Ainu Language Guide

Also spoken in
Japan
Script
Katakana, Latin

Where it's spoken

Ainu was historically spoken throughout Hokkaido, in the southern part of Sakhalin, in the Kuril Islands and at the southernmost tip of the Kamchatka peninsula. Of its three main varieties, named after the regions where it was spoken, Kuril Ainu and Sakhalin Ainu are extinct, and Hokkaido Ainu is classified as critically endangered by UNESCO.

A Japanese law refers to the Ainu people as indigenous people of the northern part of the Japanese archipelago, in particular Hokkaido, and counts the Ainu language as part of Ainu culture. Most native speakers of Ainu have passed away and very few people acquired the language in the family, but a significant number of younger Ainu can use it at varying levels of proficiency. The Foundation for Ainu Culture offers Ainu language classes and beginners' courses via radio and the internet, and runs a campaign with businesses that uses the Ainu greeting Irankarapte as a catchphrase.

This app's cards follow the Saru dialect, a southern Hokkaido variety documented in the Saru district of Hokkaido, around the town of Biratori.

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Script & pronunciation

Ainu did not have its own writing system, but it has been written down since the early 17th century in the Roman and Japanese kana alphabets, and later also in Cyrillic. Unicode encodes a set of small katakana letters as phonetic extensions for Ainu; they are used in Japan for phonetic transcription of Ainu and other languages. This app's cards write phrases in katakana, including these small letters, as in イタㇰ (itak) in ポンノ ポンノ イタㇰ ヤン (Ponno ponno itak yan, "Please speak slowly"), and give a romanization alongside it.

In E=pirka ya? ("Are you OK?"), e= is the second-person prefix. Modern things with no Ainu word appear as Japanese loanwords written in katakana, as in トイレ (Toire) in トイレ フナㇰ タ アン ヤ？ (Toire hunak ta an ya?, "Where is the toilet?").

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Grammar essentials

Ainu's basic word order is subject–object–verb. For example, サパ フライェ (Sapa huraye, "To wash one's hair") puts sapa ("head"), the object, before huraye ("to wash").

Subject and object are marked on the verb itself, while the third person ("he/she/they") has no marker. In this app's cards, ku= means "I", as in タンペ クホㇰ ルスイ (Tanpe ku=hok rusuy, "I want to buy this"), and en= means "to me", as in タンペ エンコレ (Tanpe en=kore, "This one, please"). In the first of these, the auxiliary rusuy ("want to") follows the verb.

Negation uses the word somo, placed before the verb. For example, ソモ ピㇼカ ヤ？ (Somo pirka ya?, "Is it not allowed?") puts somo before pirka ("good"). Yes/no questions are formed with a question particle; in this app's cards it is ya, as in エイゴ エエラマン ヤ？ (Eigo e=eraman ya?, "Do you speak English?").

Ainu distinguishes singular and plural on verbs instead of on nouns as English does. For example, the farewell アプンノ パイェ ヤン (Apunno paye yan, "Go safely") uses paye, the plural form of "to go", and is the form said to two or more people.

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Politeness & etiquette

イランカラㇷ゚テ (Irankarapte) is an Ainu greeting, and the Foundation for Ainu Culture uses it as a catchphrase. This app's card for it cites a dictionary as recording that it was properly a formal greeting made by a man once seated indoors, and that this dialect had no light "hello" for meeting on the road; today it serves as a general greeting.

For thanks, the cards give イヤイライケレ (Iyayraykere, "Thank you") as a courteous thank-you, and ヒンナ (Hinna, "Thank you (for food or a gift)") for receiving food or a gift. Farewells depend on who is leaving: those staying say アプンノ パイェ ヤン (Apunno paye yan, "Go safely") to those leaving, and the one leaving says アプンノ オカ ヤン (Apunno oka yan, "Keep well") to those who stay.

In Hokkaido Ainu, a person form that linguists call the "fourth person" is used, among other things, for "we" including the listener, for an unspecified agent, and for an honorific "you". The cards give エカシ (Ekasi, "Grandfather; an elder man") and フチ (Huci, "Grandmother; an elder woman") as respectful ways to address an older man and an older woman.

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