Talk:Hokkaidō Ainu

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Nyland theory
I'm not sure who added all the stuff about Nyland's rather strange theory. Perhaps it deserves a place on the Ainu Language page, but the whole page should not have been deleted in favour of the Nyland theory. I have revert to the original. If anyone wants to debate the relevence of of the Basque, etc. connect, this would be the place. --unixslug 05:34, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

Most information available on Ainu is in Japanese, which unfortunately I don't know very well. I'll try to dig Languages of Japan (ISBN 0521369185), which dedicates a nice thick section to Ainu, out of the library again and get some more details in here.

Also, I've stumbled across a brief introductory Ainu grammar in Esperanto, of all things... --Brion 02:40 Aug 14, 2002 (PDT)
 * Is it helpful in any way --User:Kpjas

What do CV and CVC mean? We have a short article on SOV, do these deserve their own? --rmhermen


 * Hmm, that probably should be explained in phonology or syllable. Consonant-vowel, consonant-vowel-consonant. I wouldn't give each one its own article, since then we'd have to deal with any combination of consonants and vowels! --Brion
 * Syllable already tries to explain it without the abbreviations, so maybe there. --rmhermen

If interested please get hold of this book :
 * Collected Works of Bronislaw Pilsudski
 * Kpjas


 * My uni library seems to have a copy, I'll look for it. Thanks! --Brion


 * If we based our hypothesis only on the relationship of Y haplogroups, the Ainu language may be very, very distantly related to Niger-Congo and Afro-Asiatic languages. 82.100.61.114 18:58, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Ainu Wikipedia
User talk:KIZU From Meta, a wiki about Wikimedia

Hi Kizu. You can already start translating the list into other languages, even if it is a work in progress. Hopefully we will get 1,000 articles in every Wikipedia language (including a bunch of new languages--how is your Ainu?). Danny 20:13, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Danny left me the message above, I can't speak Ainu regretfully, but agree it will be nice if we have the Ainu Wikipedia or Wiktionary. Is there anyone interesting to join to the Ainu Wikipedia? If so, contact Danny. KIZU 20:41, 29 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I think there are quite a few people who would be happy to participate: most native speakers of Ainu, for example, would probably be happy to have the opportunity to create an encyclopedia in their language. (hint: contact Shigeru Kayano and FM Pipaus and Hokkaido Utari Kyokai)

Dialects
One major issue not treated here:

Are the different dialects of Ainu only dialects, or are they separate languages? Some people claim there is a 4-way division in Ainu (this only applies to dialects known to have existed at least until 1850, there were probably Ainu speakers in the Amur valley, the K. Penninsula, etc before then): Sakhalin Ainu, Kurile Ainu, Hokkaido Ainu, and Honshu Ainu (or "Tohoku Ainu"). Sometimes these are called in Japanese "karafutogo", "chishimago", "ezogo", and "tohoku ainugo". Individual words do not appear to be wildly different although there are significant sound changes, however if you look at a sentence translated into all 4 varieties, it is easy to see that in both grammar and vocabulary, they are too different to not warrant a consideration of separate status.

Considering many Korean linguists accord language status to the speech of Jeju, considering the similarities and dissimilarities between the four varieties of Ainu they are basically separate languages even without question.

Another important observation is that each of these varities has dialects, and each of the dialects have subdialects and even subsubdialects that are generally spoken in single villages.

For example in Wakkanay (1), they speak Hokkaido Ainu. Wakkanay is in what in old times was part of the Northwestern (iirc) District (of Aynu Mosir), and thus they speak the Northwestern dialect. They are in ??? district, so they speak the dialect of that district. And finally they are in Wakkanay, so they speak a vernacular slightly different from the speech of other villages in the same district.

Unfortunately with the dwindling number of Ainu speakers, important dialect distinctions are being lost as most learners of the language learn a single dialect and don't know the others exist, or they learn a mishmash as if it were a single vernacular.

--Node


 * Loss of dialect distinctions is unfortunate from an academic perspective, but the process itself is likely not new for Ainu, which most likely has been splitting and merging through the ages, like all languages.
 * Taiwanese, for example, is a merging variety based on two major Southern Min dialects. Dialects within Taiwanese reflect different degrees of this merging, with the outliers more closely resembling the Southern Min dialects.
 * For Ainu, what is truly unfortunate is not knowing how the pre-modern Ainu themselves classified their own language(s), so we end up getting just the analytical constructs of outsider linguists.
 * A-giau 00:25, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * For Ainu, what is truly unfortunate is not knowing how the pre-modern Ainu themselves classified their own language(s), so we end up getting just the analytical constructs of outsider linguists.
 * A-giau 00:25, 22 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Dialectal distinctions in Ainu are fairly well-documented, there's even a popularly published (ie, non-Academic) dictionary called "ainugo hogen ziten" (however I believe it only covers Hokkaido dialects). A brief outline (× means there are no extant records of the variety available):


 * Ainu
 * Amur Ainu × (According to some accounts, still exists)
 * Kamchatka Ainu × (According to some accounts, still exists)
 * American and/or Aleutian Ainu (postulated variety, probably never existed) ×
 * Sakhalin Ainu
 * Chishima (Kuril) Ainu
 * Japanese Mainland Ainu
 * Hokkaido Ainu
 * West
 * Northeastern West
 * Northwestern West (eg Wakkanai)
 * Central West (eg Masike, Isikari)
 * Southwestern (eg Sirifuka, Simakomaki, Setanai...)
 * East
 * Northeastern Hokkaido (eg Akkesi, Kusiro, etc...)
 * Central East (eg Siranuka)
 * Southern
 * Saru district (eg Nibutani, Biratori, etc...)
 * Bay (eg Etomo, Kunnui)
 * Straits
 * Southern Hokkaido (eg Hakodate, Matumae, Kumaisi, Esan, etc...)
 * Tsugaru region of Tohoku (eg Tanabe, Utetsu), spoken on the penninsulas which jut out from Honshu towards Hokkaido
 * Tohoku Ainu - the variety spoken by the descendants of relatively recent immigrants from Hokkaido (Ainu people once inhabited the area before in much older times; this refers to the more recent population though which lasted as late as perhaps the 1930s when it was [supposedly?] completely wiped out by diseases introduced by the Sisam [Japanese])

Now the most important division between the extant varieties is: Tohoku/Hokkaido-Kuriles-Sakhalin. The vocabulary differences between them, I can't say much about, but I know there are some regular sound changes, and that there are different idioms and significant grammatical differences. Some people think they are 3 different languages, others think they are simply 3 dialects of the same language.

--Node 21:57, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Native speaker figure (in context)
...there are perhaps 1000 native speakers not younger than 30...
 * My source (published 2001) gives much smaller numbers. It cites one report that puts the number at 30, notes some (presumably "experts") think the figure is even lower, and puts fewer than 100 as a safe estimate. Of course, the operational definition of "native" varies and indeed complex.  There are, for examples, native speakers who have not spoken Ainu for years; native speakers who remember hearing relatives speaking Ainu, have some passive understanding, and may have spoken a little bit themselves.  There are also second-language learners who speak more Ainu than native speakers.  Ainu themselves are said to not care about the actual number, given the historical use of such "facts" to "predict" the "inevitable demise of backward Ainu".  In any case it seems 1000 is as much a guess as 100 or 10.  A-giau 14:26, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Some sources cite 15 or something near that, that is based on a figure of how many people use Ainu more than they do Japanese on a daily basis.


 * Some sources cite 200, this is based on those speakers in Nibutani (I believe).


 * 1000 accounts for all native speakers in Hokkaido, including perhaps 100 or 200 who are known to be "elders" but do not advertise the fact that they are native-fluent speakers.


 * If one includes all those native speakers who can not be considered fully fluent, the figure would perhaps be 1500 or 2000, for example:


 * There's one woman who can speak quite fluently, but only to talk about her childhood. She cannot discuss anything that has happened since, or if she can she does not wish to. Instead, she switches to Japanese to discuss other topics, even when prompted to speak Ainu.


 * There's another woman who can casually speak Ainu "baby talk" (ie oversimplified grammar) but cannot say things which are even slightly complex, but supposedly with the help of a native-fluent speaker she has partially reclaimed the ability to speak the language "properly" and to say more complex things.


 * Then there are the people who can only understand Ainu but cannot speak it, or who can speak it natively but only to certain people (ie, a woman might be able to speak it only with her sister)


 * Finally, there are those who were once fluent but now can only produce short sentences in broken Ainu, and who find comprehension difficult.


