The Present Situation of the Ainu Language and Its Revitalization

Abstract

It is extremely difficult to determine the exact population of Ainu speakers. First, the Japanese government has not yet recognized the Ainu people legally as an ethnic group, and therefore we have no reliable official data on them. Second, such a survey itself might violate the speakers’ privacy and cause racial discrimination. As for the present situation of the Ainu language, “Ainu language classes” have contributed to language transmission for years, but unfortunately it is getting more and more difficult for many Ainu classes to obtain the assistance of actual native speakers. It is true that the “New Ainu Law” established in 1997 has also supported many activities for revitalizing the Ainu language, but this law makes no reference to the legal rights of the Ainu people. Although recently it has become nearly impossible to conduct field research, the linguistic study of the Ainu language will continue to be important in terms of language revitalization activities. For example, noun incorporation plays an important role in this language, and it can be classified into a marked type (subject incorporation) and an unmarked type (object incorporation) according to the interaction of a number of rules. On this basis, it is possible to choose a structurally more acceptable candidate when the coinage of a new word is necessary.