[This article was originally published in the Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, vol. 16 (1995), pp. 103-124. An identical copy appeared in the book Multilingual Japan (John C. Maher & Kyoko Yashiro, eds.; Multilingual Matters, Clevedon, 1995). This is a rough copy of the text of the printed edition, with some correction of obvious typos. -- J. DeChicchis]
The current state of the Ainu language
Joseph DeChicchis
International Christian University
Abstract
In describing the Ainu people and the Ainu language, we consider the new political empowerment of this group and its current language revival. After detailing the present location of the Ainu and the former extent of their country, there follows a brief review of the published literature in (the) Ainu (language) or on (the) Ainu (people), and of audio recordings and broadcasts of Ainu speech. Theories of genetic affiliation are discussed, and the importance of Ainu as a window into world linguistic history is recognized. The social and political consciousness raising, which is now fueling the Ainu language revival, is cited as the salvation of this endangered language.
Ainu and the Ainu
The term 'Ainu' refers to both a language and an ethnic group. As with most languages, there was once a high degree of correspondence between individuals who could speak the Ainu language and individuals who were ethnically Ainu. Times change, however, and today's Ainu, like many of the world's ethnic groups, are so integrated into the modern industrialized socio-economic community, with its global travel and ethnic cross-pollination and multilingualism, that there is no longer a close correspondence between Ainu ethnics and Ainu speakers. Undoubtedly the best known of Japan's minority groups (DeChicchis 1994), the overwhelming majority of Ainu ethnics maintain residences throughout Japan, where they attend schools, find jobs, and enjoy their leisure time much as do residents of France, the United States, or other leading industrialized nations. Depending on individual needs and preferences, an ethnic Ainu may speak Japanese, English, French, or even Ainu. On the other hand, the currently increasing number of Ainu language courses available suggests that the number of non-Ainu speakers of Ainu will continue to increase, contributing to yet a greater distinction between the ethnic Ainu and the Ainu language speakers. Thus, in what follows, we shall continue to distinguish between these two groups, as must always be done when any language acquires currency beyond the domain of its characteristic culture. In this we are not implying that these two sets are disjoint; indeed, there are (and we hope that there will always continue to be) individuals who are both Ainu ethnics and Ainu speakers. The point to be recognized is simply that it has become difficult to predict membership in one group on the basis of membership in the other group.
Ainu Moshir
People who are newly acquainted with the Ainu are understandably quick to ask questions such as: where do the Ainu live? where is their homeland? However, before we can begin to discuss Ainu origins and geographic place, we must address the presupposition that such questions have a definite answer.
To appreciate the difficulty of such questions, we might instead ask, by way of example: where are the Virginians? Are we to consider as proper Virginians only those adults who were born in Virginia? or perhaps only those raised there? or perhaps the descendents of anyone raised there? or perhaps only those who might hold a Virginia driver's license? or perhaps only those who pay certain state taxes? Alternatively, we may ask: where is Virginia? Are we asking about the territorial limits of the Commonwealth of Virginia as now recognized by the U.S. federal government? Or are we asking about a territory once claimed by England? The two territories are not coextensive. Are the sites of present-day Pittsburgh, Lexington, Charleston, Alexandria, and Richmond to be included within Virginia or not? Virginia has a documented territorial history of nearly four hundred years, during which time its boundaries have been recognized, ignored, disputed, settled, and changed. Many people over the years have asserted their residency in, and even loyalty to, Virginia. Virginia has been said to be the homeland of certain indigenous inhabitants, such as the Powhatan (Algonkin) and the Tuscarora (Iroquois), who have been loath to make expressions of loyalty or even to recognize its dominion. In short, Virginia is a concept; it is a concept of place created by cultural cosmology. To be sure, Virginia is associated with a certain geographic territory, but this territory has changed its boundaries over time, and the precise extent of this territory has never been clear to most Virginians. Virginia is Virginia because nearly all Virginians agree that they are home when they are there (whatever they might believe there to be), and because enough other non-Virginians agree with them.
Ainu Moshir, the Ainu homeland, is like Virginia. Ainu Moshir is the place where the Ainu live; it is where the Ainu are at home. The term has been used by European writers in this common geographic sense since 1591 ('Ainomoxori' in De Yezorum insula; reported in Lach 1965). As with Virginia, the exact geographic extent of Ainu Moshir may long have been unclear to the Ainu themselves. Certainly, there is not full agreement that Ainu Moshir's territorial limits correspond to any sections of commonly seen maps (e.g., Ohtsuka, 1993: 15). Moreover, the folkloric use of 'Ainu Moshir' to distinguish the realm of humans from the realm of the gods, as well as the contemporary use of the term to denote the Ainu people, has also complicated the interpretation of the term (cf. Ohnuki-Tierney, 1973; Sjöberg, 1993). Nevertheless, despite unclear physical and abstract references, there is every reason to believe that the Ainu have for many, many years felt an affinity to certain geographic features (areas of both land and water), and it is in no way inappropriate that we recognize their territory as Ainu Moshir (cf. Yamagishi and Yamamoto 1991; Hori and Kan 1992; Siddle 1993).