 * --Node 22:13, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Reading what I wrote, I reckon that the Ainu language could really benifit from the work of a good hypnotist ;) --Node 22:15, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Article of the Week candidate
This article is currently being considered for Article of the Week translation. One of the objections raised was the article is "too long". So please consider consolidating redundant info in some of the paragraphs. A-giau 19:54, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The guy's crazy. This article is way too short - it should look more like Gbe languages or Laal language. - Mustafaa 20:00, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Oh. For translation... Never mind. I thought "Article of the Week". - Mustafaa 20:00, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Linguistic typology relations
Hi there Mustafaa --

Thanks for your pointer about linguistic typology. :) I'd actually already read that when I made my addition that Ainu superficially resembles Japanese.  My main contention here is that Ainu exhibits  (or rather has exhibited, in the classical form) a greater degree of synthesis than Japanese, to the extent that nouns and adverbs may be incorporated directly into the verb.  This is quite different from any historical form of Japanese, and deserves pointing out somewhere lest the casual reader be mistakenly convinced that the two languages are close cousins.  What are your thoughts on the matter, in light of incorporation?  Cheers, --- Eiríkr Útlendi 17:53, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Ah. I see your point about this being potentially misleading; is the new wording I just tried inserting more acceptable? - Mustafaa 06:17, 18 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Looks great, Mustafaa, well put. Thanks for the edit. :) --- Eiríkr Útlendi 02:19, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[No Title]
I suspect that there are no postposition for subject and object, which makes the language quite different from Japanese. According to Refsing's (1986) description on Shizunai dialect, and Kindaichi's description on Karafuto dialect, subjects and objects are not marked by postposition. For other postpositions, a number of them are grammaticalised form of verbs or nominals, for instance, the postpostiion for "with" is indeed the verb "to be with". Chaakming 13:05, 30 December 2005 (UTC)


 * "No Title" is undesirable, isn't it? To be "Postposition for subject and object" or "Typology and grammar."
 * "There are no postposition for subject and object." - I think so.
 * Modern Ainu script uses anak or anakne as the postposition for subject, but native Ainu (classical or colloquial) speaking not. Originally, anak(ne) is used to emphasize or to stop the prior phrase, and is used for both nominative and accusative. It can be said that the postposition for subject of modern Ainu script is a result of the word-for-word translation from modern Japanese script. In other words, it is the modern Japanized Ainu language.
 * On the other hand, the Ainu language has transitive verbs in distinction from intransitive verbs. The transitive verb does not need a postposition for object. Also intransitive verb does not need a postposition but need natively a prefix to the verb for a complementary word or phrase. Only in this case, the prefix to the verb can be substituted by postposition at the same position of the sentence.
 * "Which makes the language quite different from Japanese" - I do not think so.
 * The traditional Japanese language does not need postposition for subject and object. Only modern written/polite Japanese needs it. And the Japanese language has only semantical subject, does not have grammatical subject natively.
 * I think the section needs to revise. thanks.--Midville 16:20, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

Glottal stops in orthography
"ʔ is written either as an equals sign (=) for glottal stops between vowels (such as in a=sapte), or as a t before or a doubling of the following consonant (such as in cotca or hoyuppa, much as in romanized Japanese). Other phonemes use the same character as the given IPA transcription above."

There are several problems there. First, 'a=sapte' doesn't seem to show a glottal stop between vowels. Second, the "doubling of the following consonant ... much as in romanized Japanese" is misleading; the Japanese phonemes represented by doubled Roman letters are not necessarily glottal stop+other consonant (although there is a LOT of discussion of this matter over in the Talk section of Japanese language). Finally, in what cases would one write a 't' before the consonant? I was under the impression that 'Satporo' was indeed /satporo/. Since the example given was 'cotca', perhaps the 't' only occurs before c (cf. usual Japanese romanization, which shows geminate 'chi' as 'tchi')?

(Sorry, I forgot to sign the above when I wrote it.) 24.159.255.29 23:43, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Godfrey --

For context first, the immediately preceding sentence post-edit reads:


 * In the Latin orthography, is spelt c and  as y;  is written either as an equals sign (=) for glottal stops between vowels (such as in a=sapte), or as a t before or a doubling of the following consonant (such as in cotca or hoyuppa.

You noted in your recent edit note, Japanese doubled consonants don't have glottal stops with them, and in your edit itself, While this is similar to romanized Japanese, what the doubled consonant represents is very different in the two languages).

Could you provide any examples? The current text does not really clarify much, and also there seems to be some debate as to whether "doubled" (i.e. geminate) consonants in Japanese include a glottal stop. As I learned the language in Morioka, Iwate, there does seem to be such a stop. If so, this would seem to be the same thing the initial quote above is describing for "doubled" consonants in Ainu...? Any further detail / explication you can supply would be most welcome. Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi 16:26, 14 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Eiríkr,


 * Thanks for inviting me over. Just a little about my background: I have a Ph.D. in linguistics, and I specialize in historical and modern Japanese (I currently teach Japanese at the university level). While I don't know that much about Ainu, I did translate a scholarly monograph on it from Japanese to English, so have picked up a little information about it.


 * First, for Japanese. It is commonly believed that the Japanese geminate consonants have glottalization associated with them. This belief is demonstrably false in the case of /ss/, /ssh/, /hh/, and /ff/, e.g., /assari/ 'lightly,' /issho ni/ 'together,' /bahha/ 'Bach,' and /waffuru/ 'waffle.' It is less obviously false in the case of the geminate stops and affricates, namely /pp/, /tt/, /kk/, /tch/, and /tts/. However, work by Tsutomu Akamatsu (cited on an archived Japanese talk page) has shown that there is no glottalization, much less a glottal stop, associated with Japanese geminates. In fact, the glottis expands during the production of Japanese geminates. An expanded glottis is about as far away from a closed glottis (i.e., glottal stop) as you can get!


 * Now, for the connection to Ainu: if any symbol represents a glottal stop in an Ainu word, then its use is, by definition, different from that in Romanized Japanese.


 * However, I'm not sure about the description given for Ainu orthography. Ainu allows many more syllable- and word-final consonants than Japanese. So, if you have two (hypothetical) Ainu words, "cip" and "pit," and they are compounded to form "cippit," how is this distinguished from a separate word "ci?pit"? (where the question mark in "ci?pit" represents a glottal stop)


 * As for our anonymous friend, Sapporo was originally, as I recall, sar-por-pet. The -pet (shows up as -betsu in Hokkaido place names and means 'river,' I think) was dropped, and the consonant cluster assimilated in the Japanese fashion to the second of the pair. I don't remember what "sar" and "por" mean, and my etymology could be off--I'm recalling what I learned when I lived in Sapporo 18 years ago.


 * Hope this helps. Godfrey Daniel 21:05, 21 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the links and references, Godfrey, I'll have to track some of that down (time allowing :) ).


 * After reading the Akamatsu quote you linked towards, I'm left a touch confused. Listening to the native Japanese speakers around me, and contrasting with the native English speakers, I hear that the double "p" in kappatsu is a stronger sound, if you will, than the sort-of double "p" in cheap potatoes.  I also hear a substantial stoppage in the flow of air for kappatsu, more pronounced than in the English, indicating the 'laryngeal closure' or 'holding one's breath' descriptions that Akamatsu disagrees with.  This leads me to wonder if there might be differences in dialect enough to account for Akamatsu possibly physically hearing something other than what I do (and what Nomura and Yoshida heard) – i.e., his pool of speakers might have been pronouncing the words differently from the primarily Saitama and Tokyo natives around me right now.  I'll have to find his book to be sure.


 * Then again, this might just be different authors talking past each other while attempting to describe the same thing. To more fully flesh out my own description of what I hear, I don't hear the [kappa] that Akamatsu rightly disagrees with, where the glottal "" is distinct before the "p", but rather some sort of combination of a breath stoppage that is similar to "", together with the mouth simultaneously forming the shape of the indicated consonant.  Breath does seem to halt for the length of the silent mora signified by the small kana つ (for stops, not for fricatives).


 * Regarding Ainu orthography, I think that whole paragraph needs to be rewritten by someone much more knowledgable than I. For instance,  is written ... as an equals sign (=) for glottal stops between vowels (such as in a=sapte) is confusing as the example word does not show what the text says it will.  Since when was "s" a vowel?  That aside, my understanding was that there would be no word spelt "cipit", as the "" before a consonant would be represented as a t before or a doubling of the following consonant (such as in cotca or hoyuppa).  If this is the case, the distinction in your example would seem to fall through.  Again, the paragraph is poorly written, and as you note there is some debate about whether geminate stops in Japanese are glottal or otherwise.  Assuming for sake of argument that the geminate stops in Japanese and Ainu are even vaguely similar, the orthographical convention in Ainu of adding a t before or a doubling of the following consonant (such as in cotca or hoyuppa) to represent such stops would indeed be similar to romaji usage, which I think is what the statement in the article was trying to say...?  Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 17:42, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think the reason you hear a difference in the /p/s in kappatsu and cheap potatoes is that Japanese is a mora-timed language and English is not, so the first /p/ of kappatsu, assigned its own mora, is more prominent than the first /p/ in the English phrase. Just because the /p/ sound is longer doesn't mean there's glottalization associated with it, though.


 * As for the method of breath stoppage, in Japanese, it's a purely oral closure. However, in many dialects of English (including my own), coda voiceless stops are glottalized, i.e., are co-articulated with a glottal stop. In some dialects (particularly in England), th oral closure has been lost, and only the glottal stop remains. (What's the situation for Icelandic?)


 * As for Ainu, well, I would just have to go with what it says in the literature. My point all along has been that if Ainu doubled consonants represent a glottal stop plus whatever following consonant, then this is different from what doubled consonants represent in Romanized Japanese, especially in light of the fact that glottal stop is phonemic in Ainu but not Japanese. Godfrey Daniel 19:35, 22 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hmm, definitely food for thought, I'll have to chew on this a while, and possibly lurk around the cubes of my Japanese colleagues with my ears wide open. :)  For Ainu then, if I read you correctly, though "cip pit" as a compound word and "cipit" as a single word would be spelled the same in Latin letters as "cippit", they would be pronounced differently, thus producing different words.  If so, I begin to have an idea how to fix our problem paragraph.  Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 20:21, 22 March 2006 (UTC) --- PS - my Icelandic is minimal and purely from book learning, so I'm afraid I really couldn't tell you much about glottals there.

This is the truth. In Ainu language, glottal stop occurs only in front of a initial vowel that has accent. Ainu double consonants represent a unreleased stop plus whatever following consonant. The unreleased stop is usually not the glottal stop but only /kk/ sounds like a glottal stop plus k.

