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The most widely-spoken language inJapan isJapanese, which isseparated into several dialects, with the Tokyo dialect considered to beStandard Japanese.
In addition to the Japanese language,Ryūkyūan languages are spoken inOkinawa and parts ofKagoshima in theRyūkyū Islands. Along with Japanese, these languages are part of theJaponic language family, but they are separate languages,[citation needed] and are notmutually intelligible with Japanese, or with each other. All of the spoken Ryukyuan languages are classified byUNESCO as endangered.
InHokkaidō, there is theAinu language, which is spoken by theAinu people, who are the indigenous people of the island. The Ainu languages, of which Hokkaidō Ainu is the only extant variety, are isolated and do not fall under any language family. Ever since the Meiji period, Japanese has become widely used among the Ainu people and consequently Ainu languages have been classified critically endangered byUNESCO.[2]
In addition, languages such asOrok,Evenki andNivkh spoken in formerly Japanese controlled southernSakhalin are becoming more and more endangered. After theSoviet Union took control of the region, speakers of these languages and their descendants migrated to mainland Japan and still exist in small numbers.
Not until shortly after the turn of the second century did indications of language appear in Chinese texts.Chinese characters were adopted and records of spoken language were made in Japan.Hiragana andKatakana characters were incorporated as a relatively accurate way to represent the sounds of Chinese characters.
Chinese characters were first introduced toRyūkyūan languages shortly into the 13th-century. Details concerning the language before then are not well known. 14th-century records indicate that gifts fromRyūkyū Islands to China used Hiragana, which indicates that these languages were tied to Mainland Japanese at the time.
History records that people inHokkaidō,Sakhalin and theKuril Islands spokeAinu languages,[citation needed] but there are also places in and aroundTōhoku whose names derive from Ainu languages. According to 16th-century records, Ainu languages had no written form.[citation needed] Only from the 19th-century did the Ainu languages begin to use Katakana.[citation needed]
Records show that theOrok language was spoken during the latter part of theEdo period in Hokkaidō,[dubious –discuss] Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands;[dubious –discuss] however, there are only a few speakers still in existence.[citation needed]
Like Orok, theNivkh language was spoken in Sakhalin and later in Hokkaidō,[citation needed] and the Kuril Islands.[dubious –discuss] It is unknown whether speakers of Nivkh still remain in Japan.[citation needed]
Sincethe Middle Ages, owing to visits from Europeans, Japanese has adopted a number of foreign words.
Post-1543Portuguese was the initial contact language with Europeans, but this was later replaced byDutch after the Japanese removed Portuguese people from the country.[3] The Japanese government conducted negotiations with Western authorities in Dutch until around 1870.[4] Since then English became the primary language of interaction with Western countries.
Theoral languages spoken by the native peoples of the insular country ofJapan at present and duringrecorded history belong to either of two primaryphyla of human language:
In addition to these two indigenous language families, there isJapanese Sign Language, as well as significant minorities of ethnicKoreans andChinese, who make up respectively about 0.5% and 0.4% of the country's population and many of whom continue to speak their ethnic language in private (seeZainichi Korean). There is also a notable history of use ofKanbun (Classical Chinese) as a language of literature and diplomacy in Japan, similar to the status of theLatin language in medieval Europe, which has left an indelible mark on the vocabulary of the Japanese language.Kanbun is a mandatory subject in the curricula of most Japanesesecondary schools.