The current locus of Ainu speakers and ethnic Ainu
Ainu speakers are most easily encountered in two kinds of places: traditional communities and scholastic circles. A small number of communities located in Ainu Moshir, the Ainu homeland, contain both old and young speakers of Ainu. These speakers routinely speak Japanese, and the younger ones also know some English, while some of the older ones know Russian. Ainu speakers can also be found in the Tokyo and Osaka areas, which have been popular destinations for people from traditional communities who have settled elsewhere in Japan. In addition to the Ainu speakers in and from the traditionally Ainu villages, there are individuals who study the Ainu language in Tokyo and other urban centers far from Ainu Moshir. These Ainu speakers, who have studied the language in a university or in a less formal community setting, tend to be young adults with interests in Ainu traditions, Ainu folklore, and Ainu language revival. The current growth of publications in the Ainu language is being led by this latter group.
Because Ainu has so often been said to be a dying language, the question of what percentage of the Ainu speak Ainu is often heard. Answering this question requires a count of both the number of Ainu speakers and the total number of Ainu, be they Ainu speakers or not. Because we can easily recognize instances of Ainu speech, the former number may be determined. However, as with Virginians, it is very difficult to decide who is to be counted as being Ainu. One approach is to attempt an ethnic characterization of the Ainu which will permit some sort of reasonable population estimate. Ethnicity is a social construct which, unlike most social groupings, purports to be a social grouping with strong physiological correlates. In the U.S., for example, African Americans as a group have a higher incidence of the hereditary sickle cell anemia. However, in order to investigate the ratios of blood types, the frequency of certain taste sensitivities, the odontometric patterns, and other such physiological markers for the Ainu, one must have an independent operational method for determining who in the test population (e.g., the residents of Hokkaido) will be counted as being Ainu and who will be counted as being non-Ainu. A method commonly used to segregate an ethnic group for study from a larger population is the method of self-identification. By this method, we might first ask individuals whether or not they are Ainu. Those who assert that they are Ainu are then presumed to be Ainu, while those who deny being Ainu are presumed to be non-Ainu. Unfortunately, self-identification as a screening method has the drawback of relying on the veracity of subjects. In the case of Ainu, it is generally understood that there are many people who, though they believe themselves to be Ainu, will nevertheless routinely deny that they are Ainu when questioned. Many Ainu will admit their self-identification as Ainu only to their closest confidants; perhaps only to themselves. For many years, a senior official in the largest Ainu social organization did not disclose his Ainu heritage to his children, instead fostering the childrens' belief that they were non-Ainu. This pattern of denial has long been common among the Ainu in Japan, and only a very astute ethnologist could even begin to use the self-identification method with any success. Legitimate estimates vary according to the researcher's estimate of the denial ratio. On the assumption that roughly half of those who believe themselves to be Ainu are unwilling to disclose this fact to others, researchers have argued that the number of officially registered Ainu (over 24,000) should be at least doubled (Oda 1983) to reflect a truer figure of 50,000 or 60,000. More optimistic estimates by Ainu representatives range to 300,000 (Sjöberg 1993: 152) and beyond. The higher estimates are often accompanied by statements noting the loss of geneological knowledge, and they occasionally presume a counterfactual test whereby the Ainu consist of those who would assert their Ainu ethnicity if only they were aware of the facts of their ancestry.
Despite the difficulties of establishing bona fide Ainu populations, research has been conducted in Japan on population samples which may be considered fair representations of the Ainu and non-Ainu populations. Such studies have continually confirmed significant differences between the Ainu and the non-Ainu samples (Umehara and Hanihara 1982: passim; Brace et al. 1989: passim; Turner 1992: 428). Nevertheless, with respect to the physiological measurement studies, it must be emphasized that the variance of sizable samples (whether Ainu or non-Ainu) is typically large; moreover, the variance is so great as to invalidate any application of this difference to predictions based on the physiological properties of an individual. In other words, it is not possible, on physiological grounds, to successfully categorize randomly selected individuals from Japan's present population as being either Ainu or non-Ainu, even though the two sample populations can be differentiated. Years of intermarriage with and adoption of Wajin (non-Ainu Japanese and their associates) and perhaps other foreign peoples have resulted in there being no reliable physiological correlates of individual Ainu ethnicity.