A equal sign (=) represents a personal prefix (ie. in front of "=" is a kind of I, you, he, and so on) and is not for glottal stop. A sign that looks like the question mark without dot is not usually written in ordinary Ainu script (neather in Latin nor in Katakana).

The word "aynu" has a glottal stop and to be pronounced. The word "kakkok" has a unreleased stop like a glottal stop and to be pronounced. So revision of the article is required. Thanks--Midville 13:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Midville: so there is no glottal stop initially before unaccented vowels? The article currently says that all syllables must have an onset, which is contradicted by that. Also, by "that has accent" do you mean high tone? Or do you mean the syllable of a word which has the rise in pitch (in the same way as you can think of the syllable in Japanese with a drop in pitch as the accented syllable)? 24.159.255.29 00:32, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Katakana
Does anyone have any info on Ainu-specific katakana usage? As a student of Japanese, I find the word-ending small katakana [ㇰㇱㇲㇳㇴㇵㇶㇷㇸㇹㇺㇻㇼㇽㇾㇿ] and the semi-voiced ト/カ [ト゚/ト゜and カ゚/カ゜] VERY intriguing. I'd like to at least know how to pronounce them! lampi 07:41, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Have a look at the Ainu Times, they've got some material that might be of interest. Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 16:05, 28 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Hi, Lampi. the semi-voiced ト [ト゚/ト゜] is to be pronounced "tu", normally spelled トゥ in Japanese. semi-voiced ツ(tsu) [ツ゚/ツ゜] is also "tu". Only Ainus and scholars of Ainu use the script.
 * And the semi-voiced カ [カ゚/カ゜] to be nga normally ガ. In Japanese, the script ガ(ga) in middle or end of a word or a phrase is to be pronounced nga. ギグゲゴ also to be ngi ngu nge ngo. Only TV/radio announcers or newscasters and actors use the script.
 * About the word-ending small katakana, ク is -k, シ is -s or -sh, ス is perhaps -s, ト is -t, ヌ is perhaps -n, ハヒフヘホ are -(a)h -(i)h -(u)h -(e)h -(o)h (for the Sakhalin dialect) or to indicate concrete(real) form, ム is -m, ラリルレロ are -(a)r -(i)r -(u)r -(e)r -(o)r.
 * What is the form in Ainu language?: the Ainu noun word have abstract(concept) form and concrete(real) form.
 * ex. Abstract(concept) form "mat" (the woman, the wife) with the possessive case becomes concrete(real) form "a-matihi" (my wife) /amachihi/.
 * I suppose that the ordinary Japanese person can not read those special katakana.
 * BTW, let me introduce myself. I am (was?) an Ainu speaker but not native. I learned and studied Ainu language at University with prof. Tamura Suzuko who is an acknowledged authority in the field of Ainu language and who wrote the term "Ainu language" in The Encyclopedia Britanica. I transcribed a tape of native Ainu speaking, singing any number of times. Finally, I jointly sponsored Ainu matsuri (festival), wrote a sctipt in Ainu language, and played a grumbling Ainu old lady. And I am (was?) a member of 北方言語研究会 (society for the study of northern languages). thanks. Midville 02:18, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

The information on katakana usage outside of Japanese and Ainu is very interesting, but its scope is too broad for this article. Let's keep the information on kana used for Ainu, and move the rest somewhere else. I don't know where would be appropriate, though. 71.82.214.160 23:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Link cleanup
The "Ethnologue report" link on this page doesn't seem to be of much use. Is it OK to remove it? --Sakurambo 16:21, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Phonology, Trill → Tap
The Ainu phoneme /r/ is not trill but tap. It is the alveolar tap like "tt" of "latter" in North America. So we need to revise it. Thanks--Midville 13:32, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Phonology, /x/ and [ç]
There is some variation among dialects; in the Sakhalin dialect, syllable-final /p, t, k, r/ lenited and merged into /h/.

The real is that syllable-final /p, t, k, r/ lenited and merged into /x/ and becomes after /i/. In addition, /x/ is restored back to /p, t, k, r/ before vowels for liaison. So, the table "The consonants of Ainu" requires Velar-Fricative "x" and Palatal-Fricative "ç", too. Thanks--Midville 14:01, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming that these syllable-final consonants are still spelled with the small katakana, as in 「アイヌ・イタク」? So this then would be pronounced more like /ainu itax/?  Curious, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 17:55, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your good curiosity. Those are spelled with small katakana as Unicode:「ㇵㇶㇷㇸㇹ」 like 「 ハヒフヘホ 」 that are also included by JIS X 0213:2004. "Aynu-ytax" is spelled as 「アィヌィタㇵ」 like 「アィヌィタ ハ 」. If you can not read the former special small katakanas, you should install appropriate font, e.g. Y.Oz_N'04 font. it's free of charge but has product-level good quality.--Midville 10:51, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Midville, I had no idea what font to even look for, so I've used the workaround of either &lt;small> or &lt;sub> tags. For online web pages, I wonder if the tags might be a better idea?  They're certainly more accessible...


 * Thanks too for the explanation. Is this a dialect phenomenon, or is the syllable-final lenition pretty consistent among Ainu speakers?  And do you have any idea how recent this is?  Presumably, these syllable-final consonants must not have become lenited too long ago, or the word itak would never have been spelled with the k in roman letters.  Cheers, Eiríkr Útlendi | Tala við mig 16:30, 5 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Eirikr, that lenition only describes the Sakhalin dialect as far as I know. Midville: Is final /ix/ always pronounced [iç]?  I'm reading Vovin, and he seems to be saying that /ix/ can be pronounced [is].  Also, are you sure -r lenites to /x/?  Vovin says that final -r in most dialects usually corresponds to -rV in Sakhalin.  (On the other hand, I read an anthropology book by Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney that gave a lot of Sakhalin words, and I seem to remember seeing "nis kur."  But I might be misremembering.) 24.159.255.29 00:12, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

Standard Ainu
Upon seeing that there are so many dialects of Ainu, I started wondering: is there some dialect set as standard? Siúnrá 22:01, 26 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I suppose the standard dialect would have to be whichever dialect the ten remaining speakers speak. Jimp 11:24, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Ainu, an Altaic language?
there is some serious research about Ainu language in Europe, some people consider this language as an Altaic language, and there are also many connection between ainu and Altaic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.174.21.72 (talk) 06:21, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There is still no agreement on this. Roy Anderson (? sorry, I can't think of his name at the moment) is one of the strongest proponents of this theory, but there doesn't seem to be much agreement James Who (talk) 13:38, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Ainu in Honshuu?
Kwamikagami has started to claim that Ainu was once spoken on the island of Honshuu based on "Ainu loanwords in Japanese, such as ottosei "fur seal" that predate the Japanese conquest of Hokkaido."

This is a ridiculous claim that reveals how little Kwamikagami knows about the Ainu language. The Japanese word ottosei is derived from the Chinese word 膃肭臍 (it was formerly also written with these Chinese characters in Japan), which in turn derives from the Ainu word onnep suffixed with the Chinese word 臍 (literally, "navel"; a euphemism for "penis and testicles"). The private parts of male fur seals, namely 腽肭臍 wànàqí, have at times been a popular ingredient in Chinese medicine, and the species itself has been known as 腽肭臍, 腽肭獸 wànàshòu, or 海狗 hǎigǒu (lit. "sea dog"). It is the Chinese compound 腽肭臍 that was loaned into Japanese via its on-readings as おつ　とつ　せい　otsu + totsu (or dotsu) + sei ＞　*おっとっせい　*ottossei ＞　おっとせい ottosei. The word has most certainly not been borrowed into Japanese directly from Ainu onnep.

In any case, besides your inaccurate depiction of the history of the word ottosei, there is also an inherent illogicality in your claim that Ainu loanwords in Japanese indicate a historical presence of Ainu people in Honshuu. Spanish words in English, even such basic words as mosquito, do not indicate a historical presence of Spanish in England. Ebizur (talk) 16:43, 13 June 2008 (UTC)


 * There is and was Spanish spoken in the US and other English-speaking countries, however. You don't borrow a word from a language you have no contact with.


 * However, Miller's etymology of ottosei never looked very strong, and the Chinese one seems more likely. I wonder, however, why the Chinese would have borrowed the word from Ainu, since their contact with fur seals would likely have been in or around Korea, not in Hokkaido or Sahalin. kwami (talk) 07:52, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

@Ebizur --

I feel the need to chime in here. I lived for a while in Iwate Prefecture, to the north end of Honshū, and I learned then from my Japanese (日本人, not 日本語) professors about historical sites and castles in the Nambu region where battles had been fought against the Ainu as part of the Japanese expansion northwards. Loanwords aside, this would rather strongly suggest that there was a sizable Ainu presence on Honshū, at least in the north, well before the conquest of Hokkaidō.

