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Ainu language

The Ainu language (Ainu: アイヌイタク, aynu itak; Japanese: アイヌ語 ainu-go) is spoken by the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaidō.

Until the twentieth century, Ainu was also spoken throughout the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and by small numbers of people in the Kuril Islands.

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, and that it was also spoken on the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula. The main evidence for this is the presence of placenames that appear to be of Ainu origin in both locations. For example, the -betu common to many northern Japanese place names is believed to derive from the Ainu word pet "river".

Relation to other languages: different theses

Ainu has no generally accepted genealogical relationship to any other language. The most frequent proposals for relatives of Ainu are given below. None have received wide acceptance as of 2008.

A language isolate

Ainu is a language isolate, that is, a language that has no demonstrable relationship to any other language or language family.

It is sometimes grouped with the Paleosiberian languages, but this is merely a blanket term for several unrelated language families that were present in Siberia prior to the advances of Turkic and Tungusic languages there. The "Paleosiberian" languages do not form a language family, that is, a group of languages descended from a common ancestral language.

A relationship to Japanese and Korean

John C. Street (1962) proposed linking Ainu, Korean, 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 in its more common form links Turkic, Mongolic, and Tungusic, often adding Korean and fairly often Japanese (see Altaic languages).

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 (or more precisely "Japanese-Ryukyuan"). 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.

A distant relationship to Austro-Asiatic

Alexander Vovin (1993) presented evidence suggesting a distant connection with the Austro-Asiatic languages, which include many of the languages of Southeast Asia, with outliers in India. He regarded this hypothesis as preliminary.

A link to Austronesian

The eminent Japanese linguist Shichirō Murayama tried to link Ainu to the Austronesian languages, which include the languages of Indonesia, the Philippines, and Polynesia, through both vocabulary and cultural comparisons, and in recent years this approach has been further developed.

A member of the Austric macrofamily

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.

Two broad categories

These various proposals for classifying Ainu fall into two broad categories: proposals that group Ainu with other languages of northern Eurasia and proposals that group Ainu with languages of the more southern Pacific.

Interaction with other languages

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 Nivkh (spoken in the northern half of Sakhalin and on the Asian mainland facing it) is due to borrowing.

There are also loanwords from both Ainu to Japanese and Japanese to Ainu.

Speakers

Ainu is a moribund language, and has been endangered for at least the past few decades. Most of the 150,000 ethnic Ainu in Japan speak only Japanese. In the town of Nibutani (part of Biratori, Hokkaidō) where many of the remaining native speakers live, there are 100 speakers, out of which only 15 used the language every day in the late 1980s. The number of speakers today (by whatever definition one may use) is not known with any certainty. In all of Hokkaidō, it is estimated that there are perhaps 1,000 native speakers, almost all older than 30. Among Ainu speakers (broadly defined), second-language learners presently outnumber native ones.

However, use of the language is on the rise. There is currently an active movement to revitalize the language — mainly in Hokkaidō but also elsewhere — to reverse the centuries-long decline in the number of speakers. This has led to an increasing number of second-language learners, especially in Hokkaidō, in large part due to the pioneering efforts of the late Ainu folklorist, activist and former Diet member Shigeru Kayano, himself a native speaker.

Phonology

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

There are five vowels:

The vowels of Ainu
	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	e		o
Open		a

Consonants:

The consonants of Ainu
	Bilabial	Labio- velar	Alveolar	Palatal	Velar	Glottal
Stop	p		t		k	ʔ
Affricate			ts
Nasal	m		n
Fricative			s			h
Approximant		w		j
Tap/flap			ɾ

The glottal stop /ʔ/ only occurs at the beginning of words, before an accented vowel. The sequence /ti/ is realized as [ʧi] and /s/ becomes [ʃ] before /i/ and at the end of syllables. The affricate /ts/ has voiced and post-alveolar variants. There is some variation among dialects; in the Sakhalin dialect, syllable-final /p, t, k, r/ lenited and merged into /x/. After an /i/, this /x/ is pronounced as [ç].

There is a pitch accent system. The accentuation of specific words varies somewhat from dialect to dialect. Generally, words including affixes have a high pitch on the stem, or on the first syllable if it is closed or has a diphthong, while other words have the high pitch on the second syllable, although there are exceptions to this generalization.

Typology and grammar

Ainu is SOV, with postpositions. Subject and object are usually marked with postpositions. 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.

Typologically, Ainu is similar in word order (and some aspects of phonology) to Japanese and Korean, while its high degree of synthesis is more reminiscent of languages to its north and east.

Ainu traditionally featured incorporation of nouns and adverbs; this is rare 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.

Writing

Officially, 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 spelt c and /j/ as y; /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 (e.g. á). This is usually not denoted in katakana.