The former extent of Ainu speech communities
Early 20th century scholars who lived and traveled widely among the Ainu (especially, Pilsudski, Batchelor, and Munro) provide a picture of 'the modern Ainu', the downtrodden and disenfranchised but not yet thoroughly assimilated people described by these researchers during the first half of the 20th century. Following the reports of these observers, we may consider Hokkaido, southern Sakhalin, and the Kurile Islands to be the heart of Ainu Moshir. The overt similarities and the degree of mutual comprehensibility of the speech varieties of Ainu Moshir were great enough to group these regional varieties as dialects of a single language, Ainu, and subsequent dialectal studies (Hattori 1964) confirmed and detailed this regional variation of modern Ainu. Moreover, people from various places all over Hokkaido and elsewhere identified themselves as being Ainu. Unfortunately, there are no old historical descriptions of the speech of most of these Ainu communities, so we must rely on documents compiled by the Japanese, the chronicles of European explorers, the evidence from archeology, and the Ainu oral histories when trying to determine the extent of the territories where the Ainu language was formerly spoken.
Japanese documentary evidence dating back to the 12th century indicate the presence of a stable indigenous population on the Oshima Peninsula of southwestern Hokkaido. This fact links Ainu-speaking populations with the material culture complex known to archeologists as the Satsumon. In terms of material culture, the Satsumon people were superceded by their Ainu descendents, who differed principally in terms of dwelling construction and ceramic industry. The Satsumon people lived in pit dwellings (the modern Hokkaido Ainu in above ground houses), and they were potters (the modern Ainu were not). Both the Satsumon people and the historic Ainu ate salmon and deer. Although Batchelor presents some folkloric evidence that the Satsumon pit dwellers were not Ainu (1892: 307ff), his reporting of both above-ground (in Hokkaido) and in-ground (in Shikotan and elsewhere in the Kurile Islands) dwelling by contemorary Ainu strongly supports the identification.
The identification of the Satsumon people with both the house-dwelling modern Ainu and the pit-dwelling modern Ainu leaves unaccounted for only the language of the people identified by the Okhotsk archeological complex, which flourished briefly in northeastern Hokkaido up until the 13th century. It is normally regarded as an intrusive culture by Ainu scholars (Ohnuki-Tierney 1974: 5), and there are two additional facts which may be interpreted in support of the hypothesis that the Okhotsk people did not speak Ainu. First, the diet and associated lifestyle of the Okhotsk people, who were open-sea mariners, were different from that of the Satsumon people. Second, Ainu oral history suggests that the Ainu ancestors were distinct from the Okhotsk people (Philippi 1979), and thatø the two groups experienced cycles of war and peaceful commerce. Despite these differences, it is certainly possible that the Okhotsk seafarers were themselves speakers of Ainu. If not native speakers, then perhaps they were bilingual; indeed this could easily have been true by the twefth century, after years of fighting and trading with the Ainu. Positing such Ainu language ability would help explain the sudden disappearance of the Okhotsk complex, since knowing the same language would have facilitated any transition from one pattern of material culture (i.e., Okhotsk) to another (i.e., Ainu). The importance of seaworthy vessels among the cultural items of the modern Ainu further attests to this possibility (Ohtsuka 1993: 94).
In light of the foregoing and other considerations, it is now generally agreed that Ainu Moshir, as geographically construed, comprises three areas: Hokkaido and its nearby islands, southern Sakhalin and its smaller offshore islands, and the Kurile Islands (including those north of Etorofu Island). It seems certain that the Ainu language was also spoken in northern Honshu, and it would be imprudent to deny that Ainu was spoken in the area of the Amur Estuary and on the Kamchatkan Peninsula (cf. Murayama 1968); however, it is not generally accepted that these areas lie within Ainu Moshir. More speculative links with western Japan (Batchelor 1929; Kagami 1962), and elsewhere (Brace et al. 1989) will probably continue to be investigated.
Although the Ainu language undoubtedly has distant roots in language communities on the Asian continent, it is in Ainu Moshir that the Ainu language, in tandem with Ainu material culture, enjoyed centuries of fruitful development prior to its entry into the annals of linguistic and cultural history.
Sovereignty succumbs to imperialism
The earliest Japanese and Chinese documents which mention a people presumed to be Ainu indicate that Ainu Moshir was considered the sovereign territory of a people of recognized cultural development and economic potency (Komai 1964; Emory 1987; Harrison 1950). The earliest European reports by de Angelis, Carvalho, and DeVries confirm the dominion of this people over their territory. The Japanese called this people Yezo, and their land Yezogashima (Yezo's islands). In one of the earliest European descriptions, Ainu Moshir is called the Kingdom of Yezo ("[il] Regno di Iezo", de Angelis 1624, quoted in Naert, 1962). Ainu Moshir, especially Hokkaido, was so commonly regarded as the Ainu's country that it was standardly distinguished from Japan and referred to as Yezo (Rousselot de Surgy, 1765; Broughton, 1804; Lindner, 1812; Titsingh, 1814; de Rosny, 1861), and even as Ainu Land (von Siebold, 1858), by European writers for many years.