Or perhaps I'm confused, and your argument was purely about the etymology? -- Cheers, - Erik Anderson 98.225.16.161 (talk) 06:41, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * It's frequently believed that the people of Kanto (from about Nagoya on) were Ainu--and many of the lineages of Samurai may be from that aboriginal people,--but there is little evidence of that apart from a few assumed Ainu words in place names that they were the same people. It's not a terribly strong case. kwami (talk) 07:11, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Hello Kwami --


 * When you say, it's not a terribly strong case, it's not entirely clear what you mean -- does this describe 1) the idea that some samurai lineages were descended from Ainu? Or 2) that the Ainu had lived as far south as Nagoya?  Or 3) that Ainu lived on Honshū at all?  -- Cheers, - Erik Anderson 98.225.16.161 (talk) 07:23, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That there were Ainu in Honshu at all. I assume there were, but AFAIK the evidence is all indirect apart from the place names, and the place names can probably be disputed. AFAIK there aren't a lot of Ainu words that can be recovered from them, and if -betu is the main thing we have to work with, one can't exclude coincidence. A few more characteristic Ainu words in northern placenames would make a big difference. kwami (talk) 07:48, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting. I myself certainly don't know much about the subject, aside from miscellaneous readings here and there and anecdotes from my years living in Japan, so I'm curious, is this your own conclusion, or a general consensus view?  A cursory Google search brought up a book over on the Japanese Amazon site by 金田一京助 entitled 古代蝦夷とアイヌ, which seems to make the argument that 「蝦夷とアイヌの相違は、つまりは本州にいたアイヌが蝦夷で、北海道にのこった蝦夷がアイヌであった…. 」  If the Emishi and the Ainu were related ethnic groups, as Kaneda-san appears to argue in this book and as noted on the Emishi page, then it would seem we have some historical basis for saying there were Ainu (or at least Ainu-related) people living in Honshū, no?  -- Cheers, - Erik Anderson 98.225.16.161 (talk) 08:09, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Well yes, that's the question: were the Emishi Ainu? There's very little data to go on, AFAIK just a few toponymic morphemes thought to be Ainu, and not enough that I've seen to IMO be very convincing. There are no Emishi poems transliterated phonetically or anything like that. I haven't seen much from those claiming the Emishi or Samurai etc. were Ainu. Very possible, just doesn't seem demonstrable at this point. kwami (talk) 08:32, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Fair enough; as you note, the historical record is certainly patchy, with room for argument in a number of different directions. Thanks for talking!  -- Cheers, - Erik Anderson 98.225.16.161 (talk) 08:41, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * BTW, if there were a single Ainu macrolanguage spoken from Nagoya to Sakhalin, that would suggest that the Ainu had not been in Japan very long--if they had, there'd've been more diversity. kwami (talk) 09:50, 26 March 2010 (UTC)


 * On the flip side, 1) it's possible that place name roots might not change all that much, and 2) it's possible that the stock language itself might not change all that much -- c.f. Lithuanian, which apparently hasn't strayed all that far from Sanskrit, even over the intervening three millenia or so. There are many factors that can impact a language's rate of change.  While contemporary Japanese accounts equating the Emishi and Ainu are not authoritative, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of a closer relationship between these two groups than is described in the current English-language academic consensus.  :)  -- Cheers, - Erik Anderson 98.225.16.161 (talk) 06:12, 30 March 2010 (UTC)

What does this sentence mean?
For example, the -betu common to many northern Japanese place names is believed to derive from the Ainu word pet "river". --Filll (talk | wpc ) 14:31, 30 August 2008 (UTC)


 * many northern Japanese place names have -betu in them. this is though to come from the Ainu word pet "river". kwami (talk) 18:57, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Itak & Japanese
Why is there katakana all over the page?? Ainu language is a language isolate; it is no way similar to Japanese. Having Japanese kana on a page about Ainu language is just as ridiculous as having Japanese kana on Goidelc or Chinese. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.105.26 (talk) 04:47, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Then we should remove all kanji from Japanese pages, because Japanese is in no way similar to Chinese. kwami (talk) 06:06, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Then we should remove all Roman letters from English pages because English isn't derived from Latin. Isn't katakana the the script adopted by the Ainu to write their language (just as we've adopted the Latin alphabet for English)? Even if it isn't, though, it would still be an important transliteration. Jimp 10:31, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

"Languages"?
n.b. I am including this here as well as on the Ainu languages page, if only because this one seems to get more traffic.


 * Shibatani (1990) speaks of "Ainu languages".

In the source cited, the Languages of Japan, Shibatani makes no mention of anything other than dialects of Ainu.

Hattori and various contributors, whom Shibatani cites in talking about dialects, only speak of dialects in Ainugo Hōgen Jiten ("Ainu Dialect Dictionary"). Vovin, in Proto-Ainu, also speaks only of dialects.

As a linguistics student interested in the language, nothing I have ever read nor anyone I have ever spoken with have even mentioned "Ainu languages".

This is a very serious error, and I would say, calls into question the need for the Ainu languages page. -- Lime tom 08:48, 20 April 2009 (UTC)


 * (let's respond at Ainu languages) kwami (talk) 09:15, 20 April 2009 (UTC)

Spelling conventions
Recently 「アイヌ」 and 「イタク」 in the lead and infobox were replaced with 「アィヌ」 and 「イタㇰ」. While there is no standard spelling convention for Ainu -though this mainly applies to whether one uses Ainu katakana or Roman Ainu (and in the past Cyrllic Ainu)- the overwhelming majority of sources I can find use 「アイヌ」 versus 「アィヌ」, and "regular"-sized katakana for all vowel-vowel digraphs. 「イタㇰ」 however is correct and 「イタク」 was incorrect. This can easily be seen if one romanizes the words: 「アイヌ」 is ainu or aynu; 「アィヌ」 is the same, and I believe most people feel redundantly so; 「イタㇰ」 is itak; and 「イタク」 is itaku, which is incorrect.

I was going to say as much in my edit summary, but accidentally hit the enter key and submitted the changes without a full summary; figured leaving a note on the talk page would be more than sufficient. --Limetom 07:42, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I've done some canvassing of online resources, and so far I cannot find any Ainu text written in kana that uses the アィヌ spelling with the small ィ -- they all use the big-イ version アイヌ. This might be because there is no three-mora word ア + イ + ヌ in the Ainu language, obviating any need to distinguish the single-mora diphthong   (technically spelled アィ in katakana) from the two-mora diphthong   (spelled アイ).
 * I'll be bold and change the kana spelling accordingly. ‑‑ Eiríkr Útlendi │Tala við mig 16:50, 17 August 2016 (UTC)

Potential reference
FYI for potential editors with more time than me. Material from this recent discovery may be worth incorporating into this article: アイヌ語：日本語の対訳を記録した古文書　福井で発見. Bendono (talk) 11:04, 4 August 2010 (UTC)


 * There is an English version as well: Oldest Ainu-Japanese dictionary found at temple. Apparently, the head priest found it while looking up records on the monk, Kunen.  It's unclear what's going to happen to it at present.  For now, it's the oldest Japanese-Ainu dictionary that we have a certain date for; it really deserves nothing more than a sentence, I'd say.  --Limetom 07:44, 9 August 2010 (UTC)

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/28/reaching-the-last-speakers-of-japans-ancient-languages/

Ainu language materials
Ainu English Japanese dictionary

https://archive.org/details/ainuenglishjapan00batcuoft

http://library.uoregon.edu/ec/e-asia/read/ainueng.pdf

Vocabulaire Chinois-Coréen-Aino : expliqué en français et précédé d'une introduction sur les écritures de la Chine, de la Corée et de Yéso

https://archive.org/details/vocabulairechino00rosn

Chikoro utarapa ne Yesu Kiristo ashiri aeuitaknup oma kambi=the New Testament of our lord and saviour Jesus Christ in Ainu

https://archive.org/details/chikoroutarapane00batc

Ainu grammar and culture

https://archive.org/details/languagemytholo00batcgoog

In Japanese

Kokugogaku Ainugo to kokugo

https://archive.org/details/kokugogakuainugo00kind

Gengo kenkyu

https://archive.org/details/gengokenkyu00kind

Ainu goh gaisetsu

https://archive.org/details/ainugohgaisetsu00kind

Ainu compared to northwestern Native American languages

Wörter-sammlungen aus den sprachen einiger völker des östlichen Asiens und der nordwest-küste von Amerika

https://archive.org/details/wrtersammlungena00kruz

https://archive.org/details/cihm_18342

https://archive.org/details/wrtersammlungena01kruz

Rajmaan (talk) 09:07, 17 February 2014 (UTC)

http://jinbunweb.sgu.ac.jp/~ainu/biblio/european.html#AinuLib1

http://books.google.com/books/about/Materials_for_the_Study_of_the_Ainu_Lang.html?id=fFjbmgEACAAJ

http://books.google.com/books/about/Materials_for_the_Study_of_the_Ainu_Lang.html?id=BzqpngEACAAJ

http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/products/bronislaw+pilsudski/alfred+f-+majewicz/alfred+f-+majewicz/the+collected+works+of+bronislaw+pilsudski3a+materials+for+the+study+of+the+ainu+language+and+folklore+28cracow+191229+v-+2/5451506/

http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001184669

http://books.google.com/books?id=-cTtFuRS0FwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=inauthor:%22Bronisław+Piłsudski%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MWHQU_u1DKS_sQTIqIKwDg&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://books.google.com/books?id=abiAAAAAMAAJ&q=inauthor:%22Bronisław+Piłsudski%22&dq=inauthor:%22Bronisław+Piłsudski%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MWHQU_u1DKS_sQTIqIKwDg&ved=0CCgQ6AEwAg

http://books.google.com/books?id=h0cqngEACAAJ&dq=inauthor:%22Bronisław+Piłsudski%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MWHQU_u1DKS_sQTIqIKwDg&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ

http://books.google.com/books?id=ovdxNAEACAAJ&dq=inauthor:%22Bronisław+Piłsudski%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=MWHQU_u1DKS_sQTIqIKwDg&ved=0CDcQ6AEwBQ

