The
Ainu languages were a small
language familyA language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics...
spoken on the northern Japanese island of
Hokkaidō, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island and the largest, northernmost of its 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshū, although the two islands are connected by the underwater Seikan Tunnel...
, the southern half of the island of
SakhalinSakhalin , also Saghalien, is a large elongated island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N. It is part of Russia and is its largest island, administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast. The indigenous peoples of the island are the Sakhalin Ainu, Oroks, and Nivkhs...
, and the
Kuril IslandsThe Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, is a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean...
, an island chain that stretches from Hokkaidō to the southern tip of the
Kamchatka PeninsulaThe Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometer long peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of 472,300 km². It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
. They are alternately considered a group of closely related languages, or as divergent dialects of a single
language isolateA language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
. The only surviving member is the endangered
Hokkaidō AinuAinu is an Ainu language spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
.
Shibatani (1990:9) and
PiłsudskiBronisław Piotr Piłsudski , brother of Józef Piłsudski, was a Polish cultural anthropologist who conducted outstanding research on the Ainu ethnic group, which then inhabited Sakhalin Island but now live mostly on the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, with only a small minority left on...
(1998:2) speak of "Ainu languages" when comparing the varieties of Hokkaidō and Sakhalin.
The
Ainu languages were a small
language familyA language family is a group of languages related by descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.As with biological families, the evidence of relationship is observable shared characteristics...
spoken on the northern Japanese island of
Hokkaidō, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island and the largest, northernmost of its 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshū, although the two islands are connected by the underwater Seikan Tunnel...
, the southern half of the island of
SakhalinSakhalin , also Saghalien, is a large elongated island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N. It is part of Russia and is its largest island, administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast. The indigenous peoples of the island are the Sakhalin Ainu, Oroks, and Nivkhs...
, and the
Kuril IslandsThe Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, is a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean...
, an island chain that stretches from Hokkaidō to the southern tip of the
Kamchatka PeninsulaThe Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometer long peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of 472,300 km². It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
. They are alternately considered a group of closely related languages, or as divergent dialects of a single
language isolateA language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
. The only surviving member is the endangered
Hokkaidō AinuAinu is an Ainu language spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
.
Varieties
Shibatani (1990:9) and
PiłsudskiBronisław Piotr Piłsudski , brother of Józef Piłsudski, was a Polish cultural anthropologist who conducted outstanding research on the Ainu ethnic group, which then inhabited Sakhalin Island but now live mostly on the Japanese island of Hokkaidō, with only a small minority left on...
(1998:2) speak of "Ainu languages" when comparing the varieties of Hokkaidō and Sakhalin. However, Vovin (1993) speaks only of "dialects". Hattori (1955) considered Ainu data from 19 regions of Hokkaido and Sakhalin. The primary division was 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
Poronaysk is a town in Sakhalin Oblast, Russia, located on the Poronay River some 288 km north of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. It is the administrative center of Poronaysky District. Population: 17,400 ; 17,954 ; 25,971 ....
)] was quite divergent from the other localities, all to the south. The Raychishka dialect, on the western coast near modern UglegorskUglegorsk is a coastal port town in Sakhalin Oblast, Russia, located on the western coast of Sakhalin 359 km west of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Population: 13,396 ; 18,402 .-History:...
, is the best documented, and has a dedicated grammatical description. The last speaker of Sakhalin Ainu died in 1994.
- Hokkaidō Ainu clustered into several dialects with substantial differences between them: the 'neck' of the island (Oshima County
is a subprefecture of Hokkaidō, Japan. As of 2004 it had a population of 456,621 and an area of 3,715.38 km².Hakodate Airport is located in the City of Hakodate.- Geography :-Towns and villages by district:* Futami District** Yakumo* Kameda District...
, data from Oshamambeis a town located in Yamakoshi District, Oshima, Hokkaidō, Japan.As of 2008, the town has an estimated population of 6,495 and a density of 23.89 persons per km². The total area is 310.75 km².-External links:...
and Yakumois a town located in Futami District, Oshima, Hokkaidō, Japan.As of 2008, the town has an estimated population of 19,543 and a density of 23.08 persons per km². The total area is 955.98 km²....
); the "Classical" Ainu of central Hokkaidō around Sapporo and the southern coast (Iburiis a subprefecture of Hokkaidō, Japan.- Geography :Located in south-central Hokkaido, Iburi stretches East-West and North-South. Iburi covers an area of . Iburi borders Oshima subprefecture to the West, Shiribeshi, Ishikari, and Sorachi subprefectures to the North, and Hidaka subprefecture to the...
and Hidakais a subprefecture of Hokkaidō, Japan. The west side of the Hidaka mountains occupies most of the area. Hidaka is sparsely populated and has many of Hokkaidō's natural resources...
counties, data from Horobetsuis a city located in Iburi, Hokkaidō, Japan. Part of Shikotsu-Toya National Park, it is located southwest of Sapporo, west of Tomakomai and northeast of Hakodate. The name, Noboribetsu, derives from an Ainu word, nupur-pet, which means dark-coloured river....
