Multilingual sign inJapanese, Ainu,English,Korean, andChinese. The Ainu text, inkatakana, 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".
Ainu (アイヌ イタㇰ,aynu itak), or more preciselyHokkaido Ainu (Japanese:北海道アイヌ語), is the native language of theAinu people on the northern Japanese island ofHokkaido. It is a member of theAinu language family, itself considered alanguage family isolate with no academic consensus regarding its origin. Until the 20th century, the Ainu languages – Hokkaido Ainu,Kuril Ainu, andSakhalin Ainu – were spoken throughout Hokkaido, the southern half of the island ofSakhalin and by small communities in theKuril Islands, up to the southern tip ofKamchatka.
As a result of thecultural genocide of the Ainu people carried out byJapan during thecolonization of Hokkaido, the number of Hokkaido Ainu speakers declined steadily throughout the 20th century. By 2008, Hokkaido Ainu was criticallyendangered, with only two elderly people reported to speak it as theirfirst language. According to the linguist Hiroshi Nakagawa, by 2021 no one in Japan had Ainu as their first language.[2]
Pirka Kotan Museum, an Ainu language and cultural center inSapporo (Jozankei area)
The term "Ainu" comes from theendonym of theAinu people,aynu (アイヌ), meaning "person" or "human".
According toUNESCO, Ainu is anendangered language with few native speakers.[5] Although there are estimated to be at least 30,000 Ainu people in Japan,[6] there is a low rate of self-identification as Ainu among people with Ainu ethnic roots.[7] Knowledge of the language was already endangered by the 1960s and has continued to decline since. In 2011[update], just 304 people within Japan were reported to understand the Ainu language to some extent.[7] As of 2016[update],Ethnologue listed Ainu as "nearly extinct" (class 8b).[8]
In 2017, 671 people aged 15 or above from 291 randomly selected households participated in a Hokkaido government survey on the lives of Ainu people.[9] Participants were believed to be descendants of Ainu people or those who joined Ainu families by marriage or adoption.[9] In response to survey questions about fluency in the Ainu language, 0.7% of participants answered that they "would be able to have a conversation" in Ainu, 3.4% answered that they "would be able to converse a little", 44.6% answered they "couldn't speak but had some knowledge about Ainu language", and 48.1% answered that they "couldn't speak at all".[9]
In a subsequent survey of 472 respondents in 2023, 0.8% of respondents answered that they "would be able to have a conversation" in Ainu, 8.9% answered they "would be able to converse a little", 19.3% answered they "could barely converse at all", and 69.3% answered they "would not be able to converse at all" .[10]
Ainu language usage amongst Ainu people in Hokkaido, surveys 1993-2023[11]
On 12 July 2020, the Japanese government opened theNational Ainu Museum inShiraoi,Hokkaido.[15] It forms one of three institutions named Upopoy (which means 'singing in a large group' in the Ainu language) alongside the National Ainu Park and a memorial site on high ground on the east side of Lake Poroto (ポロト湖) where Ainu services are held. Its director, Masahiro Nomoto, says that "One of our main objectives is to preserve and revive the language, as this is one of the most threatened elements ofAinu culture".[16]
Announcements on some bus routes in Hokkaido can since be heard in Ainu, efforts are being undertaken to archive Ainu speech recordings by theAgency for Cultural Affairs, and there is a popular educationalYouTube channel which teaches conversational Ainu.[17]
While these measures have been praised for taking steps to protect the Ainu language and culture, the museum and related government efforts have been criticised for failing to acknowledge the history of Japanese discrimination against the Ainu people, and for the government's refusal to apologise for past misdeeds against the Ainu.[14][18]
Obstruents/ptts~tʃk/ may be voiced[bddz~dʒɡ] between vowels and after nasals./t͡s/ can be heard as[t͡ʃ] in free variation among speakers. Both/ti/ and/tsi/ are realized as[t͡ʃi], and/s/ becomes[ʃ] before/i/ and at the end of syllables./h/ is heard as[ɸ] when occurring before/u/./n/ is heard as[ŋ] when before/k/, as well as in final position. A glottal stop[ʔ] is often inserted at the beginning of words, before an accented vowel, but is non-phonemic.
The Ainu language also has apitch accent system. Generally, words containingaffixes have a high pitch on a syllable in the stem. This will typically fall on the first syllable if that is long (has a final consonant or a diphthong), and will otherwise fall on the second syllable, though there are exceptions to this generalization.
