Ainu language (Japan)
| Hokkaido Ainu | |
|---|---|
| アイヌ・イタㇰ Aynu=itak | |
| Pronunciation | [ˈainu iˈtak] |
| Native to | Japan |
| Region | Hokkaido |
| Ethnicity | 15,000 Ainu people in Japan (no date) |
|
Native speakers
|
10 (2007) |
|
Ainu
|
|
| Katakana, Latin | |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | |
| Glottolog | ainu1240 |
Ainu (/ˈaɪnuː/; Ainu: アイヌ・イタㇰ Aynu=itak; Japanese: アイヌ語 Ainu-go) or Hokkaido Ainu is the sole survivor of the Ainu languages. It is spoken by members of the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido.
Until the 20th century, Ainu languages were also spoken throughout the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and by small numbers of people in the Kuril Islands. There were at least 19 dialects of the Ainu languages. Only the Hokkaido variant survives, the last speaker of Sakhalin Ainu having died in 1994. Hokkaido Ainu is moribund, though attempts are being made to revive it.
Ainu has no generally accepted genealogical relationship to any other language family. (For the most frequent proposals, see Ainu languages.)
Depending on the classification system used, Ainu could be considered a moribund language or a critically endangered language. As of 2016, Ethnologue lists Ainu as class 8b: "nearly extinct." It has been endangered since before the 1960s. Most of the approximately 15,000 ethnic Ainu in Japan speak only Japanese. During the 1980s, in the town of Nibutani (part of Biratori, Hokkaido), where many of the remaining native speakers live, there were 100 speakers, of whom only fifteen used the language every day.
Today, there are only around ten native speakers remaining, all of whom are at least 80 years old. There are also some semi-speakers who are at least 60 years old. Most of these speakers live in southwestern Hokkaido.
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