During the late 18th century and early 19th century, under the auspices of the Japanese shogun, Mogami Tokunai and, later, Mamiya Rinzô explored areas of Ainu Moshir and wrote reports which were widely circulated. By this time, Ainu culture was waning in the face of Japanese and Russian expansion. The year 1789 saw the final instance of armed resistance by the Ainu against the Japanese, and Ainu subjugation increased rapidly under Japanese regional and, later, central government direction. The Japanese came to regard Yezogashima as Japanese, rather than Ainu, territory. A similar attitude arose among the Russians, whose imperial government sponsored the anthropological exploration and description of the inhabitants of the vast northeastern territories to which it lay claim. Increasing disdain for the Ainu is clearly reflected in the reports of late 18th century explorers, such as de Galaup (the Comte de La Pérouse) and Broughton, who represent the Ainu as inhabitants of Japanese and Russian territories.
With the Meiji Restoration, Yezogashima was renamed Hokkaido, and the Japanese central government embarked on an aggressive colonial policy (Salwey 1913; Appert 1925; Harrison 1953). The disparity between Ainu and Wajin wealth and material culture had become so great, that the Ainu began to be identified as the aborigines of Japan (St. John 1873; Fischer 1896; Starr 1904). By the end of the 19th century, no Ainu community remained beyond the purview of Japan and Russia. The use of Japanese and Russian languages among the ethnic Ainu increased, and Ainu language use declined. On occasion, Ainu have been forcibly relocated by both Japanese and Russian governments, and these two world powers have continued to occupy Ainu Moshir and press conflicting territorial claims even up to the present day.
Today's Ainu language community
Although there is no longer any community where Ainu serves as the primary medium of spoken expression and interaction, and although it may be thus fairly said that there is no present-day vernacular Ainu speech community, it would be misleading to say that Ainu is a dead language. In fact, the current revival of Ainu study and usage has been accompanied by the greatest output ever of Ainu language magazine and book publications; not to mention audio and video recordings, and radio and television broadcasts. As is the case with many of the world's multilingual communities, it is no longer insightful to merely describe a language in terms of its use as a medium of spoken communication. Instead of 'speech' communities, we must detail 'language' communities, with descriptions of the various functions served by a particular language in given communities.
Given our linguistic (as opposed to a philological or literary or psychological) perspective, we nevertheless continue to acknowledge the importance of a language's speech function, and we may therefore begin our description of the Ainu language community with a description of the current stock of Ainu speakers. There are four main categories of Ainu speakers: archival Ainu speakers, old Ainu-Japanese bilinguals, token Ainu speakers, and second language learners of Ainu.
The 'archival speakers' are those speakers who were members of a robust multigenerational Ainu speech community; that is, a community in which Ainu was usually spoken by people of various ages. Few of these people remain alive; however, the audio and video recordings of their speech is culturally esteemed as representing a generally pure form of the Ainu language, and this has secured their influential role as models to be emulated by living speakers.
In contrast to the archival speakers, there are alive today elders who as children and young adults spoke Ainu on a routine basis in a natural community setting, yet who also became fluent speakers of Japanese, which they now speak routinely. Since these elders have few chances to meet with other competent Ainu speakers, it would be imprudent to assume that their infrequent use of Ainu reflects a competency secondary to that of Japanese. There have been several cases where such elders were believed to be monolingual in Japanese until one day, when they were in the company of another Ainu speaking elder, they began speaking Ainu. The range of abilities in vocabulary and folklore varies, but typically the ability of each elder turns out to be greater than originally imagined, and we may call these elders the 'old Ainu-Japanese bilinguals'. Human mortality is reducing the number of elders in this group, and the current Ainu language revival is motivated in part by the death knoll which the eventual loss of this group would symbolize if the current revival were not under way.
Although the term 'Ainu speaker' normally refers either to an archival speaker or to an Ainu-Japanese bilingual, there is in addition an important group of 'token Ainu speakers'. Of the ethnic Ainu who consider themselves unable to speak Ainu, quite a few recall their parents and other older relatives speaking Ainu. Such recollection reinforces their spoken command of certain words and formulaic phrases, which they continue to use in appropriate contexts, and for this reason we may call them token Ainu speakers. Because they normally speak Japanese in the home and elsewhere, and because their Ainu repertoire is so limited, they do not consider themselves to be true Ainu speakers, though they would acknowledge that their abilities are superior to those of the average Japanese citizen. The situation is reminiscent of the use of Italian words and phrases by many people whose grandparents emigrated from Italy to the United States; many of them would be at a general loss to communicate with people on the streets of Orvieto, though they would likely fair better than those Americans whose grandparents emigrated from Ireland. There is considerable variation in the abilities of these token Ainu speakers. Many of them have recently begun formal study of Ainu grammar and spoken genres, and their skills may surpass those of some older bilinguals. Still, regardless of skill level, these Ainu have in common both their self-perception as marginal or impoverished speakers and their positive valuation of the Ainu language as an important cultural legacy.
