Japanese (日本語 Nihongo?, [nihõŋgo], [nihõŋŋo] ( listen)) is an East Asian language spoken
by about 125 million speakers, primarily in Japan, where it is the national
language. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family,
whose relation to other language groups is debated, particularly to Korean and
the suggested Altaic language family.
Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it
first appeared in Japan. 3rd century Chinese documents recorded a few Japanese
words, but substantial texts did not appear until the 8th century. During the
Heian period (794–1185), Chinese had a considerable influence on the vocabulary
and phonology of Old Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw changes in
features that brought it closer to the modern language, as well the first
appearance of European loanwords. The standard dialect moved from the Kansai
region to the Edo (modern Tokyo) region in the Early Modern Japanese period
(early 17th century–mid-19th century). Following the end in 1853 of Japan's
self-imposed isolation, the flow of loanwords from European languages has
increased significantly. English loanwords in particular have become frequent,
and Japanese words from English roots have proliferated.
Japanese is an agglutinative, mora-timed language with
simple phonotactics, a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length,
and a lexically significant pitch-accent. Word order is normally
subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words,
and sentence structure is topic–comment. Sentence-final particles are used to
add emotional or emphatic impact, or make questions. Nouns have no grammatical
number, gender or article aspect. Verbs are conjugated, primarily tense and
voice, but not person. Japanese equivalents of adjectives are also conjugated.
Japanese has a complex system of honorifics with verb forms and vocabulary to
indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons
mentioned.
Japanese has no genealogical relationship with Chinese, but makes extensive use of Chinese characters, or kanji (漢字?), in its writing system and a large portion of its vocabulary is borrowed from Chinese. Along with kanji, the Japanese writing system primarily uses two syllabic (or moraic) scripts, hiragana (ひらがな or 平仮名?) and katakana (カタカナ or 片仮名?). Latin script is used in a limited way, often in the form of rōmaji, and the numeral system uses mostly Arabic alongside traditional Chinese numerals. Japanese was little studied by non-Japanese before the Japanese economic bubble of the 1980s. Since then, along with the spread of Japanese popular culture, the number of students of Japanese has reached the millions.
Dozens of dialects are spoken in Japan. The profusion is due
to many factors, including the length of time the archipelago has been
inhabited, its mountainous island terrain, and Japan's long history of both
external and internal isolation. Dialects typically differ in terms of pitch
accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, and particle usage. Some even
differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this is uncommon.
The main distinction in Japanese accents is between
Tokyo-type (東京式 Tōkyō-shiki?) and Kyoto-Osaka-type (京阪式 Keihan-shiki?). Within
each type are several subdivisions. Kyoto-Osaka-type dialects are in the
central region, roughly formed by Kansai, Shikoku, and western Hokuriku
regions.
Dialects from peripheral regions, such as Tōhoku or
Kagoshima, may be unintelligible to speakers from other parts of the country.
There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such
as Hachijō-jima island whose dialect are descended from the Eastern dialect of
Old Japanese. Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many
Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular is associated with comedy (see Kansai
dialect). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical
farmers.
The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami
Islands (politically part of Kagoshima), are distinct enough to be considered a
separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible
to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other
Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese
people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. This is
the result of the official language policy of the Japanese government, which
has declared those languages to be dialects and prohibited their use in
schools.
Standard Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including
the Ryūkyū islands) due to education, mass media, and an increase of mobility
within Japan, as well as economic integration.
Japanese is a member of the Japonic languages family, which
also includes the languages spoken throughout the Ryūkyū Islands. As these
closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same
language, Japanese is often called a language isolate, but strictly speaking
this is a misnomer, since the Ryukyuan languages are linguistically
distinct.[citation needed]
According to Martine Irma Robbeets, Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in the world.[14] Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been make to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu, Korean, Chinese, Tibeto-Burman, Ural-Altaic, Altaic, Uralian, Mon–Khmer, Malayo-Polynesian and Ryukyuan. At the fringe, some linguists have suggested a link to Indo-European languages, including Greek, and to Lepcha. As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support, though linguist Kurakichi Shiratori maintained that Japanese was a language isolate
