Destruction of the Ainu Language

Abstract

Ainu is the only native minority language in Japan during the historical period. Its genetic relations are not known, its grammatical system differs from the systems of the languages of the surrounding peoples. The ethnical origin of Ainu is not well-known either. In the 19th century, native speakers of the Ainu language lived in Hokkaido, south Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and south Kamchatka. They were not numerous, but their linguistic situation was stable, and their contacts with other peoples were not significant. Their occupations were hunting and fishing. Since the 19th century, the Sakhalin Ainu and the Kuril Ainu began to move into Hokkaido. The Russian writer A. P. Chekhov visited Sakhalin in 1890 and described the Ainu situation. He wrote that the Ainu were peaceful and gentle people; they could not resist the Japanese expansion. At that time, the Ainu population of Sakhalin was declining; there were two causes thereof: death from starvation and migration to Hokkaido. However, since that time, Hokkaido was occupied by the Japanese people. Ainu lost their territory and did not have equal rights with the Japanese. The Japanese people despised Ainu, using the phonetic semblance of the name of the people (Ainu) and the Japanese word inu, ‘dog’, and considered Ainu a hybrid of people and dogs. The Ainu language had no writing system and only Japanese was taught in the Ainu schools. The Ainu people were in the process of assimilation. After the Second World War, the Japanese and the Ainu were equalized in their rights, but the new reforms did not change the linguistic situation, and the Ainu language became extinct very quickly. The last speaker of Ainu in Sakhalin died in 1975, and the last speaker of Ainu in Hokkaido died about 2000.

Keywords

• ainu
• japanese
• hokkaido
• sakhalin
• assimilation
• extinction