Similar to the token Ainu speakers in range of ability, the second language learners of Ainu nevertheless differ in terms of their attitude toward the language. These second language learners include many younger Ainu with no personal memories of any Ainu speech community, as well as other interested people, who are now studying and speaking Ainu. Besides self-study, they benefit from a number of language courses now being offered in Hokkaido and on Honshu. This teaching of Ainu as a foreign language typically involves memorizing vocabulary and grammatical structures, translating into and from Japanese, rehearsing conversational formulae, and reciting yukar and other folkloric genre texts. In courses organized by Ainu communities, greater emphasis tends to be placed on learning the vocabulary associated with artifacts and concepts of cultural importance, and on the recitation of the yukar. The students in these courses typically come from Ainu families, who encourage their quest to harvest their cultural heritage. On the other hand, the courses offered by universities, which attract mostly non-Ainu students who happen to have a particular interest in the Ainu language, tend to place greater emphasis on grammar and on linguistic analysis.
Study groups have also been formed, especially by university-age students, to supplement these institutionally sponsored courses. As a result of such study, many young Ainu speakers have emerged. Competency in the language varies for both the ethnically Ainu and the non-Ainu; it depends more on their scholarly diligence and their teachers' skills than on their ethnicity, just as one might expect of foreign language learners. Although there are young second language speakers and token Ainu speakers whose skill levels are comparable, attitude toward the language and self perception serve to distinguish the two groups. The younger second language learners see themselves as learning a new language. Even those who are ethnically Ainu do not view themselves as having lost a language. These younger second language learners recognize their marginal abilities in Ainu, but they view these abilities as being a partial competency rather than as being a partial incompetency, and in this respect they differ from the token speakers. At Ainu cultural events, these younger second language learners seem more willing to speak Ainu than do the generally older token Ainu speakers. Though this may be an effect of youthful exuberance, it may also stem from the difference in self perception as Ainu speakers.
For completeness, we may note that, of the second language learners, the ethnically Ainu share with the token Ainu speakers similar attitudes toward Ainu's status as their personal heritage language; however, this attitudinal distinction between the second language learners who are ethnically Ainu and those who are non-Ainu has no discernible consequence for their speech behavior.
Publications on Ainu and in Ainu
Four kinds of writing comprise Ainu linguistic literature: vocabulary lists, archival texts, linguistic analyses, and contemporary publications intended for students of the Ainu language. In spite of lacunae, good bibliographies provide an entry into this Ainu literature (Tamura 1967; Taguchi 1974; Hickman 1976; Adami 1981; Senmoto 1992). Significantly, critical editions of standard Ainu texts, perhaps the one things which the modern computer assisted linguistic analysis of a language thrives on (the way that analysis in former times was driven by comprehensive dictionaries and concordances), have yet to be produced.
The first simple Ainu glossaries were produced by merchants, missionaries, and explorers (Ribaud 1897; Naert 1962; Kindaichi 1972; Adami 1986). Later, as the social position of the Ainu declined, Japanese and European scholars began to assemble more extensive glossaries and word lists, sometimes in support of comparative or toponymic studies (Pfizmaier 1854; Siebold 1858; de Rosny 1861; Dobrotvorskij 1875; Mechnikov 1880; Nagata 1891; Batchelor 1905, 1929), or even phonetic study (Rousselot 1911, 1912). Increasing interest in Ainu, on the part of both scholars and others, brought a marked improvement in the availability of Ainu reference works generally, as well as a proliferation of glossaries in particular (Murayama 1971; Hatanaka 1972; Kagawa 1972; Chisato and Yokoyama 1987). Hattori's dialect dictionary (1964), Majewicz's index to the Pilsudski texts (1986), Kindaichi's several word lists (1993), Chiri's dictionary (1956b) and Yoshida's dictionary (1989) will always be excellent resources.
Although the increasing availability of audio recordings has in many ways superseded printed transcriptions, some of the yukar and other texts collected in earlier years remain important records of archival speakers (Pfizmaier 1850, 1851, 1874; Batchelor 1888; Chamberlain 1888; O'Neil 1888; Pilsudski 1912, 1985; Shternberg 1933; Munro 1938; Taylor 1947; Waley 1951; Ponfuchi 1987; Kindaichi 1993). Linguists looking to make use of older texts must exercise some caution, however, since the methods of text collection and transcription were not fixed, and details of venu were often poorly documented. Clearly, an important future project for Ainu linguists must be a philologically acceptable collation and annotation of these records. In the meantime, Kindaichi (1993) has provided the largest single corpus of texts in this category, and it is well edited and easily obtained.