Special katakana for the Ainu language

A Unicode standard exists for a set of extended katakana (Katakana Phonetic Extensions) for transliterating the Ainu language and other languages written with katakana. These characters are used to write final consonants and sounds that cannot be expressed using conventional katakana. The extended katakana are based on regular katakana and are either smaller in size, or feature a dakuten or handakuten. As few fonts yet support these extensions, workarounds exist for many of the characters, such as the small katakana ク ku used as in アイヌイタク (Aynu itak).

This is a list of special katakana used in transcribing the Ainu language. Most of the characters are of the extended set of katakana, though a few have been used historically in Japanese, and thus are part of the main set of katakana. A number of previously proposed characters have been removed from future Unicode implementations as they can be easily displayed as a combination of two existing characters.

Character	Unicode	Appearance	Name	Ainu usage
ㇰ	31F0	ク	Katakana Letter Small Ku	Final k
ㇱ	31F1	シ	Katakana Letter Small Si	Final s [ʃʲ]
ㇲ	31F2	ス	Katakana Letter Small Su	Final s, used to emphasize it's pronounced [s] rather than normal [ʃʲ]. [s] and [ʃ] are allophones in Ainu.
ㇳ	31F3	ト	Katakana Letter Small To	Final t
ㇴ	31F4	ヌ	Katakana Letter Small Nu	Final n
ㇵ	31F5	ハ	Katakana Letter Small Ha	Final h [x], succeeding the vowel a. (e.g. アハ ah) Sakhalin dialect only.
ㇶ	31F6	ヒ	Katakana Letter Small Hi	Final h [ç], succeeding the vowel i. (e.g. イヒ ih) Sakhalin dialect only.
ㇷ	31F7	フ	Katakana Letter Small Hu	Final h [x], succeeding the vowel u. (e.g. ウフ uh) Sakhalin dialect only.
ㇸ	31F8	ヘ	Katakana Letter Small He	Final h [x], succeeding the vowel e. (e.g. エヘ eh) Sakhalin dialect only.
ㇹ	31F9	ホ	Katakana Letter Small Ho	Final h [x], succeeding the vowel o. (e.g. オホ oh) Sakhalin dialect only.
ㇺ	31FA	ム	Katakana Letter Small Mu	Final m
ㇻ	31FB	ラ	Katakana Letter Small Ra	Final r [ɾ], succeeding the vowel a. (e.g. アラ ar)
ㇼ	31FC	リ	Katakana Letter Small Ri	Final r [ɾ], succeeding the vowel i. (e.g. イリ ir)
ㇽ	31FD	ル	Katakana Letter Small Ru	Final r [ɾ], succeeding the vowel u. (e.g. ウル ur)
ㇾ	31FE	レ	Katakana Letter Small Re	Final r [ɾ], succeeding the vowel e. (e.g. エレ er)
ㇿ	31FF	ロ	Katakana Letter Small Ro	Final r [ɾ], succeeding the vowel o. (e.g. オロ or)
Rejected characters (Unicode represents them using combining characters)
	31F7 + 309A	プ	Katakana Letter Small Pu	Final p
	30BB + 309A	セ゜	Katakana Letter Se With Semi-Voiced Sound Mark	ce [tse]
	30C4 + 309A	ツ゜	Katakana Letter Tu With Semi-Voiced Sound Mark	tu. ツ゜ and ト゜ are interchangeable.
	30C8 + 309A	ト゜	Katakana Letter To With Semi-Voiced Sound Mark	tu. ツ゜ and ト゜ are interchangeable.

Basic syllables

	a [a]	i [i]	u [u̜]	e [e]	o [o]
	a ア [a]	i イ [i]	u ウ [u̜]	e エ [e]	o オ [o]
k [k] ¹	ka カ [ka]	ki キ [ki]	ku ク [ku̜]	ke ケ [ke]	ko コ [ko]
k [k] ¹	-k ク [-k̚]
s [s] ~ [ʃ]	sa シャ/サ ² [sa] ~ [ʃa]	si シ [ʃi]	su シュ/ス ² [su̜] ~ [ʃu̜]	se シェ/セ ² [se] ~ [ʃe]	so ショ/ソ ² [so] ~ [ʃo]
s [s] ~ [ʃ]	-s シ/ス ² [-ʃʲ]
t [t] ¹	ta タ [ta]	ci チ [tʃi]	tu ト゜/ツ゜ ² [tu̜]	te テ [te]	to ト [to]
t [t] ¹	-t ト/ッ ³ [-t̚]
c [ts] ~ [tʃ] ¹	ca チャ [tsa] ~ [tʃa]	ci チ [tʃi]	cu チュ [tsu̜] ~ [tʃu̜]	ce チェ [tse] ~ [tʃe]	co チョ [tso] ~ [tʃo]
n [n]	na ナ [na]	ni ニ [nʲi]	nu ヌ [nu̜]	ne ネ [ne]	no ノ [no]
n [n]	-n ヌ/ン ⁴ [-n/-m-/-ŋ-] ⁵
h ⁶ [h]	ha ハ [ha]	hi ヒ [çi]	hu フ [ɸu̜]	he ヘ [he]	ho ホ [ho]
-h ⁶ [-x]	-ah ハ [-ax]	-ih ヒ [-iç]	-uh フ [-u̜x]	-eh ヘ [-ex]	-oh ホ [-ox]
p [p] ¹	pa パ [pa]	pi ピ [pi]	pu プ [pu̜]	pe ペ [pe]	po ポ [po]
p [p] ¹	-p プ [-p̚]
m [m]	ma マ [ma]	mi ミ [mi]	mu ム [mu̜]	me メ [me]	mo モ [mo]
m [m]	-m ム [-m]
y [j]	ya ヤ [ja]		yu ユ [ju̜]	ye イェ [je]	yo ヨ [jo]
r [ɾ]	ra ラ [ɾa]	ri リ [ɾi]	ru ル [ɾu̜]	re レ [ɾe]	ro ロ [ɾo]
r [ɾ]	-ar ラ [-aɾ]	-ir リ [-iɾ]	-ur ル [-u̜ɾ]	-er レ [-eɾ]	-or ロ [-oɾ]
w [w]	wa ワ [wa]	wi ウィ/ヰ ² [wi]		we ウェ/ヱ ² [we]	wo ウォ/ヲ ² [wo]

