Japanese language

Geographic distribution

Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been and is still sometimes spoken in countries besides Japan. When Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of China, and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries were forced to learn Japanese in empire-building programmes. As a result, there are still many people in these countries who speak Japanese instead of or as well as the local languages. In addition, emigrants from Japan, the majority of whom are found in Brazil, where the biggest Japanese community outside Japan is found, Australia (especially Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne), the United States (notably California and Hawaii), also frequently speak Japanese. There is also a small community in Davao, Philippines. Their descendants (known as nikkei ??, literally Japanese descendants), however, rarely speak Japanese fluently. There are estimated to be several million non-Japanese studying the language as well.

Related Topics:
Korea - Taiwan - China - Those countries - Brazil - Australia - Sydney - Brisbane - Melbourne - United States - California - Hawaii - Davao - Philippines

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Official status

Japanese is the de facto official language of Japan, and Japan is the only country to have Japanese as an official working language. There are two forms of the language considered standard: hy?jungo ??? or standard Japanese, and ky?ts?go ??? or the common language. As government policy has modernized Japanese, many of the distinctions between the two have blurred. Hy?jungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications, and is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.

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Because Japanese is spoken almost only by the Japanese, it is heavily tied to Japanese culture. Like most languages, Japanese has words for cultural ideas, traditions and customs that have no simple equivalent in other languages. For example, wa, nemawashi, kaizen, and seppuku.

Related Topics:
Wa - Nemawashi - Kaizen - Seppuku

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Dialects

Main article: Japanese dialects

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There are dozens of dialects spoken in Japan. The profusion is due to the mountainous island terrain and Japan's long history of both external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, particle usage, and pronunciation. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.

Related Topics:
Dialects - Morphology - Vocabulary

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Dialects from less central regions, such as the T?hoku or Tsushima dialect may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country. The dialect used in Kagoshima in southern Ky?sh? is famous for being unintelligible not only to speakers of standard Japanese but to speakers of nearby dialects elsewhere in Ky?sh? as well. Kagoshima dialect is 84% cognate with standard Tokyo dialect.

Related Topics:
T?hoku - Tsushima - Kagoshima - Ky?sh?

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The Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the islands of Okinawa Prefecture. Not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryukyuan languages. Due to the close relationship of Ryukyuan and Japanese, they are still sometimes said to be only dialects of one language, but modern scholars consider them to be separate languages.

Related Topics:
Ryukyuan languages - Okinawa

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Recently, Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide, due not only to TV and radio, but also to increased mobility within Japan due to its system of roads, railways, and airports. Young people usually speak their local dialect and the standard language, though in most cases, the local dialect is influenced by the standard, and regional versions of "standard" Japanese have local-dialect influence.

Related Topics:
TV - Radio

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