Linguistic studies of Ainu have a long history, but the most recent publications perhaps contain the best descriptions. By the mid-19th century, grammatically diagnostic phrases and poetic texts were appearing in European publications (Pfizmaier 1849, 1850, 1851a, 1851b). By the end of the century, articles written in European languages about the Ainu and aspects of their culture had ceased to be rare, and longer collections of Ainu verse and folktales began to be published (Batchelor 1888; Chamberlain 1988). In the present century, the quality of linguistic descriptions began to improve, replete with textual data as cited examples or supplementary text (Batchelor 1903, 1938; Rousselot 1911, 1912; Pilsudski 1912; Laufer 1917; Shternberg 1933). Unlike the Japanese, European scholars have tended toward comparative studies (Gjerdman 1926; Zenker 1926; Koppelmann 1928; Naert 1958; Kagami 1962; Windekens 1960, 1961, 1962a, 1962b; Takahashi 1965; Hamp 1969). However, publications increasingly reflected a greater European interest in improving synchronic descriptions (Laufer 1917; Gjerdman 1959; Hattori 1964, 1967; Tamura 1967; Peng 1970; Peng and Brainerd 1970; Austerlitz 1968, 1976; Simeon 1968, 1969a, 1969b, 1970, 1972, 1976). Juxtaposed against the shorter papers about lexicogrammatical and etymological phenomena , Patrie's book on genetic affiliation (1982) and Refsing's description of a Hokkaido idiolect (1986) are of commendable scope. The legacy of European scholarship notwithstanding, the most impressive descriptions of Ainu have been published in Japanese (Chiri 1952, 1956a, 1956b; Chiri Mashiho and Kindaichi Kyousuke 1936; Hattori 1964; Kindaichi Kyousuke and Chiri Mashiho 1960; Tamura 1956, 1970, 1985, 1987; Murasaki 1976, 1979; Asai 1970). Though occasional flaws and a perceived imperiousness have undermined his credibility among certain members of the Ainu community (Ponfuchi 1976), Kindaichi's studies and the yukar transcriptions on which they are based remain the standard against which other research is evaluated. Shibatani's grammatical sketch of Classical Ainu (1990) relies heavily on Kindaichi. Dettmer's comprehensive reference grammar (1989) incorporates the great contributions of Kindaichi and Chiri, as well as more recent studies by Tamura, Murasaki, and others.
Just as Japanese have dominated scholarly research on Ainu, so too have they published the greatest number of books for the popular market. Most of the Ainu primers, shorter dictionaries, yukar translations, language-learning aids, and historical descriptions which have been published have been prepared in Japan for a Japanese readership (Chisato and Yokoyama 1987; Yokoyama and Chiri 1988; Katayama 1993). This is true also of the many toponymic studies (Yamada 1970). In the area of language teaching, Tamura and her colleagues at Waseda University have published a number of Ainu texts with Japanese translations and linguistic analyses, and these materials have supported the study of Ainu as a foreign language for nearly two decades. Ainu language courses at Waseda, and similar courses at Chiba University and elsewhere, attract a variety of students, and the current Ainu language revival has recently launched a number of publications intended for those language learners and language users who have a greater interest in Ainu culture than in Ainu linguistics. As this audience is almost exclusively comprised of Ainu ethnics and Japanese, the monolingual materials tend to be written using the Japanese katakana, and the bilingual materials tend to be Ainu-Japanese, though there are some exceptions to this rule (Tobe 1989). The recent Ainu language newsletters and magazines are similar to other minority language publications in Japan in that their formats tend to follow those of Japan language publications, though they tend to use more roman in writing Ainu (Pooro 1993).
Audio and video recordings
Due to both fortune and foresight, there is a fairly impressive corpus of recordings of archival speakers. The earliest specimens, which date from the turn of the century, were recorded by Pilsudski on lacquer cylinders. Kayano's many publications of yukar (1979 to 1991) are transcriptions of the many recordings he has made of archival speakers, and he has published some texts with accompanying audiotape (1974). Tamura has made many recordings available through Waseda University, and Murasaki has also released audio recordings (1979). The audio recordings from which other published texts have been transcribed (Sugimura et al. 1969; Fujimoto et al. 1978; Hokkaido Kyôikucho 1988, 1990, 1992, 1993; Zaidan Houjin Ainu Mukei Bunka Denshou Hozonkai 1986) may also one day be released. The great advantage of these releases, for those learning Ainu, lies in their accompanying transcriptions and translations, both into Japanese and occasionally English.
The Ainu revival has seen increasing popularity of the various Ainu cultural festivals. These festivals showcase traditional Ainu songs and dances, and the largest Ainu cultural festival even sponsors an Ainu language speech contest for younger speakers. Nearly every festival features recitations of yukar, which are unfailingly videotaped. Excerpts of these public performances are often broadcast, especially in Ainu Moshir, and edited videotape cassettes are often available for purchase. A number of museums have facilities for viewing such performances. There are even videos available for purchase through the Hokkaido Utari Kyokai. It is also common that the children or the student of a reciter of yukar, for example, have an extensive collection of recordings on audiotape or videotape.