¹: k, t, c, p are sometimes voiced as [g], [d], [dz] ~ [dʒ], [b], respectively. It doesn't change the meaning of a word, but it sounds more rough/masculine. When they are voiced, they may be written as g, d, j, dz, b, ガ, ダ, ヂャ, ヅァ, バ, etc.

²: Both used according to actual pronunciations, or to writer's preferred styles.

³: ッ is final t at the end of a word. (e.g. pet = ペッ = ペト) In the middle of a polysyllabic word, it's a final consonant preceding the initial with a same value. (e.g. orta /otta/ = オッタ. オロタ is not preferred.)

⁴: At the end of a word, n can be written either ヌ or ン. In the middle of a polysyllabic word, it's ン. (e.g. tan-mosir = タンモシリ = タヌ+モシリ, but not タヌモシリ.)

⁵: [m] before [p], [ŋ] before [k], [n] elsewhere. Unlike Japanese, it does not become other sounds such as nasal vowels.

⁶: Initial h [h] and final h [x] are different phenomes. Final h exists in Sakhalin dialect only.

Diphthongs

Final [ɪ] is spelt y in Latin, small ィ in katakana. Final [ʊ] is spelt w in Latin, small ゥ in katakana. [ae] is spelt ae, アエ, or アェ.

Example with initial k:

[kaɪ]	[ku̜ɪ]	[koɪ]	[kaʊ]	[kiʊ]	[keʊ]	[koʊ]	[keɪ]
kay	kuy	koy	kaw	kiw	kew	kow	key
カィ	クィ	コィ	カゥ	キゥ	ケゥ	コゥ	ケィ

Since the above rule is used systematically, some katakana combinations have different sounds from conventional Japanese.

	ウィ	クィ	スィ	ティ	トゥ	フィ
Ainu	[wi], [u̜ɪ]	[ku̜ɪ]	[su̜ɪ]	[teɪ]	[toʊ]	[ɸu̜ɪ]
Japanese	[wi]	[kɰi] ~ [kwi]	[si]	[ti]	[tɯ]	[ɸi]

Long vowels

There are long vowels in Sakhalin dialect. Either circumflex or macron is used in Latin, long vowel sign (ー) is used in katakana.

Example with initial k:

[kaː]	[kiː]	[kuː]	[keː]	[koː]
kâ	kî	kû	kê	kô
kā	kī	kū	kē	kō
カー	キー	クー	ケー	コー

Oral literature

The Ainu have rich oral tradition of hero-sagas called Yukar, which retain a number of grammatical and lexical archaisms.

Notes

References and further reading

Bengtson, John D. (2006). "A multilateral look at Greater Austric." Mother Tongue (Journal) 11, 219–258.
Greenberg, Joseph H. (2000-2002). Indo-European and Its Closest Relatives. Stanford: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-3812-2, ISBN 0-8047-4624-9.
Miller, Roy Andrew (1967). The Japanese Language. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle.
Patrie, James (1982). The Genetic Relationship of the Ainu Language. Honolulu: The University Press of Hawaii. ISBN 0-8248-0724-3.
Refsing, Kirsten (1986). The Ainu Language: The Morphology and Syntax of the Shizunai Dialect. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press. ISBN 8-772-88020-1.
Refsing, Kirsten (1996). Early European Writings on the Ainu Language. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-700-70400-0.
Shibatani, Masayoshi (1990). The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36918-5.
Street, John C. (1962). Review of N. Poppe, Vergleichende Grammatik der altaischen Sprachen, Teil I (1960). Language 38, 92–98.
Tamura, Suzuko (2000). The Ainu Language. Tokyo: Sanseido. ISBN 4-385-35976-8.
Vovin, Alexander (1993). A Reconstruction of Proto-Ainu. Leiden: E. J. Brill. ISBN 90-04-09905-0.