Appearance column??
What the heck does the "Appearance" column mean, in the 1st and 2nd tables in the "Special katakana for the Ainu language" section? It looks like a copy of the first column displayed (mostly) using a Japanese typeface... what's the point? (If it's there for a reason, i don't have any objection to it, but it just seems to be redundant and typographically inelegant...) I'll be bold and remove it in a bit i guess unless i hear objections :) Goldenshimmer (talk) 22:31, 27 June 2014 (UTC)
 * Went ahead and did it; please revert me if it was serving a purpose :) Goldenshimmer (talk) 18:43, 29 June 2014 (UTC)

ㇷ゚
comes out pretty hideous-looking (using Chrome at least): ㇷ゚. Perhaps  would be more legible: ㇷ゚. Jimp 10:37, 22 May 2015 (UTC)

Temporary edits for class project
I would just like to mention that there will be edits made to this page as a part of my Final Project at Rutgers University. I hope to add any new and useful information I have found. If it is not suited for the page or the editing/citing is done incorrectly please let me know and I will try to fix it. Feel free to edit it and revert, but please refrain from doing so until after the 5th of May. My apologies for any inconvenience. Ilr19 (talk) 22:37, 4 May 2016 (UTC)

Expanding revitalization section
I'm going to put some work into expanding and revising the revitalization section. It needs some work. It's currently tagged as not having any sources, and could be expanded significantly to include more information on the revitalization efforts that have arisen since the Ainu cultural movement that began around the 1980s-1990s. Any criticism or help on this section would be greatly appreciated. Modern, English-language academic articles on the Ainu people and language have proven difficult to find. YesPretense (talk) 19:28, 2 June 2016 (UTC)

Clarification on the usage of ッ
Currently, the symbol is explained as so:
 * ッ is final t at the end of a word (e.g. pet=ペッ=ペㇳ). In the middle of a polysyllabic word, it is a final consonant preceding the initial with a same value (e.g. orta /otta/=オッタ; オㇿタ is not preferred)

Unfortunately, the second sentence is really hard to understand. Are we saying that, word-medially, ッ signals that the following consonant is geminated? Are we saying that, when a morpheme that ends in a final consonant (e.g. or) is combined with a morpheme that starts with a consonant (e.g. ta), the result of the two adjacent consonants is a geminate (e.g. tt)? Why does the article spell orta and place /otta/ in slashes (as if to mark the IPA pronunciation), when all the external links at the bottom use the spelling otta? What happens with other words? For example, エコッポカ ekotpoka. Is it still a "t" followed by "p"? Or is it supposed to be "pp"? Or is the spelling always "t", while the pronunciation is a geminate?

I'd very much appreciate if someone more knowledgeable could rewrite that bit! —  Io Katai  ᵀᵃˡᵏ  20:32, 27 December 2016 (UTC)

Contradiction concerning Ainu's obligatory syllable onset
The article states that "Ainu syllables are CV(C), that is, they have an obligatory syllable onset and an optional syllable coda" and "A glottal stop [ʔ] is often inserted at the beginning of words, before an accented vowel, but is non-phonemic." This, however, fails to explain words such as "acápo", "ekási" and "eáni", which would have V syllables according to the above rule. Kirsten Refsing acknowledges the following syllable types: V, CV, VC and CVC. This goes against the CV(C) claim that this article makes. On the other hand, Tamura Suzuko claims that V and VC syllables are in fact all ʔVs and ʔVCs, which would go against the second quote. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jassummisko (talk • contribs) 14:55, 23 October 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 16 February 2018
Ainu language → Hokkaido Ainu language – Ainu language(s) is a family name. This article deals with a subdivision of Hokkaido.--ABCEdit (talk) 01:25, 17 February 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Sky  Warrior  02:43, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * This article deals with the only extant Ainu language from the Ainu language family. I am inclined to disagree with the proposal, since we don't move English language to a different title based on the presence of Middle English, and have an article at Chinese language in spite of its many varieties. Also note that German language and Germanic languages, or Japanese language and Japonic languages, are differentiated in a similar way to Ainu language and Ainu languages. If the language is usually referred to as "Ainu" in English, can a move to "Hokkaido Ainu" be justified? Dekimasu よ! 03:24, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

"Ainu language" corresponds to “Ainu languages” in enwiki. Enwiki treats Ainu language as "Ainu language family". (It is the difference that Ainu language is regarded as a single language or a language family.) This article, Ainu language, actually deals with Hokkaido Ainu language, which is a subdivision of Ainu language family, in other words, Hokkaido dialect of Ainu language. As Enwiki adopts “Ainu languages” (family) instead of “Ainu language”, this article is appropriate to be “Hokkaido Ainu language”.

The correspondence relationship is as follows.

--ABCEdit (talk) 10:10, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * Ainu language=Ainu languages
 * Hokkaido dialect=Hokkaido Ainu language ←This article
 * Sakhalin dialect=Sakhalin Ainu language
 * Kuril dialect=Kuril Ainu language


 * Again, this sounds like a distinction without a difference to me, per the Middle English example above. Only one Ainu language exists today, so it's not really a dialect even if its geographical source is Hokkaido (this is probably a misnomer to some degree, since there was also movement from Tohoku). Ainu languages covers the language family, including the extinct languages in the family. It appears you are interested in making a far larger change, arguing that there has only ever been one language with several dialects. That would require moving several articles, but either way no evidence that this is the most widely held view has been presented here. To write it according to your rubric, Ainu languages include Ainu language, Sakhalin Ainu language(s), and Kuril Ainu language. I'm still not sure why this is insufficient. Dekimasu よ! 18:05, 17 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I see that you wrote the 北海道アイヌ語 (Hokkaido Ainu) stub on the Japanese Wikipedia, so that may be your frame of reference. I won't go so far as to argue why, but few editors seem to have developed that article. But this article clearly corresponds more closely to アイヌ語 (Ainu language) in form, content, and intent. Ainu languages on enwiki attempts to analyze the language family whereas the Japanese Wikipedia appears to avoid this by saying「アイヌ語の系統や語族に関しては、学術的に確実なことはいえない状況であり」(≈"At this point, nothing definite can be said about the descent or family relationships of the Ainu language"). At enwiki's Ainu languages, there is a reference specifically noting that the languages in the family were not mutually intelligible, i.e., not dialects. Dekimasu よ! 18:18, 17 February 2018 (UTC)

Ainu language is generally regarded as a language isolate.「アイヌ語の系統や語族に関しては、学術的に確実なことはいえない状況であり」 means that no other languages are recognized to be genealogically related to Ainu language. However, the criteria for determining whether a language is a single language or a language family and whether the subdivisions are dialects or individual languages is very ambiguous. Enwiki regards Ainu language as a language family, which is not a general view. So, if enwiki adopts the view that Ainu language is a language family (Ainu languages), it is appropriate that this article treats only the subdivision in Hokkaido. The contents about the whole Ainu language is appropriate to be written in Ainu languages. --ABCEdit (talk) 21:59, 17 February 2018 (UTC)


 * A couple of issues have come up in the discussion above. First, it seems that the idea of a group of Ainu languages is not universal.  For Wikipedia to say, "sources note that several Ainu variants were mutually unintelligible; therefore, Wikipedia concludes they were languages" is still original research.  Second, as the Hokkaido variant is the only living and widely attested one, there is a lot of overlap between the Ainu language and the Ainu languages article.  Finally, the term Hokkaido Ainu does not appear to be widely used; rather, this variant is almost always simply "Ainu". The move proposed above would move the article to a less common (and maybe WP:ASTONISHing) title and the proposal does not recommend a target for the vacated "Ainu language" title.  Therefore, at this point, I oppose a move. If there is a solution to a problem here, it would be to merge the Ainu language and Ainu languages articles.  Neither article is particularly long, and as I noted, there is a lot of overlap.  —  AjaxSmack  05:59, 24 February 2018 (UTC)
 * I should clarify that I'm not sure Wikipedia says such a thing; I was simply working under the sort of definition that I now see is in the article on dialect: "The most common, and most purely linguistic, criterion is that of mutual intelligibility: two varieties are said to be dialects of the same language if being a speaker of one variety confers sufficient knowledge to understand and be understood by a speaker of the other; otherwise, they are said to be different languages" and was speaking under the presumption that everyone shared that perspective. To the best of my recollection I haven't edited any of these articles, so if there's original research involved, it's someone else's. Hopefully the argument that the variants are languages is sufficiently sourced. I agree that merging these is a reasonable possibility. Perhaps "Historical Ainu languages" could be a subheading here, and Sakhalin Ainu language and Kuril Ainu language could be merged as well. Dekimasu よ! 06:53, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

Oppose per the above. I agree with on covering different Ainu dialects/languages in one merged article Ainu language. --Postcol (talk) 08:32, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

I understand. I withdraw the title change request. I agree on merging Ainu languages and Ainu language articles. There are a lot of overlap. The appropriate title would be Ainu language as Ainu languages is not universal.--ABCEdit (talk) 04:14, 25 February 2018 (UTC)

I have proposed to merge Ainu languages into Ainu language on Talk:Ainu languages.--ABCEdit (talk) 06:35, 25 February 2018 (UTC)
 * moved Ainu language → Hokkaido Ainu language Anthony Appleyard (talk) 04:37, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Anthony Appleyard, I'm not sure why this was put through as a technical request. The discussion here from a year ago is pretty clear evidence that the request is not just technical in nature (I, for one, objected to it at the time), and the newer discussion (which doesn't to me appear to show consensus) was initiated only a few days ago. Dekimasu よ! 12:04, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

