Ainu language

:For the language spoken in Central Asia, see Aini language.

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The Ainu language (Ainu: ??? ???, aynu itak; Japanese: ????, ainu-go) is spoken by the Ainu ethnic group on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It was once spoken in the Kurile Islands, the northern part of Honshu, and the southern half of Sakhalin. Ainu is thought to be a language isolate with no known relation to other languages. It is sometimes grouped with the Paleosiberian languages, but this is merely a cover term for several isolates and small language families believed to have been present in Siberia prior to the arrival of Turkic and Tungusic speakers; it is not a proper language family. Most linguists believe the shared vocabulary between Ainu and Nivkh is due to borrowing; there are also loanwords both from Ainu to Japanese and Japanese to Ainu. A proposed relationship between Japanese and the Altaic languages (Patrie 1982) has won little support among specialists. In recent years, the Japanese linguist Shichiro Murayama and others have tried to link it by both vocabulary and cultural comparisons to the Austronesian languages. Alexander Vovin (1993) presented evidence suggesting a distant connection with Austroasiatic; he regards this hypothesis as preliminary.

Related Topics:
Japanese - Ainu - Ethnic group - Hokkaido - Kurile Islands - Honshu - Sakhalin - Language isolate - Paleosiberian languages - Turkic - Tungusic - Language family - Nivkh - Borrowing - Altaic languages - Vocabulary - Austronesian languages - Austroasiatic

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