Ainu languages
Encyclopedia
The Ainu languages were a small language family
spoken on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō
, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin
, and the Kuril Islands
, an island chain that stretches from Hokkaidō to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula
. They are alternately considered a group of closely related languages, or as divergent dialects of a single language isolate
. The only surviving member is the moribund Hokkaidō Ainu
.
(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 (1955) considered Ainu data from 19 regions of Hokkaido and Sakhalin, and found the primary division to lie between the two islands.
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.
people of the northern part of the main Japanese island of Honshu
. 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.
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 Kamchadal-like Okhotsk culture
of (northern) Hokkaido, with Satsumon being dominant. 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), and indeed a mixed Kamchadal–Kuril Ainu population is attested from southern Kamchatka.
. Ainu is sometimes grouped with the Paleosiberian languages
, but this is merely a geographic blanket term for several unrelated language families that were present in Siberia prior to the advances of Turkic and Tungusic languages there. The most frequent proposals for relatives of Ainu are given below.
, and Japanese
in one family and Turkic
, Mongolic, and Tungusic in another, with the two families linked in a common "North Asiatic" family. Street's grouping was an extension of the Altaic 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 Greenberg (2000–2002) likewise classed Ainu with Korean and Japanese. He regarded "Korean-Japanese-Ainu" as forming a distinct subgroup within his proposed Eurasiatic 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.
The eminent Japanese linguist Shichirō Murayama
tried to link Ainu to the Austronesian languages, which include the languages of the Philippines, Taiwan, and Indonesia through both vocabulary and cultural comparisons.
Some linguists believe that Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian are linked in a larger family, called Austric. John Bengtson
(2006) has suggested that Ainu is an Austric language.
(spoken in the northern half of Sakhalin
and on the Asian mainland facing it) is due to borrowing
.
There are also a great number of loanword
s from the Japanese language in various stages of its development to Hokkaidō Ainu and a smaller number of loanwords from Ainu to Japanese (particularly animal names, such as rakko "sea otter", Ainu rakko; tonakai "reindeer", Ainu tunakkay; and shishamo
"sp. smelt", Ainu susam, from *susu+ham).
Language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' comes from the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a...
spoken on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō
Hokkaido
, formerly known as Ezo, Yezo, Yeso, or Yesso, is Japan's second largest island; it is also the largest and northernmost of Japan's 47 prefectural-level subdivisions. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaido from Honshu, although the two islands are connected by the underwater railway Seikan Tunnel...
, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...
, and the Kuril Islands
Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands , in Russia's Sakhalin Oblast region, form a volcanic archipelago that stretches approximately northeast from Hokkaidō, Japan, to Kamchatka, Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the North Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many more minor rocks. It consists of Greater...
, an island chain that stretches from Hokkaidō to the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula
Kamchatka Peninsula
The Kamchatka Peninsula is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of . 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 isolate
Language isolate
A 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 moribund Hokkaidō Ainu
Ainu language
Ainu is one of the Ainu languages, spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō....
.
Varieties
Shibatani (1990:9) and PiłsudskiBronisław Piłsudski
Bronisław 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
Alexander Vovin
Alexander V. 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 acting chair of the department from August 1, 2009.Alexander Vovin earned his M.A...
(1993) speaks only of "dialects". Refsing (1986) says Hokkaidō and Sakhalin Ainu were not mutually intelligible. Hattori (1955) 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 (PoronayskPoronayskPoronaysk 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, Sakhalin OblastUglegorsk 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 speakerLast speaker of languageAny language is determined to be an extinct language when the last native or fluent speaker of that language dies.There are some 500 languages out of a total of 6000 being classified as nearly extinct because "only a few elderly speakers are still living"....
of Sakhalin Ainu died in 1994. - Hokkaidō Ainu clustered into several dialects with substantial differences between them: the 'neck' of the island (Oshima CountyOshima Subprefectureis 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 OshamambeOshamanbe, Hokkaidois a town located in Yamakoshi District, Oshima, Hokkaido, Japan.As of 31 October 2011, the town has an estimated population of 6,300 with 3,280 households. The total area is 310.75 km².-External links:...
and YakumoYakumo, Hokkaidois 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 (IburiIburi Subprefectureis 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 HidakaHidaka Subprefectureis 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 HorobetsuNoboribetsu, Hokkaidois a city in Iburi subprefecture, Hokkaidō, Japan. Part of Shikotsu-Toya National Park, it is 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....