It is indeed in the electronic media where we find the most tangible effects of the Ainu revival. Near universal access to audiocassette and videocassette players is satisfying the desires for Ainu language entertainment in a way no written transcription of yukar ever could. Token Ainu speakers routinely report the joy of being able to sit and listen to their mother's or grandmother's recitations of yukar (verse genres) or of uwepeker (nonverse genres). Buttressed by these modern memory aids, the younger Ainu, especially the women, are increasingly singing iyaihumke (a kind of lullaby), and even sections of the longer oina (verse about ancestral heroes) and kamui yukar (verse about cosmology). For these Ainu, who speak Japanese for daily communication, Basho and Soseki hold no charm; the Ainu prefer the verse of their ancestors from the mouths of their elders. Ainu texts are even finding their way into popular music (Moshiri).
Kayano, who has been using taperecorded texts for years in teaching his students Ainu (Hokkaido Seikatsu Fukushibu 1990), has produced Ainu language-learning videos, and he has even taken his Ainu lessons to the airwaves. In Hokkaido, STV Radio began broadcasting Ainu lessons in 1987. Although some consider the idea unfeasible, Kayano would like to also see Ainu language broadcasts of the news and of cultural information, for he feels that it is important for the Japanese government to permit such gestures in order that Ainu speakers may realize that their language is truly a heritage artifact to be cherished. In 1990, order to debunk the idea that television news could not be given in Ainu, a group of students conducted a public performance of a mock television news broadcast in Tokyo.
Affiliations with other languages: genetic and areal
The scholarly treatment of the Ainu language, begun by Catholic missionaries in the sixteenth century, initially supported the needs of translation for commerce. Glossaries and phrase books were produced. Subsequent appreciation of the several spoken art forms led to the collection of extensive Ainu texts. This rudimentary corpus of Ainu lexical and textual material permitted the (not always careful) application of comparative methods in Europe. In Japan, a similar interest in etymology sparked collections and analyses of place names. Modern linguists have concentrated on synchronic description, with attention both to different levels of analytic structure (lexicogrammar, phonology, and discourse) and to dialectal variation. In recent years, attempts are being made to seriously address diachronic description as well.
That it is easy to see affinities between Ainu and many different languages has a basis in statistical fact (Ringe 1992); that the Ainu and the genetic affiliation of their language have been the object of some of history's most fanciful speculation is a topic best understood from a sociology of science perspective. Essentially, speculation about Ainu origins begins with the arrival of Europeans. Until that time, there is no record that the Japanese and other neighbors of the Ainu ever seriously theorized about whence their neighbors came. Their oral and written histories told them that there had been conflicts and perhaps even that territories had changed hands over the years; still the Ainu and the neighbors of Ainu Moshir had been neighbors for as long as anyone could remember. To ask about origins would be like a Swede speculating about the origin of a Finn. When the Europeans arrived in Ainu Moshir, common sense was put in abeyance.
Europeans who had traveled in Ainu Moshir, Japan, and other countries of the area could not help but notice similarities of vocabulary. Such observations began to circulate widely in the latter half of the nineteenth century (de Rosny 1861; Aston 1879; Mechnikov 1880), and those most familiar with the Ainu and Japanese languages began to promote the idea of Ainu-Japanese affiliation (Chamberlain 1887; Batchelor 1929). The Ainu-Japanese hypothesis quickly found adherents in Japan, where it has continued to be supported down to the present day (Shibatani 1990), especially with toponymic evidence (Chiri 1956b; Kagami 1962). Although no one would categorically deny an Ainu-Japanese affinity, the exact nature of the relationship remains unclear, and the methods of early investigators is open to serious criticism (Chiri 1956a, 1956b).
The early reports of a bearded, robust, well-proportioned people who were more similar to Europeans than were the Japanese (de Angelis 1624) became exaggerated, and this "evidence" eventually led etymologists to investigate Indo-European and Uralic origins of Ainu (Gjerdman 1926; Koppelmann 1928; Naert 1958; Lindqvist 1960). The differences in the interpretation of the Ainu data made for lively discussion (Benveniste 1960; Tailleur 1960, 1961; van Windekens 1961), and the occasional comments by Japanese linguists pointed out embarrassing gaps in the European data (Takahashi 1962). The various proposals for etyma, receiving no support from comprehensive systems of regular sound change, ceased to be debated after the 1960s, though an Ainu-European connection continued to surface in the popular press for some time thereafter.
