population but there have been moves recently to preserve both Ainu language and culture. Evidence of the Ainu language can be seen in place names, for example, betsu means river and, if you look at a detailed map of Hokkaido, you will find many places around the coast which end in betsu (Noboribetsu, Mombetsu and Shibetsu for example).

There are also the ryukyu dialects (ryukyugo), spoken by inhabitants of Okinawa and neighbouring islands in the far south of Japan. These are closely related to Japanese but cannot be understood by speakers of standard Japanese. The Ryukyu people lived on the Okinawan islands from at least 3000 bc and had contact with both Japan to the north and Taiwan to the south. A number of dialects appear to have developed but one, the shuri dialect, became dominant from the 15th century ad. This was gradually replaced from the Meiji period by hyojungo (standard Japanese). Main differences between the dialects and hyojungo are the pronunciation of the syllables and the endings of verbs and adjectives. For example, tokoro (place) is tukuru in ryukyugo, tori (bird) is tui and the masu/masen (do/don’t) verb endings become biin/biran. Ryukyugo dialects are still in common use today but all users are also fluent in standard Japanese.

Finally, older Korean and Chinese residents in Japan, brought over to Japan as a result of Japanese colonialism from 1910 onwards, still use their native language although their children and grandchildren mainly speak Japanese as their first language (but there are Korean schools where the first language is Korean). English is the first foreign language taught in Japanese schools although many Japanese are not confident in using it. The largest numbers of foreign residents in Japan are (in descending order) Korean, Chinese, Brazilian, Philippino, American and Peruvian.

Related posts:

1. Learn about the Origins of the Japanese People

2. Foreigners in Japan – The History of Japan

3. What are the Origins of Japanese Language?

4. Who Speaks Japanese?

5. Learn about the Climate of Japan (Kiko)

6. Learn about Japan’s Beginnings – The Myths and the Facts

7. Learn about The Land of Japan (Kokudo)

8. Is Japanese Difficult?

9. Learn about the Unification of Japan

10. Singapore Travel Guide – Languages in Singapore