GO NEXT ?Japan: Language situation
The various languages and dialects spoken throughout the approximately 1.000 islands of the Japanese archipelago show the influence of constant historical contact with the languages and peoples of neighboring countries , specifically China, Korea, and Siberian Russia to the east, the Pacific Islands to the south, and the U.S. to the west.
Japanese is spoken as a native language by 121.000.000 who mostly live in the densely populated coastal areas of the four main islands of Honshu, ...........The officially sponsored standard language (Hyojungo) is based on educated Tokyo speech. The well-defined and codified kokugo or 'national language' is a prescribed subject of study in all schools. Distinctive dialectal variation can be seen in Eastern Japan, Western Japan, and Kyushu. Two dialects in the Kansai district of Western Japan which show particular sociolinguistic vitality are the prestige urban dialect of Kyoto( the imperial capital from794-1868 and a center of art and learning ) and the dealect of the commercial and administrative city of neighboring Osaka. Several varieties are murually unintelligible: for example, speakers of the Izumo dealect in the San-in region, Kagoshima, in the southwest of Kyushu and Yamagata in the north. Written Japanese style traditionally employs a large number of kanji (Chinese chracters) although there is an increasing modern preference for the alternative phonemic system of Hiragana/Katakana in some styles.
Ainu, a language isolate of possibly Altaic affiliation, is now spoken as a native tongue by only a handful of the estimated 50.000 Ainu people who live mostly on the northern island of Hokkaido (see Ainu: Altaic Languages). Ainu is devided into three main dialect groups: the Kurile group, the Sakhalin group, and the Hokkaido group. The Ainu language is not taught in schools and has suffered as a result of the assimilation policies advocated by successive Japanese governments following the Miji Restoration. Since the 1980s onwards, strenuous efforts have been made to increase the cultural vitality of Ainu by the revival of traditional rituals, the development of teaching matereals, language classes in community centers and universities, and a body of Ainu-sponsored political proposals supporting language maintenance.
The Ryukyuan language (see Ryukyuan), a close relation of Japanese, comprises a group of dealects, often mutually unintelligible, spoken throughout the Ryukyu islands which are situated at the southwestern tip of Japan. The independent Ryukyuan kingdom was established in the fifteenth century and came under the control of Japan in 1609. Dspite official discouragement of the language, Ryukyuan is widely spoken, the standard variety being the Shuri dialect of Okinawa.
Chinese is spoken in the various Chinese communities found mostly in the urban centers of Tokyo-Yokohama, the Kansai region, and parts of Kyushu. Several bilingual (Chinese-Japanese) schools serve this community., The Korean language has been in Japan for several hundred years (see Korean). Monks, artisans , and other immigrants from the southwestern Korean state of Paekche came to Japan in the sixth century. The presence of about 700.000 ethnic Koreans in contemporary Japan is the legacy of Japanese colonialism when Japan annexed Korea in 1910. The main concentrations of Korean speakers are in urban areas such as Kanto(Tokyo) and Kansai(Osaka) regions . Among second to fourth generations in the Ikuno-ku district of Osaka, for instance , vrious degrees of code-mixing and code-swithing occur between Korean , Osaka dialect, and Standard Japanese. The younger generaion shows a greatly decreased fluency in Korean and broadly speaking, less enthusiasm for language maintenance. The Korean community operates a nationwide system of private schools in which Korean is the language of instruction.
English-language newspapers and magazines serve a native English-speaking population who are permanent or temporary residents in Japan. English is widely studied, virtually as a compulsory subject, in secondary schools and also in higher education. It is the working language especially in its written form,of a number of occupations and professions. In the biomedical sciences, for instance, it has been observed that the amount of research reports and articles published in English inJapan alone is more than the total number published in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand (Maher 1986,1991). English is found also as the native language of inhabitnts in the Ogasawara(Bonin) islands but numbers have declined drastically in recent years.
Japanese Sign Language(JSL), the language of the deaf, is clearly codified and widely used and is subject to dialectal and sociolectal variation. from the 1970s onward, the influx of Vietnamese-Chinese and Cambodian refugees as well as foreign workers and migrants from Asia and South America(the Philippines and Brazil in particular) has continued to form Japan's increasingly mutilingual and muticultural environment.
by J.C.Maher
Question:
Circle. The sign language (shuwa) of deaf people is a:
1. Proper language 2. Simplified language 3. Don't know
#Most of students have circled No.2, Prof. Maher's research. At the first impression we Japanese never regard shuwa as dialectal or sociolectal language, I think.
Question:
From which languages do these words come from ? Fill in the space.
1.arubaito
2.konbu
3.atorie
4.sutamina
5.toofu
6.tempura
7.biiru
# 1.German 2.Ainu 3.French 4.Latin 5.Chinese 6.Portuguese 7.German
Japanese language is composed of so many foreign languages. Now it is changing , and
a new word from migrants or other cultures is coined increasingly.
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