Ainu talk contributions
Y-ran-qar-a-h(p)-te-e ! Greetings ! I try to write a quasi- mix of Sakhalin, Kuriles Ainu and with no explanations -hyphens I believe are grammatical particles and brackets that indicate spelling variations Disclaimer : I live in Sendai and study Ainu in writing no speaking practice , though I have 2 Japanese students I volunteer to teach Ainu from Various books ‘Ainu Express ,using Katakana and Romaji Uko-y-so-ytak kids Ainu Japanese , with English and Japanese. I am copying Kanazawa’s original book アイヌ Aynw 語 =go=ytah (會)=qa-y 会 話=wa=wqo-y-so-ytah-  (字)=jy 辞 典= Ten= qan-py-(qa-ta)-(w-we-to-re-)-sos , see search=a-nw-qar yan rw-we wa ..ainutopic.ninjal.ac.jp and comparing ainutopic Old Kanji and Aynw phrases also I am trying make a Phrase book for Ainu language researchers in y-say-qa=easy Aynw ytah=an(r)y , (=equals ,means=yq-qe-we ,as in ‘ qw= an-aq-ne-(e) a-yay-qy-qar=make my self Aynw ytah w-qo-,= each other c(h)a-ran-qe-e-ye-qar=discussion debate all words phrases used by beginner and academics to learn and teach Ainu before researching and talking about Aynw in Aynw ytah an(r)y (Aynw ytah-qa-tw-mondwn-y-ren-qa) (my coined word)=Linguastics Grammar wa chy-my-chy-my wa w-yn-qar-qy= an=find , search a-ye wa w-qo-c(h)a-ran-qe-( w-p=a(n)-o-re) yn-qar hosh-qy-no Aynw ytah an(r)y rw-we ne-e pyr-qa-no =an , however reading most posts we need to give examples of Aynw phases=qan-py-pon-(qa-ta) a-nw-ye-qar qy rw-we-ne-yan-e=an wa ! and if you use Ainu in Roman or=ya Qa-ta-qa-na=katakana language words you will find so many PDF sites Blogs all manner of material in Ainu some very old scanned be careful w-sa-w-sa-q=an ma-nw rw-we-e-e qor-o-qa see my VK Andrew Waddington A-nw-qar yan-roq-ne-e. Aynw-Wqowpasqowma (talk) 06:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Itak ytah itaku y-(e) ta-k ye=ytah= itak.
Be careful Aynw has a,e,i,o,u, or= A I U E O as many 10 or more grammatical particles added to front middle back of words Greetings y-ran=( ram-w=heart ) qar=make -a-=a(n) p ( h sakhalin Aynw ) te-e or y=one -yay=-self ray=- bow q-e ( make qy do ) - re  paasive like られ=ra-re Japanese=thank you, qor e, qor-o-qa, qor-a-chy, y-qy w-qo ,w-w-e-to-re so when I write with hyphen I try to learn the particles of the words see Greenlandiq Inuit and many grammar functions as in English are expressed like in Arabic Noun and verbs, and many one letter two letter particle words that must be joined like Latin (in-accurate) pre-fix su-f fix a-f fix es , Japanese Syllabilic 五 go 十 Jww 音 on 順 jwn AIUEO are just for Aynw adapted to Japanese system and confusingly applies to Aynw that have many VC as well as CV and look like CV VC clusters but are particles Aynw-Wqowpasqowma (talk) 06:44, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Tohoku Ainu- Ebysw Emeshi Matagi... place names ...
And new “ Tanabe” Abe is a name that I have heard or read has connections and Watanabe also “ U-te-tsu “ of Tsugaru I heard that in Tsu-ga-ru the Tu, To Too-ru=go a way through To-Hoku Hok -= nor-th (Nor-way)🇳🇴  Kai= sea  do=way, Do-san-ko  道産娘 born in Hokkaido ,cross north or Tu -cross ga=on ru= way,road   Dialect is so different from standard Japanese and contains many words that could be Ainu but have been distorted by time by Kanji and the Hiragana rule , example my father in-law Tsu-ji 辻 but secretly 逵 crossroads ! ( what a name ! Not even a Mon Sho mei crest name  is pronounced as Tu-dji ,ji=sign kan-ji To=10, ten  ji cross + road we can see distorted Kanji with names are confused Many words in many languages have been confused by accident and misinformation and or ignorance Jordenthorpe Norton=North town ,hilly place I grew up  Jord en thorpe earth and (Mamtor Tor-hill Pre English )Thorpe= Torp Danish hamlet most people do not know the history and even place names have been changed moved set up again after war or disaster in a safer place so we depend on historical writings that have been distorted to suit political gains. 森 Mori is a Forest Jp Mori 盛-pile up Oka 岡、oka 丘 a hill 2 Kanji Outside Sendai 仙台 nanatsu 7 Mori 森 7 forests they are 7 hills with forests and in Aynw Mori is a hill Covered with trees, Marumori round forest or round hill south Miyagi, Aynw-Wqowpasqowma (talk) 09:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Quechua
It is not plausible for Ainu to be genetically linked to only a few of the Quechuan languages, as this would imply that the Ainu people arose from within the proto-Quechua people and then migrated to their current habitat in Japan while the remaining Quechua ended up in S America. As Quechua is a close knit family, we would expect Ainu to be firmly Quechuan in character and even readable by the speakers of these languages, since they can to a limited extent already understand each other. Perhaps the author meant to write that Ainu is genetically linked to Quechua as a whole? — Soap — 17:56, 1 January 2019 (UTC)
 * I'd remove mention of Quechua altogether: I've had a look at the paper and far from proposing any genetic link, it simply states that the two languages are "phonostatistically" close. This appears to be based on a count of phonemes of a given type in an example text. At most, this could point to some typological similarity, but I wouldn't include it in the article without some interpretation and contextualisation supplied by a secondary source. – Uanfala (talk) 18:15, 1 January 2019 (UTC)

Move request

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: Ugh. There is consensus that the current situation is not good, but little consensus on how to correct it. I will do my best to find a solution that has the most support from participants below. Firstly the term "Hokkaido Ainu language"has significant opposition, mainly based on COMMONNAME policy, which I give due weight to. As there were not really any other alternative proposals for the article on the Hokkaido language (I might have suggested "Ainu language (Hokkaido)" if I had contributed to the discussion) then the status quo will remain for now, i.e. Ainu language will be the article on the Hokkaido language, disambiguated with a suitable hatnote. Now for the general article: some have suggested "Ainuic languages". There was not enough support to call a consensus, but there was little opposition either. It cannot remain where it is, so I will move it to "Ainuic languages" with the understanding that it can be moved again if a better title emerges (e.g. Ainu language family?). Thanks everyone for your input &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 22:04, 13 May 2019 (UTC)

Ainu language → Hokkaido Ainu language - Coexistence of “Ainu languages” and “Ainu language” is very confusing. Discussion has been on Talk:Ainu languages. --ABCEdit (talk) 06:32, 20 April 2019 (UTC)　 correction--ABCEdit (talk) 11:30, 22 April 2019 (UTC) --Relisting. B dash (talk) 03:07, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

To begin with, current Ainu language article treats only Hokkaido, but "Ainu language" contains not only Hokkaido but also Kuril and Sakhalin. It is absolutely wrong that only the one in Hokkaido is "Ainu language". It is "Hokkaido Ainu language". It is obvious that current Ainu language article should be renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language. （added later）--ABCEdit (talk) 08:42, 6 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Support per reasons stated, following a short investigation of these articles. --Comment by  Selfie City  ( talk about my  contributions ) 22:26, 20 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose. The proposed title is not a common name for the topic.  NB that the Ainu languages and Ainu language articles were one until recently per  as the Ainu languages are not widely recognized as a language family.  Also nb previous discussion above.  The proposal does not recommend a target for the vacated Ainu language title either. —  AjaxSmack  00:58, 21 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak support Don't particularly care about the names of the articles, as long as the distinctions are maintained, per discussion at the family article. Pace AjaxSmack, "Hokkaido Ainu" is the common name in the lit when restricting the scope to Hokkaido Ainu. It would also be less confusing than the current name. But moving the family to "Ainuic languages" would be acceptable. Or both. As for the rd from "Ainu language", that should be obvious: when you move an article you leave behind a rd to the new name. It could rd to either (though per TWODABS it probably shouldn't be a dab page), but that's another discussion if people object to the default target. — kwami (talk) 14:18, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
 * I like "Ainuic languages"; it's very rare, but so is the idea of an Ainu language family (cf. Japonic languages, Koreanic languages). I agree that the current situation is not ideal, but one of these topics, the Ainu language spoken on Hokkaido is far and away the most notable and it is most commonly called simply the "Ainu language".  What I oppose is, a) an uncommon title for that article, and b) sending readers looking for "Ainu language" to another article. —  AjaxSmack  16:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)

We have agreed in the past to merge Ainu languages into Ainu language, but this time, mainly User:Kwamikagami is opposing this agreement. As for me, either 1. Ainu languages is redirected to Ainu language, or 2. Ainu language is renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language is no problem. However, I think the coexistence of "Ainu language" and "Ainu languages" is problematic. It is very confusing, because Ainu languages article is treated only Hokkaido though the name "Ainu" is usually contains Kuril and Sakhalin.

Current problematic state;
 * Ainu languages
 * Ainu language
 * Kuril Ainu language
 * Sakhalin Ainu language

I think we should make one of the two ideal states below.

1;
 * Ainu language ... Current Ainu languages article contents. Ainu languages is redirected to this page.
 * Hokkaido dialect (Ainu)... Current Ainu language article contents.
 * Kuril dialect (Ainu)... Renamed from Kuril Ainu language.
 * Sakhalin dialect (Ainu)... Renamed from Sakhalin Ainu language.