, BiratoriBiratori, Hokkaidois 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 NiikappuNiikappu, Hokkaidois 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...
; historical records from Ishikari CountyIshikari Subprefectureis 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); SamaniSamani, Hokkaido, 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 km2...
(on the southeastern cape in Hidaka, but perhaps closest to the northeastern dialect); the northeast (data from ObihiroObihiro, Hokkaidois 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. The city has approximately 500 foreign residents . The city contains the headquarters...
, KushiroKushiro, Hokkaidois a city located in Kushiro Subprefecture, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is the capital city of Kushiro Subprefecture, as well as the most populous city in eastern Hokkaidō....
, and BihoroBihoro, Hokkaidois a town located in Abashiri District, Okhotsk Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. The name is derived from the Ainu word piporo, meaning "place of much water"....
); the north-central dialect (Kamikawa CountyKamikawa Subprefectureis 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 AsahikawaAsahikawa, Hokkaidois a city in Kamikawa Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital of the subprefecture and the second-largest city in Hokkaido, after Sapporo. It has been a Core city since April 1, 2000...
and NayoroNayoro, Hokkaido- External links :...
); and SōyaSoya Subprefectureis 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.
Ainu on mainland Japan
It is often reported that Ainu was the language of the indigenous EmishiEmishi
The constituted a group of people who lived in northeastern Honshū in the Tōhoku region. They are referred to as in contemporary sources. Some Emishi tribes 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 Honshu
Honshu
is the largest island of Japan. The nation's main island, it is south of Hokkaido across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyushu across the Kanmon Strait...
. 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
Chubu region
The is the central region of Honshū, Japan's main island. Chūbu has a population estimate of 21,886,324 as of 2008.Chūbu, which means "central region", encompasses nine prefectures : Aichi, Fukui, Gifu, Ishikawa, Nagano, Niigata, Shizuoka, Toyama, Yamanashi, and often Mie.It is located directly...
, such as the Kurobe
Kurobe River
The is a river in Toyama Prefecture, Japan. 86 km in length, it has a watershed of 689 km².The river rises from Mount Washiba in the Hida Mountains and carves the deep valley known as the Kurobe gorge...
and Oyabe
Oyabe River
The is a river in Toyama Prefecture, Japan.The river rises from Mount Daimon on the border of Ishikawa Prefecture and enters the sea at Toyama Bay.The name Oyabe is meaningless in Japanese...
rivers in Toyama Prefecture
Toyama Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Hokuriku region on Honshū island. The capital is the city of Toyama.Toyama is the leading industrial prefecture on the Japan Sea coast, and has the industrial advantage of cheap electricity due to abundant water resources....
(Miller 1967:239, Shibatani 1990:3, Vovien 2008). Other place names in Kantō
Kanto region
The is a geographical area of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. The region includes the Greater Tokyo Area and encompasses seven prefectures: Gunma, Tochigi, Ibaraki, Saitama, Tokyo, Chiba, and Kanagawa. Within its boundaries, slightly more than 40 percent of the land area is the Kantō Plain....
and Chūbu
Chubu region
The is the central region of Honshū, Japan's main island. Chūbu has a population estimate of 21,886,324 as of 2008.Chūbu, which means "central region", encompasses nine prefectures : Aichi, Fukui, Gifu, Ishikawa, Nagano, Niigata, Shizuoka, Toyama, Yamanashi, and often Mie.It is located directly...
, such as Mount Ashigara
Mount Ashigara
Mount Ashigara , also known as Mount Kintoki , is the northernmost peak of the Hakone caldera, on the border of Kanagawa and Shizuoka prefectures, in the Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park in Japan...
(Kanagawa–Shizuoka), Musashi
Musashi Province
was a province of Japan, which today comprises Tokyo Prefecture, most of Saitama Prefecture and part of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was sometimes called . The province encompassed Kawasaki and Yokohama...
(modern Tokyo), Keta Shrine (Toyama), and the Noto Peninsula
Noto Peninsula
thumb|right|240px|Landsat image with high-resolution data from Space Shuttle.Noto Peninsula is a peninsula that projects north into the Sea of Japan from the coast of Ishikawa prefecture in central Honshū, the main island of Japan...
, have no explanation in Japanese, but do in Ainu. The traditional Matagi
Matagi
The matagi are traditional winter hunters of the Tōhoku region of northern Japan, most famously today in the Shirakami-Sanchi forest between Akita and Aomori. They hunt deer and bear, and their culture has much in common with the bear cult of the Ainu...
hunters of the mountain forests of Tōhoku retain Ainu words in their hunting vocabulary.