Classical Ainu, the language of theyukar, ispolysynthetic, withincorporation of nouns and adverbs; this is greatly reduced in the modern colloquial language.
Applicatives may be used in Ainu to place nouns indative,instrumental,comitative,locative,allative, orablative roles. Besides freestanding nouns, these roles may be assigned to incorporated nouns, and such use of applicatives is in fact mandatory for incorporatingoblique nouns. Like incorporation, applicatives have grown less common in the modern language.
Ainu has a system of verbal affixes (shown below) which mark agreement for person and case. The specific cases that are marked differ by person, withnominative–accusative marking for the first person singular,tripartite marking for the first person plural andindefinite (or 'fourth') person, anddirect or 'neutral' marking for the second singular and plural, and third persons (i.e. the affixes do not differ by case).[20][21]
The Ainu language is written in a modified version of the Japanesekatakana syllabary, although it is possible for Japanese loan words and names to be written inkanji (for example, "mobile phone" can be writtenケイタイデンワ or携帯電話). There is also aLatin-based alphabet in use. TheAinu Times publishes in both. In the Latinorthography,/ts/ is spelledc and/j/ is spelledy; the glottal stop,[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 markmorpheme boundaries, such as after a prefix. Its pitch accent is denoted byacute accent in Latin script (e.g.,á). This is usually not denoted in katakana.
The Rev.John Batchelor was an English missionary who lived among the Ainu, studied them and published many works on the Ainu language.[23][24] Batchelor wrote extensively, both works about the Ainu language and works in Ainu itself. He was the first to write in Ainu and use a writing system for it.[25]Batchelor's translations of various books of the Bible were published from 1887, and hisNew Testament translation was published in Yokohama in 1897 by a joint committee of theBritish and Foreign Bible Society, theAmerican Bible Society, and theNational Bible Society of Scotland. Other books written in Ainu include dictionaries, a grammar, and books on Ainu culture and language.
AUnicode standard exists for a set of extended katakana (Katakana Phonetic Extensions) for transliterating the Ainu language and other languages written with katakana.[26] 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 either are smaller in size or have ahandakuten. As few fonts yet support these extensions, workarounds exist for many of the characters, such as using a smaller font with the regular katakanaクku to produceク to represent the separate small katakana glyphㇰku used as inアイヌイタㇰ (Ainu 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,[citation needed] and thus are part of the main set of katakana. A number of previously proposed characters have not been added to Unicode as they can be represented as a sequence of two existing codepoints.
^abcdk,t,c,p are sometimes voiced[ɡ],[d], [dz~dʒ],[b], respectively. It does not change the meaning of a word, but it sounds more rough/masculine. When they are voiced, they may be written asg,d,j,dz,b, ガ, ダ, ヂャ, ヅァ, バ, etc.
^abcdefghijkEither may be used according to actual pronunciations, or to writer's preferred styles.
^ッ is finalt at the end of a word (e.g.pet = ペッ = ペㇳ). In the middle of a polysyllabic word, it is a final consonant preceding the initial with a same value (e.g.orta /otta/ = オッタ; オㇿタ is not preferred).[clarification needed]
^At the end of a word,n can be written either ㇴ or ン. In the middle of a polysyllabic word, it is ン. (e.g.tan-mosir = タンモシㇼ = タㇴ+モシㇼ, but not タㇴモシㇼ.)
^[m] before[p],[ŋ] before[k],[n] elsewhere. Unlike Japanese, it does not become other sounds such asnasal vowels.
^abInitialh[h] and finalh[x] are different phonemes. Finalh exists in Sakhalin Ainu only.
Final[ɪ] is spelledy in Latin, small ィ in katakana. Final[ʊ] is spelledw in Latin, small ゥ in katakana. Large イ and ウ are used if there is a morpheme boundary with イ and ウ at the morpheme head.[ae] is spelledae, アエ or アェ.
The Ainu have a richoral tradition of hero-sagas calledyukar, which retain a number of grammatical and lexical archaisms.Yukar were memorized and told at get-togethers and ceremonies that often lasted hours or even days. The Ainu also have another form of narrative often used calledUepeker, which was used in the same contexts.