2;
 * Ainu languages （or Ainuic languages） ... Ainu language is redirected to this page.
 * Hokkaido Ainu language ... Renamed from current Ainu language article.
 * Kuril Ainu language
 * Sakhalin Ainu language

If merging Ainu languages into Ainu language (state 1) is opposed, we should rename Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu language (state2). I would like User:AjaxSmack and User:Kwamikagami to discuss directly about which, Ainu languages article or Ainu language article, should treat whole Ainu languages/dialects (state 1 or 2).--ABCEdit (talk) 13:24, 21 April 2019 (UTC) A little added --ABCEdit (talk) 11:25, 22 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Your proposals very well-structured but it ignores the fact that a) "Hokkaido Ainu language" is an uncommon, even astonishing, name, and b) that the whole idea of an Ainu language family is a far less notable topic than the language of Hokkaido, which is usually called simply "Ainu". Since "Ainuic" does show up in a few sources, what about:
 * 3
 * Ainuic languages
 * Ainu language
 * Kuril Ainu language
 * Sakhalin Ainu language?


 * It is not as structurally beautiful as your proposals but it allows the titles to comply with WP:COMMONNAMES. We currently follow the same formula with Japonic languages/Japanese language/Okinawan Japanese and Koreanic languages/Korean] language/Zainichi Korean language —  AjaxSmack  16:21, 21 April 2019 (UTC)


 * To User:AjaxSmack; I figure out what you say, but usually the term "Ainu language" contains not only Hokkaido but also Kuril and Sakhalin. If we limit to Hokkaido, we must add "Hokkaido" before "Ainu". As the simple term "Ainu" is not limited to Hokkaido, I cannot accept state 3. （Okinawan Japanese means a dialect of Japanese language spoken in Okinawa, so Japanese language and Okinawan Japanese are not phylogenetically equal level. (Okinawan Japanese is a subgroup of Japanese language.) Also, Zainichi Korean language means a variation of Korean language spoken by Koreans in Japan. They are different formula with this Ainu matter. Hokkaio, Kuril and Sakhalin are phylogenetically equal.）
 * And "Hokkaido Ainu" is used in Glottlog . It's not original research. (In addition, in Glottlog, the family name is Ainu, so "Ainu languages" is also not original research.)
 * --ABCEdit (talk) 17:42, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
 * My argument is not that the proposed title is OR, but that it is far less common than simply "Ainu" to the point of possibly being misleading. Having Ainu direct to another (obscure) topic compounds that. —  AjaxSmack  01:25, 22 April 2019 (UTC)
 * To User:AjaxSmack; If current Ainu language article is renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language (= state 2 is adopted), Ainu language will be redirected to Ainu languages or Ainuic languages. (Ainu language will never be redirected to Hokkaido Ainu language.) That is not obscure at all.--ABCEdit (talk) 11:36, 22 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Weak Oppose. As I argued in sections above (and elsewhere), I don't think there is a scholarly consensus that there is more than one Ainu language. However, the current situation on Wikipedia is confusing. Perhaps this page should be renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language with a redirect from the far more common Ainu language pointing towards it? I also think the family should be referred to as Ainu languages, as again, there doesn't appear to be scholarly consensus on the issue in English nor in Japanese. ---Limetom 23:24, 21 April 2019 (UTC)
 * To Limetom; When current Ainu language article is renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language (= state 2 is adopted), Ainu language will be redirected to Ainu languages or Ainuic languages. Ainu language will never be redirected to Hokkaido Ainu language. --ABCEdit (talk) 11:36, 22 April 2019 (UTC)

Again, "Ainu language(s)" is not limited to Hokkaido, but includes Kuril and Sakhalin. It is impossible to call only the Hokkaido variant "Ainu language". We must call it "Hokkaido Ainu language". And the difference between "Ainu language" and "Ainu languages" is just whether we treat it as a single language or a language family. --ABCEdit (talk) 11:47, 22 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Support. As ABCEdit said above, the main article will be Ainu languages, thus it is still the common name. The "Hokkaido-Ainu" article would only be about the Hokkaido dialect or language. (Same as Sakhalin and Kuril Ainu). Generally, linguists seem to speak of one Ainu language but see the Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kuril groups as dialects. (Some see them as own languages belonging to the Ainuic family). So we could either merge all Ainu language articles into one article (Ainu languages) or rename the current Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu. We do not need to write language or dialect. I would suggest: Ainu languages as main article and Hokkaido/Sakhalin/Kuril Ainu as sub-articles. (If we call them languages or dialects should be discussed, but I think we all agree that they are not one and the same).--AsadalEditor (talk) 12:08, 23 April 2019 (UTC)

The move is complete. Thank you for participating in the discussion.--ABCEdit (talk) 21:42, 23 April 2019 (UTC)


 * Requesting a technical move and then drastically rearranging content during a move discussion is bad form. Let an admin or disinterested party conduct such actions after the discussion has run its course. —  AjaxSmack  03:05, 24 April 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry for requesting a technical move before this discussion is ended. To tell the truth, I was in the wrong place to make a request of this renaming. As it was obvious that Ainu language should be renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language, I should have requested a technical move, but I have put it on Requested moves. This is because I didn't know the enwiki system. We apologize for asking you for this extra discussion. And it is why I requested a technical move before this discussion is ended. Sorry. Anyway, current Ainu language article treats only Hokkaido, but correctly "Ainu language" contains Kuril and Sakhalin. There is no controversy about that current Ainu language article should be renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language. Even if there are problems with my procedure, I cannot agree that User:AjaxSmack asked for cancellation of the move. There should be no reason to oppose renaming Ainu language → Hokkaido Ainu language. If you (=those who have opposed this renaming above) still oppose it, please indicate a logical reason. If no logical reason is given within a week, this discussion will be closed and I will rename current Ainu language article to Hokkaido Ainu language and redirect Ainu language to Ainu languages as agreed.--ABCEdit (talk) 17:38, 26 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Inclined to oppose for the same reasons as last time, with that objection not at all assuaged by the fact the discussion was declared complete in 3 days despite ongoing objections. (I was only pinged after the discussion "ended".) Dekimasu よ! 12:07, 24 April 2019 (UTC)
 * Please note WP:CONSENSUS, and allow an admin or move closer to determine if it has been reached. —  AjaxSmack 02:05, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

One week has passed and no logical reasons to oppose renaming Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu languages have indicated. I have renamed Ainu langauge to Hokkaido Ainu langauge as agreed. I will end this discussion. Thank you.--ABCEdit (talk) 13:50, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * This is not how move requests are closed. Please allow an uninvolved editor to assess consensus. Also note that it may be insulting to other editors to claim that their opposition to the move you proposed is illogical. Dekimasu よ! 16:24, 4 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Moved back. I'll leave them a note on their talk page as this isn't the first time they did this. SkyWarrior  20:36, 4 May 2019 (UTC)

In enWiki, is it an uninvolved editor to judge that the agreement has been reached? What would you do if this discussion was forgotten and no one judged it? The reason for opposing to rename Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu language was that Ainu language might be redirected to Hokkaido Ainu language or another obscure page. But then, I said that Ainu language should be redirected to Ainu languages because "Ainu language" contains not only Hokkaido but also Kuril and Sakhalin. After that, I asked the opponents to say in one week if there were re-counterarguments about it. But there were no comments. The opposition is invalid now. And it is very nonproductive to oppose the move because of a mistake of the procedure. It is obvious that current Ainu language article should be renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language. --ABCEdit (talk) 01:29, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * First, there is further extensive discussion in the February 2018 section above, as I noted, which discusses why "Ainu language" is not very ambiguous in English despite the existence of articles on other extinct languages. Second, the arguments of editors opposing a request do not become invalid on the sole basis of their lack of response to a subsequent restatement of the proposal (see WP:SATISFY). Third, the Japanese Wikipedia also functions under rules of consensus. The reason to let an uninvolved editor assess the discussion is that it is not at all clear consensus has been reached in this case. In fact, I believe it hasn't. Fourth, the discussion will not be forgotten about, because it is listed centrally at WP:RMC. I understand that you believe your edits are logical and valid, but this does not give you an absolute right to override the position of other editors. Dekimasu よ! 02:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * To Dekimasu;
 * 1:"Ainu language" includes Kuril and Sakhalin. We never call "Ainu language" pointing only to the language of Hokkaido. It doesn't matter if they are extant or extinct. Kuril Ainu and Sakhalin Ainu became extinct but they are not the ancestors of extant Hokkaido Ainu. The three languages (or dialects) are all phylogentilcally parallel sister clades. We have to give parallel article names to them. Do you have any objections about this?
 * 2,3,4:OK.
 * --ABCEdit (talk) 03:57, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Parallel titles are not mandated in such cases; WP:UCRN and Primary topic are still in effect. To repeat what I said above in different terms, for example, we do not have an article at South Korean Koreans just because we have an article called Sakhalin Koreans; we do not have an article called Japanese Japanese on the basis of having an article called Japanese Americans. I am not sure who the "we" is in your comment above. However, the extant language is usually called Ainu language in English, and I only get 10 total Google Books hits for ”北海道アイヌ語” [Hokkaidō Ainu-go] in Japanese (and only 1 hit for "Hokkaido Ainu language" on Google Books in English, from an article published by the Arctic Institute of North America in 1973). Dekimasu よ! 08:11, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * To Dekimasu;
 * "We" is Japanese people. Japanese people never say "Ainu language=アイヌ語"　when pointing only to the language of Hokkaido. When Japanese people say "アイヌ語=Ainu language", not only Hokkaido but also Kuril and Sakhalin are absolutely contained. It is definitely wrong use to call the one of Hokkaido "Ainu language"(without "Hokkaido"). "Ainu language" is never equal to "Hokkaido Ainu language". It is equal to "Ainu languages".