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
Satsumon culture
The is a post-Jomon partially agricultural archeological culture of northern Honshu and southern Hokkaido that has been identified as the Emishi, as a Japanese-Emishi mixed culture, as the incipient modern Ainu, or with all three synonymously. It may have arisen as a merger of the Yayoi–Kofun and...
, and the very different Nivkh
Nivkh
Nivkh or Gilyak can refer to:*The Nivkh people*The Nivkh language*The Russian gunboat Gilyak, a sistership of Bobr, Sivuch and Korietz and the lead ship of her class...
- and Kamchadal-like Okhotsk culture
Okhotsk culture
The Okhotsk culture is an archeological coastal fishing and hunter-gatherer culture of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk : the Amur River basin, Sakhalin, northern Hokkaido, the Kuril Islands, and Kamchatka...
of (northern) Hokkaido, with Satsumon being dominant. 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), and indeed a mixed Kamchadal–Kuril Ainu population is attested from southern Kamchatka.
Classification
Vovin (1993) splits Ainu "dialects" as follows (Vovin 1993:157).- Proto-Ainu
- Proto-Hokkaido-Kuril
- Hokkaido dialects
- Kuril dialects
- Proto-Sakhalin
- Sakhalin dialects
- Proto-Hokkaido-Kuril
External relationships
No genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated, despite numerous attempts. That is, it is a language isolateLanguage isolate
A 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...
. Ainu is sometimes grouped with the Paleosiberian languages
Paleosiberian languages
Paleosiberian languages or Paleoasian languages is a term of convenience used in linguistics to classify a disparate group of languages spoken in some parts of north-eastern Siberia and some parts of Russian Far East...
, but this is merely a geographic blanket term for several unrelated language families that were present in Siberia prior to the advances of Turkic and Tungusic languages there. The most frequent proposals for relatives of Ainu are given below.
Japanese and Korean
John C. Street (1962) proposed linking Ainu, KoreanKorean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
, and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
in one family and Turkic
Turkic languages
The Turkic languages constitute a language family of at least thirty five 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...
, Mongolic, and Tungusic in another, with the two families linked in a common "North Asiatic" family. Street's grouping was an extension of the Altaic 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 Greenberg (2000–2002) likewise classed Ainu with Korean and Japanese. He regarded "Korean-Japanese-Ainu" as forming a distinct subgroup within his proposed Eurasiatic 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
Shafer (1965) presented evidence suggesting a distant connection with the Austro-Asiatic languages, which include many of the indigenous languages of Southeast Asia. Vovin (1993) regarded this hypothesis as preliminary.The eminent Japanese linguist Shichirō Murayama
Shichiro Murayama
was a Japanese linguist who started his career lecturing at Juntendo University, and went on to become full professor at Kyoto Sangyo University. One of the world’s foremost authorities on the Altaic languages, he later made important contributions to the mixed-language theory of the origins of...
tried to link Ainu to the Austronesian languages, which include the languages of the Philippines, Taiwan, and Indonesia through both vocabulary and cultural comparisons.
Some linguists believe that Austro-Asiatic and Austronesian are linked in a larger family, called Austric. John Bengtson
John Bengtson
John 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 Nivkhs 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 language
Nivkh 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 Sakhalin
Sakhalin
Sakhalin or Saghalien, is a large island in the North Pacific, lying between 45°50' and 54°24' N.It is part of Russia, and is Russia's largest island, and is administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast...
and on the Asian mainland facing it) is due to borrowing
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
.
There are also a great number of loanword
Loanword
A loanword is a word borrowed from a donor language and incorporated into a recipient language. By contrast, a calque or loan translation is a related concept where the meaning or idiom is borrowed rather than the lexical item itself. The word loanword is itself a calque of the German Lehnwort,...
s from the Japanese language in various stages of its development to Hokkaidō Ainu and a smaller number of loanwords from Ainu to Japanese (particularly animal names, such as rakko "sea otter", Ainu rakko; tonakai "reindeer", Ainu tunakkay; and shishamo
Shishamo
is a saltwater fish about 15 centimeters in length. It is slim and resembles a willow leaf; the Japanese name, shishamo, is derived from the Ainu name for the same fish, susam, which is supposed to be derived from a compound of Ainu susu "willow" + ham "leaf", hence its name in kanji...
"sp. smelt", Ainu susam, from *susu+ham).