A native written form of the Ainu language has never existed; therefore, the Ainu people traditionally relied on memorization and oral communication to pass down their literature to the next generation.[27] Ainu literature includes nonfiction, such as their history and "hunting adventures," and fiction such as stories about spiritual avatars, magic,[28] myths, and heroes.[27]
The oral literature of the Ainu languages has been studied mainly by Japanese and European researchers;[29] thus, Ainu literature has been transcribed using writing systems such as Japanesekatakana (commonly used for foreign-language text) and theLatin alphabet, and documented in the languages of the researchers themselves.[30] One prominent researcher of the Ainu languages isBronisław Piłsudski, a Polish anthropologist who lived in Sakhalin from 1886 to 1905,[29] and who published "Materials for the Study of the Ainu Language and Folklore" in 1912.[31] In addition, Piłsudski made audio recordings from 1902 to 1903, which is believed to be the first attempt to do so in the history of Ainu oral literature study.[29] Japanese linguist Kyosuke Kindaichi is also famous for his work on the oral literature of the Ainu languages,[29] and for his publicationAinu monogatari: tsuketari Ainugo taii oyobi goi (あいぬ物語: 附・あいぬ語大意及語彙) in 1913.[32]
Many of the speakers of Ainu lost the language with the advent of Japanese colonization, which formally began with the establishment of theHokkaido Colonization Office in 1869. Japanese officials viewed the assimilation of Ainu a critical component of the Hokkaido colonization project, and developed policies designed to discourage or eliminate the use of the Ainu language, cultural practices, and traditional lifeways.[33][34] The assimilation included the exploitation of Ainu land, the commodification of their culture, and the placing of Ainu children in schools where they learned only Japanese.[33][34][35]
More recently, the Japanese government has acknowledged the Ainu people as an indigenous population. As of 1997 they were given indigenous rights under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) to their culture, heritage, and language.[33][34][36]
The Ainu Cultural Promotion Act in 1997 appointed the Foundation for Research and Promotion of Ainu Culture (FRPAC). This foundation is tasked with language education, where they promote Ainu language learning through training instructors, advanced language classes and creation and development of language materials.[36]
In general, Ainu people are hard to find because they tend to hide their identity as Ainu, especially in the young generation. Two-thirds of Ainu youth do not know that they are Ainu.[6] In addition, because Ainu students were strongly discouraged from speaking their language at school,[37] it has been challenging for the Ainu language to be revitalized.
Despite this, there is an active movement torevitalize the language, mainly in Hokkaido but also elsewhere such asKanto.[5] Ainu oral literature has been documented both in hopes of safeguarding it for future generations, as well as using it as a teaching tool for language learners.[38] Beginning in 1987, theAinu Association of Hokkaido, with approximately 500 members,[5] began hosting 14 Ainu language classes, Ainu language instructors training courses and Family Ainu Learning Initiative[6] and have released instructional materials on the language, including a textbook.[38] Also,Yamato linguists teach Ainu and train students to become Ainu instructors in university.[6] In spite of these efforts, as of 2011[update] the Ainu language was not yet taught as a subject in any secondary school in Japan.[5]
Due to the Ainu Cultural Promotion Act of 1997, Ainu dictionaries transformed and became tools for improving communication and preserving records of the Ainu language in order to revitalize the language and promote the culture.[39] This act had aims to promote, disseminate, and advocate on behalf of Ainu cultural traditions.[7] The main issue with this act however, was that not a single Ainu person was included in the "Expert" meetings prior to the law's passage, and as a result of this there was no mention of language education and how it should be carried out.[7] The focus at this point was on Ainu culture revitalization rather than Ainu language revitalization.
As of 2011, there has been an increasing number of second-language learners, especially in Hokkaido, in large part due to the pioneering efforts of the late Ainu folklorist, activist and formerDiet memberShigeru Kayano, himself a native speaker, who first opened an Ainu language school in 1987 funded byAinu Kyokai.[7] TheAinu Association of Hokkaido is the main supporter of Ainu culture in Hokkaido.[5] Ainu language classes have been conducted in some areas in Japan and small numbers of young people are learning Ainu. Efforts have also been made to produce web-accessible materials for conversational Ainu because most documentation of the Ainu language focused on the recording of folktales.[40] The Ainu language has been in media as well; the first Ainu radio program was calledFM Pipaushi,[41] which has run since 2001 along with 15-minute radio Ainu language lessons funded by FRPAC,[42] and newspaperThe Ainu Times has been established since 1997.[7] In 2016, a radio course was broadcast by the STVradio Broadcasting to introduce Ainu language. The course put extensive efforts in promoting the language, creating 4 text books in each season throughout the year.[43]
In addition, the Ainu language has been seen in public domains such as the outlet shopping complex's name,Rera, which means 'wind', in theMinami Chitose area and the namePewre, meaning 'young', at a shopping centre in theChitose area. There is also a basketball team inSapporo founded under the nameRera Kamuy Hokkaido, afterrera kamuy 'god of the wind' (its current name isLevanga Hokkaido).[5] The well-known Japanese fashion magazine's nameNon-no means 'flower' in Ainu.
