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| Languages of Japan | |
|---|---|
| Official | None[1] |
| National | Standard Japanese |
| Main | Standard Japanese |
| Indigenous | Ainu |
| Regional | Japanese dialects, Amami-Ōshima, Kunigami, Miyako, Okinawan, Yaeyama, Yonaguni |
| Minority | Bonin English, Matagi, Nivkh, Orok, Sanka, Zainichi Korean |
| Immigrant | Chinese, Korean, Filipino, Mongolian, Portuguese |
| Foreign | Arabic, Bengali, Burmese, Chinese, Dutch, English, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Lao, Malay, Nepali, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Tamil, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese |
| Signed | Japanese Sign Language Amami Oshima Sign Language Miyakubo Sign Language |
| Keyboard layout | |
The most widely spoken language in Japan is Japanese, which is separated into several dialects with Tokyo dialect considered Standard Japanese.
In addition to the Japanese language, Ryūkyūan languages are spoken in Okinawa and parts of Kagoshima in the Ryūkyū Islands. Along with Japanese, these languages are part of the Japonic language family, but they are separate languages,[citation needed] and are not mutually intelligible with Japanese, or with each other. All of the spoken Ryukyuan languages are classified by UNESCO as endangered.
In Hokkaidō, there is the Ainu language, which is spoken by the Ainu people, who are the indigenous people of the island. The Ainu languages, of which Hokkaidō Ainu is the only extant variety, are isolated and do not fall under any language family. Ever since the Meiji period, Japanese has become widely used among the Ainu people and consequently Ainu languages have been classified critically endangered by UNESCO.[2]
In addition, languages such as Orok, Evenki and Nivkh spoken in formerly Japanese controlled southern Sakhalin are becoming more and more endangered. After the Soviet Union took control of the region, speakers of these languages and their descendants migrated to mainland Japan and still exist in small numbers.
- ^ "参議院法制局".
- ^ Ertl, John, ed. (2008). Multiculturalism in the new Japan : crossing the boundaries within. New York: Berghahn Books. p. 57. ISBN 9780857450258.