, Biratoriis a town located in Saru District, Hidaka, Hokkaidō, Japan.As of 2008, the town has an estimated population of 5,909 and a density of 7.95 persons per km². The total area is 743.16 km²....
, Nukkibetsu, and Niikappuis a town located in Niikappu District, Hidaka, Hokkaidō, Japan.-Geography:Niikappu stretches from the Pacific Ocean of southeast Hokkaido north to the Hidaka Mountains along the Niikappu River. The town covers a total area of 585.88 km². Its highest point is Mount Poroshiri and the lowest is at...
; historical records from Ishikari Countyis a subprefecture of Hokkaidō prefecture, Japan, located in the western part of the island. Its population in 2003 was 2,279,943.There are 6 cities, three towns, and one village under its jurisdiction. The subprefectural capital is Sapporo, also the capital of Hokkaidō prefecture...
and Sapporo show that these were similar); Samani, is a town located in Samani District, Hidaka, Hokkaidō, Japan.As of 2008, the town has an estimated population of 5,466 and a density of 15.84 persons per km
2...
(on the southeastern cape in Hidaka, but perhaps closest to the northeastern dialect); the northeast (data from Obihirois a city located in Tokachi, Hokkaidō, Japan.Obihiro is the only city in the Tokachi area. The next most populous municipality in Tokachi is the town of Otofuke, with less than a third of Obihiro's population....
, Kushirois a city located in Kushiro, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is the capital city of Kushiro Subprefecture, as well as the most populous city in eastern Hokkaidō....
, and Bihorois a town located in Abashiri District, Abashiri Subprefecture, Hokkaidō, Japan. The name is derived from the Ainu word piporo, meaning "place of much water"....
); the north-central dialect (Kamikawa Countyis a subprefecture of Hokkaidō, Japan. The name is derived from Kamikawa no hitobito no Shūraku , a translation of the Ainu Peni Unguri Kotan. Settlement began in 1867...
, data from Asahikawais a city located in Kamikawa Subprefecture, Hokkaidō, Japan. The city is the capital of the subprefecture and the second-largest city in Hokkaidō, next to Sapporo. It has been a Core city since April 1, 2000. The city is currently well-known for the Asahiyama Zoo and Asahikawa Ramen.As of 2008,...
and Nayorois a city located in Kamikawa, Hokkaidō, Japan.As of 2008, the city has an estimated population of 30,920 and the density of 57.8 persons per km²...
); and Sōyais a subprefecture of Hokkaidō, Japan. Its population is estimated to be 77,500 as of July 31, 2004 and its area is 4,050.84 km². It is the northernmost subprefecture of Japan.Wakkanai Airport is located in Wakkanai...
(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.
It is often reported that Ainu was the language of the indigenous
EmishiThe were a group of people who lived in northeastern Honshū in what is today known as the Tōhoku region. They are referred to as in contemporary sources. Some Emishi tribes opposed and resisted the rule of the Japanese Emperors during the late Nara and early Heian periods...
people of the northern part of the main Japanese island of
Honshuor Honshu is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Strait...
, and that it was also spoken on the southern tip of the
Kamchatka PeninsulaThe Kamchatka Peninsula is a 1,250-kilometer long peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of 472,300 km². It lies between the Pacific Ocean to the east and the Sea of Okhotsk to the west...
. 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 assumed of similar names in northern Honshū (Miller 1967:239, Shibatani 1990:3).
Classification
No genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated, despite numerous attempts. That is, it is a
language isolateA language isolate, in the absolute sense, is a natural language with no demonstrable genealogical relationship with other languages; that is, one that has not been demonstrated to descend from an ancestor common with any other language. They are in effect language families consisting of a single...
. The most frequent proposals for relatives of Ainu are given below.
Paleosiberian
Ainu is sometimes grouped with the
Paleosiberian languagesPaleosiberian languages or Paleoasian languages is a term of convenience used in linguistics to classify a disparate group of languages spoken in remote regions of Siberia...
, but this is merely a geographic blanket term for several unrelated language families that were present in Siberia prior to the advances of
TurkicThe Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken by some...
and
Tungusic languagesThe Tungusic languages are spoken by Tungusic people in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...
there.
Japanese and Korean
John C. Street (1962) proposed linking Ainu,
KoreanKorean is the official language of North Korea and South Korea. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers. It was formerly written using Hanja, borrowed Chinese characters pronounced in the Korean...
, and Japanese in one family and
TurkicThe Turkic languages constitute a language family of some thirty languages, spoken by Turkic peoples across a vast area from Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean to Siberia and Western China, and are considered to be part of the proposed Altaic language family.Turkic languages are spoken by some...
,
MongolicThe Mongolic languages are a group of languages spoken in Central Asia, notably including Mongolian.Mongolic is sometimes grouped with Turkic and Tungusic as part of the larger Altaic family....