Another Ainu language revitalization program is Urespa, a university program to educate high-level persons on the language of the Ainu. The effort is a collaborative and cooperative program for individuals wishing to learn about Ainu languages. This includes performances which focus on the Ainu and their language, instead of using the dominant Japanese language.[44]
Another form of Ainu language revitalization is an annual national competition, which is Ainu language-themed. People of many differing demographics are often encouraged to take part in the contest. Since 2017, the popularity of the contest has increased.[45]
On 15 February 2019, Japan approved a bill to recognize the Ainu language for the first time[46][47] and enacted the law on 19 April 2019.[48]
Outside of Japan, there have also been efforts to revive the Ainu culture and language in other countries, includingAustralia[49] andRussia.[50]
In 2019, researchers working together from both the Society for Academic Research of Ainu (SARC), representatives from Hokkaido University, and with the assistance of linguists spanning multiple universities and countries assisted in the creation of AI Pirika, an AI created with the goal of assisting with speech recognition and serving as a conversation partner.[51]
One day, as I went out to play at the spring, there was a little man at the spring hitting stakes made of walnut wood, in order to erect (some) wooden beams. His hip bent (and he bent down) and he straightened out (as he worked, going up and down over and over).
^Lewis, M. Paul, Gary F. Simons, and Charles D. Fennig (eds.). 2016.Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Nineteenth edition. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.
^abc"平成29年北海道アイヌ生活実態調査報告書" [2017 Hokkaido Ainu Life Survey Report](PDF).Hokkaidō Government. 北海道環境生活部. Retrieved27 October 2024.
^"令和5年北海道アイヌ生活実態調査報告書" [2023 Hokkaido Ainu Life Survey Report](PDF).Hokkaidō Government. 北海道環境生活部. Retrieved27 October 2024.
^"生活実態調査の実施結果について" [About the results of living situation survey] (in Japanese). Retrieved14 April 2025.
^Frédéric, Louis (2005)."Ainu".Japan Encyclopedia. Translated by Roth, Käthe (illustrated, reprint ed.). Harvard University Press. p. 13.ISBN978-0-674-01753-5.
^Ivar Lissner (1957).The Living Past (4 ed.). Putnam's. p. 204. Retrieved23 April 2012.In 1877 a young and industrious theologian went to visit the Ainu. His name was John Batchelor, and he was a scientist and missionary. He got to know the Ainu well, studied their language and customs, won their affection, and remained their staunch friend until the end of his days. It is to Batchelor that we owe our deepest insight into the [Original from the University of California Digitized 27 January 2009 Length 444 pages]
^Patric, John (1943)....Why Japan Was Strong (4 ed.). Doubleday, Doran & Company. p. 72. Retrieved23 April 2012.John Batchelor set about to learn the Ainu language, which the Japanese had not troubled ever to learn. He laboriously compiled an Ainu dictionary. He singlehandedly turned this hitherto but spoken tongue into a written language, and himself wrote books in it. [Original from the University of California Digitized 16 October 2007 Length 313 pages]
Gayman, Jeffry (2011). "Ainu right to education and Ainu practice of 'education': current situation and imminent issues in light of Indigenous education rights and theory".Intercultural Education.22 (1):15–27.doi:10.1080/14675986.2011.549642.S2CID144373133.
Hansen, A. S. (2014). "Re-vitalizing an Indigenous Language: Dictionaries of Ainu Languages in Japan, 1625–2013".Lexicographica.30 (1):547–578.doi:10.1515/lexi-2014-0017.S2CID156901164.
Maruyama, Hiroshi (2014). "Japan's Policies Towards the Ainu Language and Culture with Special Reference to North Fennoscandian Sami Policies".Acta Borealia.31 (2):152–175.doi:10.1080/08003831.2014.967980.S2CID145497777.
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