Today, perhaps the best regarded theory of Ainu's genetic affiliation is the Altaic hypothesis advocated by Patrie (1982), who claims that Ainu, Korean, and Japanese together comprise a subgroup of the Altaic family. Superseding earlier research on the similarities of these languages in the area around Ainu Moshir (e.g., Zenker 1926), Patrie's book, despite certain difficulties of reconstruction, presents an impressive list of cognates (Miller 1983). Apart from Altaicists, additional support for the genetic relationships of these languages has been slow in forthcoming, especially from Japanese scholars. Though armed with excellent dialectal descriptions and reasonably good historical documents, and despite a certain popular interest in the topic, the best Japanese linguists continue to neglect the proper historical study of Ainu, and even highly regarded reviews must vacillate on the question of genetic affiliation (Shibatani 1990). Millennia of contact, population movement, and social adaptation undoubtedly created many opportunities for language change. Working out the patterns of shared innovation, borrowing, and analogy is a herculean task, and it can be accomplished with coöperation between Altaicists and Japanese dialectologists and philologists, though such coöperation is only slowly materializing. In the end, Ainu may ultimately be viewed as a non-Altaic language with a large stock of Altaic vocabulary. Whatever the outcome may be, firm conclusions must await our deeper understanding of Ainu and its plausible sound changes.
Whatever may prove to be the Stammbaum which includes Ainu, it is clear that borrowings have also played a role in the development of the language. Historical contact with speakers of Japanese, Kamchadal, Nivkhi, Evenki, and Orok is documented (Pilsudski 1907; Sternberg 1933); contact with speakers of Yukaghir, Chukchi, and other Paleosiberian languages is not unlikely. Until better materials on some of these languages become more widely accessible, hypotheses about the effects of such areal contact with Ainu will be necessarily speculative.
The badge of a newly empowered ethnic group
The Hokkaido Ainu have been engaged in a century-long struggle to regain rights which were lost to Japanese colonialization. Japanese legislation at the turn of the century had been designed to legitimate the appropriation of Ainu Moshir while at the same time distinguishing the Ainu as an outcast group (Watanabe 1964; Maher 1993). Bans on Ainu language, hunting, fishing, and other customs disrupted traditional livelihood and, with the forced relocation of communities, precipitated the Ainu's eventual incorporation into Japanese society, albeit as an underclass. Over the years, most legislative sanctions against the Ainu were relaxed. By the era of U.S. administration, Ainu candidates were standing in both local and national elections. Since then, Ainu groups and individuals have increasingly sought remedies for past and present injustices through legislative and judicial means (Makihara 1992). One focus of Ainu activists has been their claims of linguistic rights; another has been their claims to territorial rights. In recents years, representatives of the Ainu have sought international assistance as they seek to gain and protect these rights (Ainu Association of Hokkaido 1992).
The Ainu Association of Hokkaido, which has represented the Ainu before the United Nations, has decried Japanese prohibitions of Ainu language use in schools and on state-funded television. In the meantime, the Hokkaido Ainu have established their own Ainu language schools in Biratori, Asahikawa, Urakawa, Kushiro, Sapporo, Shiraoi, Akan, Chitose, Shizunai, Mukawa, and Obihiro. Although the excessive demands which Japanese society puts on the time of high school students makes it very difficult for them to attend Ainu language classes, these schools have been quite successful in teaching Ainu language and folklore to younger children. Unfortunately, these schools are hampered by chronic shortages of funds and a lack of support from the Japanese government.
Access to education and broadcast media, as well as other linguistic rights, are among the environmental, territorial, and cultural issues of immediate concern to the Ainu. The Ainu are also concerned that they are misrepresented by the Japanese historical record, and many Ainu are especially concerned about disseminating Ainu perspectives on history. Ainu oral histories help to balance histories compiled by Japanese government offices. After years of being ignored, Ainu histories (Tsunasawa 1983; Yamagishi and Yamamoto 1991; Hori and Kan 1992) are now informing television documentaries. Because the current Ainu activism and language revival has sparked renewed interest in Ainu throughout Japan, such television coverage is increasing, and this is in turn leading to even greater interest in the Ainu language (as measured, for example, by increased enrollment in both community Ainu language schools and university Ainu language courses). More and more, the Ainu are finding their voices, and, eventually, their stories may even be reflected in school textbooks.
Like Latin in the Holy See, Ainu is sure to retain its role as a ritual language and as a vehicle for historical study. The recorded body of yukar and other folklore is fairly extensive, and both Ainu and non-Ainu scholars are working hard to improve access to this legacy, the importance of which is recognized by both linguists (Hamp 1967) and nonlinguists. Beyond memories, the language is an important component of Ainu ritual (Ainu Minzoku Hakubutsukan 1991), and it continues to be used at folk celebrations. Formerly banned customs are being revived, together with the language of their performance. Recent years bear witness to traditional Ainu bear festivals, ship launchings, and wedding ceremonies. More commonly, Ainu nomi (prayers) are being said in conjunction with activities of the traditional calendar, and once again the Ainu language is being used in the ceremonies which mark the construction and the opening of Ainu houses. With only a few old bilingual speakers still alive, it is a safe bet that Ainu will never again be the language of commerce and casual conversation that it once was in Ainu Moshir. With thousands of Ainu singing and praying and greeting each other, and teaching their children these Ainu songs and prayers and greetings, it is also a safe bet that the Ainu language is not about to die.
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