, and
TungusicThe Tungusic languages are spoken by Tungusic people in Eastern Siberia and Manchuria. Many Tungusic languages are endangered, and the long-term future of the family is uncertain...
in another, with the two families linked in a common "North Asiatic" family. Street's grouping was an extension of the
AltaicAltaic is a language family that is generally held by its proponents to include the Turkic, Mongolic, Tungusic, Korean, and Japonic language families . These languages are spoken in a wide arc stretching from northeast Asia through Central Asia to Anatolia and eastern Europe...
hypothesis, which at the time linked Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic, sometimes adding Korean; today it usually includes both Korean and Japanese but not Ainu (Georg et al. 1999).
From a perspective more centered on Ainu, James Patrie (1982) adopted the same grouping, namely Ainu-Korean-Japanese and Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic, with these two families linked in a common family, as in Street's "North Asiatic".
Joseph GreenbergJoseph Harold Greenberg was a prominent and controversial American linguist, principally known for his work in two areas, linguistic typology and the genetic classification of languages.- Early life and career :...
(2000-2002) likewise classed Ainu with Korean and Japanese. He regarded "Korean-Japanese-Ainu" as forming a distinct
subgroupSubgrouping in linguistics is the division of a language family into its constituent branches.- References :Greenberg, Joseph H. 1957. "The problem of linguistic subgroupings", in Essays in Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press....
within his proposed
EurasiaticEurasiatic is a hypothetical language family proposed by Joseph Greenberg that groups all of the language families historically spoken in northern Eurasia into a single higher-order family, with the sole exception of the Yeniseian languages, spoken in part of Siberia, but including the Eskimo-Aleut...
language family. He did not hold Korean-Japanese-Ainu to have an especially close relationship with Turkic-Mongolic-Tungusic within this family, partially contradicting the theses of Street and Patrie.
Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian
Alexander VovinAlexander Vovin is an American linguist and philologist in the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures at the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, where he is a Professor of East Asian Languages and the future chair of the department from August 1, 2009.Alexander Vovin earned his M.A...
(1993) presented evidence suggesting a distant connection with the
Austro-Asiatic languagesThe Austro-Asiatic languages are a large language family of Southeast Asia, and also scattered throughout India and Bangladesh. The name comes from the Latin word for "south" and the Greek name of Asia, hence "South Asia." Among these languages, only Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mon have a long...
, which include many of the indigenous languages of Southeast Asia. He regarded this hypothesis as preliminary.
The eminent Japanese linguist
Shichirō Murayamawas born in Ibaraki Prefecture in 1908 and died in 1995. He was a Japanese linguist who started his career lecturing at Juntendō University, and went on to become full professor at Kyōto Sangyō Daigaku. One of the world’s foremost authorities on the Altaic languages, he later made important...
tried to link Ainu to the
Austronesian languagesThe Austronesian languages are a language family widely dispersed throughout the islands of Southeast Asia and the Pacific, with a few members spoken on continental Asia. It is on par with Bantu, Indo-European, Afro-Asiatic and Uralic as one of the best-established ancient language families...
, which include the languages of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Taiwan, through both
vocabularyA person's vocabulary is the set of words they are familiar with in a language. A vocabulary usually grows and evolves with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge.- Knowing and using a word :...
and cultural comparisons.
Some linguists believe that Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian are linked in a larger family, called
AustricThe Austric language superfamily is a large theoretical grouping of languages primarily spoken in Southeast Asia, the Pacific, and the eastern Indian subcontinent. It includes the Austronesian language family of Taiwan, the Malay Archipelago, Pacific Islands, and Madagascar, as well as the...
.
John BengtsonJohn D. Bengtson is a historical and anthropological linguist. He is a past president and currently a vice-president of the Association for the Study of Language in Prehistory, and has served as editor of the journal Mother Tongue...
(2006) has suggested that Ainu is an Austric language.
Language contact
The Ainu appear to have experienced intensive contact with the
NivkhsThe Nivkhs are an indigenous ethnic group inhabiting the northern half of Sakhalin Island and the region of the Amur River estuary in Russia's Khabarovsk Krai. Nivkh were mainly fishermen, hunters, and dog breeders...
during the course of their history. It is not known to what extent this has affected the language. Some linguists believe the shared vocabulary between Ainu and
NivkhNivkh or Gilyak is a language spoken in Outer Manchuria, in the basin of the Amgun , along the lower reaches of the Amur itself, and on the northern half of Sakhalin. 'Gilyak' is the Manchu appellation...
(spoken in the northern half of
SakhalinSakhalin , also Saghalien, is a large elongated island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N. It is part of Russia and is its largest island, administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast. The indigenous peoples of the island are the Sakhalin Ainu, Oroks, and Nivkhs...
and on the Asian mainland facing it) is due to
borrowingA loanword is a word borrowed from one language and incorporated into another.-General:By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept, whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself.The word loanword is itself a calque of the German...
.
There are also
loanwordA loanword is a word borrowed from one language and incorporated into another.-General:By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept, whereby it is the meaning or idiom that is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself.The word loanword is itself a calque of the German...
s from Hokkaidō Ainu to Japanese and Japanese to Hokkaidō Ainu.