 * Ainu languages = Ainu language
 * Hokkaido Ainu language (≠ Ainu language)=Hokkaido Dialect
 * Kuril Ainu lanuage=Kuril Dialect
 * Sakhalin Ainu language=Sakhalin Dialect
 * ※Right:Ainu is treated as a family. Left:Ainu is treated as a language.


 * Do you claim that we should tolerate the definitely wrong title?
 * --ABCEdit (talk) 12:32, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * A little correction--ABCEdit (talk) 12:48, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * I take issue with several parts of your comments, but I will try to point out only some of the more pertinent ones here. First, English-language usage is not determined by Japanese-language usage, and titles on the English-language Wikipedia are determined by English-language usage. Second, it is improper to state that you speak on behalf of all Japanese people; or to read your comment more charitably, all speakers of Japanese, of whom I am one. Third, you must recognize the problems involved in claiming that only Japanese people can speak authoritatively about Ainu issues. On the one hand, this reifies Japanese colonization and suppression of Ainu people. On the other, you are claiming that the term you prefer encompasses languages from regions that are not now part of Japan (Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands). (I further dispute the claim that when Japanese people say Ainu-go, they are usually including extinct languages from areas not under Japanese control. I would posit that they are usually thinking about the only extant language. But this is just countering an assertion with another assertion.) Dekimasu よ! 15:35, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * This is not a political matter. Japanese colonization is totally irrelevant. "Ainu-go"="Ainu language" contains all of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kuril. It's the same in English and Japanese usage. It doesn't matter if they are extant or extinct. --ABCEdit (talk) 16:30, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * >I would posit that they are usually thinking about the only extant language.
 * No！ Almost all Japanese literature use "Ainu-go" as containing all of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kuril. In English "Ainu language" is the same. It is usually described that one language or a family "Ainu" is distributed in Hokkaido, Kuril and Sakhalin but the kuril and Sakhalin ones are now extinct. Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kuril are sub-taxa of "Ainu language(s)". It is absolutely wrong that only the one in Hokkaido is "Ainu language".　It is "Hokkaido Ainu language". --ABCEdit (talk) 17:02, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There are fewer than 50 Google hits for "Hokkaido Ainu language" outside of Wikipedia and its mirrors, and only 1 hit in Google Books. The name is so rare as to basically disprove your point, as AjaxSmack pointed out above. The question is not whether "only the one in Hokkaido is 'Ainu language'" (a distinction that only became relevant when you removed references to the other variants last month) but rather "what people commonly call this language," which is Ainu language. Dekimasu よ! 17:23, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The common name of Hokkaido one is "Hokkaido Ainu language". The common name of all the languages of Hokkaido, Kuril and Sakhalin is "Ainu language(s)". It's very easy. Again and again, Hokkaido one is never called "Ainu language" without "Hokkaido".--ABCEdit (talk) 18:16, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * By definition, a name that is not in use cannot be a common name. Dekimasu よ! 04:48, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * The reason why "Hokkaido Ainu language" is rarely seen is that the language of Hokkaido is rarely mentioned restricted from the other two. It does not mean that "Hokkaido Ainu language" is not a common name for Hokkaido one. However rarely "Hokkaido Ainu language" is seen, "Ainu language" never means only Hokkaido one excluding the other two.--ABCEdit (talk) 08:37, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I went through the 50 hits mentioned above to see how many actually use the term "Hokkaido Ainu language" in the sense you mean. The answer was 6. That makes a total of 7 hits on the internet. Meanwhile sentences like "The Ainu language is a language spoken on the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan" abound. Anytime there is a reference saying something like "Today there are very few people who can speak the Ainu language freely," referring to a singular language that is still spoken, this certainly does exclude Kuril and Sakhalin Ainu, which are extinct and thus never spoken. On the one hand continuing to claim that something fits the Wikipedia definition of a WP:COMMONNAME when there are, at most, a few dozen instances of it in the wild refutes your point. On the other it is verifiably false that people mean to include the Kuril or Sakhalin version when they simply write that people today "speak the Ainu language," but it is burdensome to point this out in every case. I understand your point (WP:PRECISION), but there is no evidence that such a distinction is consistently, frequently, or even intermittently made and the current topic is the primary topic for the search term. So I suppose I am forced again to ask for evidence of a preponderance of usage in reliable sources under WP:UCRN. Dekimasu よ! 09:18, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Now that Ainu only remains in Hokkaido, it is no mistake that "Ainu is a language currently spoken in Hokkaido." However, the Hokkaido subgroup of Ainu must be called "Hokkaido Ainu langauge". "Ainu language(s)" and "Hokkaido Ainu language" are completely different concepts. If you deny the title of "Hokkaido Ainu language" and choose "Ainu language" for the above reasons you wrote, Ainu language needs to be merged into Ainu languages, because the two are exactly the same things.--ABCEdit (talk) 10:06, 6 May 2019 (UTC)

Re-merge instead?
&#8203;&#8203;&#8203;&#8203;&#8203;&#8203;&#8203;I want to reintroduce the possibility of re-merging the four articles back in to one, because I don't like the names we're using, and I'm not getting my way. The struck line was added unsigned by User:Kwamikagami The sum content of all four articles is not particularly great, and this would allow the differences of opinion here to be politely swept under the rug. (See previous discussion of a merge here and in the previous RM above.) —  AjaxSmack  18:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC) ...and to be clear...


 * Support a merge as the least worst option. —  AjaxSmack 18:14, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose We don't merge other languages into their family article just because the article is a stub. We aren't so stingy with Indo-European languages. Hellenic languages, for example. If you don't like having stubs, you could always expand the articles! Or are you proposing this just to sidestep the COMMONNAME dispute? What we call articles is not important compared to their content, and requesting deletion so we don't have to decide on a name is not very professional. (I know that comes off as personal, but I can't think of a better way to word it.) — kwami (talk) 18:43, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * &#8203;I agree that it is "not very professional" which is why I said "swept under the rug". However, it is even more unprofessional to ignore WP:COMMONNAMES because real-life usage happens to be messy.  Too bad the "Ainuic languages" solution didn't go anywhere. —  AjaxSmack  21:45, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * So, if you don't get the name you want, you're going to have a temper-tantrum and try to get the articles deleted? Can you honestly think that it is "more professional"? If the names are messy, so be it. If you don't like it, too bad. You can try for a change of name, but it seems that is only acceptable as long as others agree with the name you've already chosen. I don't care which names we choose, but petty IDONTLIKEIT motions are not appropriate. — kwami (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Editing my comments above without attribution is poor form. WP:COMMONNAMES is hardly IDONTLIKEIT and I wasn't calling for anything to be deleted. — <span style="border:1px solid #93010b;background:#ef0000;padding:2px;color:#efe6e6;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; font-family: Georgia;"> AjaxSmack  23:47, 5 May 2019 (UTC)


 * weak oppose I think ABCEdit is right with his view that Ainu language(s) are used for all three Hokkaido, Sakhalin and Kuril languages. I still think the best idea is: Ainu languages as main and three sub-articles about Hokkaido Ainu, Sakhalin Ainu and Kuril Ainu. I also think Ainu language should be named as Hokkaido Ainu language like the two other sub-articles also have the regional name. If linguists speak from Ainu language or Ainu languages, they most time refer to the Ainu family and not only to the Ainu language of Hokkaido. Even if they are dialects, there are many articles about dialects. Compare Korean language and Jeju language. Jeju is often regarded as own language and sometimes as dialect. If we merge, we should merge all three and not only Hokkaido.—AsadalEditor (talk) 20:28, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * &#8203;I just clarified above that I meant merging all four articles into one. — <span style="border:1px solid #93010b;background:#ef0000;padding:2px;color:#efe6e6;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; font-family: Georgia;"> AjaxSmack 21:45, 5 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Weak oppose I understand that you made this proposal as a compromise. The controversy of renaming may terminate if they are merged. However, I think it is not good to merge pages that can exist as independent articles without justifiable reasons. (This merger proposal is to end the renaming dispute. It is not justifiable.) It goes against the development of Wikipedia. By the way, AjaxSmack, you still oppose renaming Ainu language to Hokkaido Ainu language？--ABCEdit (talk) 02:14, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Reinstating the status quo ante is an acceptable option if the original changes did not enjoy consensus. However, I do not see the problem with this page retaining the current title even if the others remain separate. In a variant on the above, cf. Classical Japanese language but Modern Japanese redirects to Japanese language. Japanese language which is not considered ambiguous just because of the previous existence of another variety. Dekimasu よ! 09:24, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It is unacceptable that the title of this page is "Ainu language". The meaning of "Ainu language" equals that of "Ainu languages". The two pages can not coexist. It is not permitted to make plural articles about the same thing.--ABCEdit (talk) 09:49, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * User:Dekimasu: I am fine with the status quo ante. I mentioned the alternatives of merging or using "Ainuic languages" to help overcome other users' aversion to the coexistence of Ainu language/Ainu languages, but that coexistence bothers me far less than having uncommon borderline OR titles and/or sending readers where they don't want to go. — <span style="border:1px solid #93010b;background:#ef0000;padding:2px;color:#efe6e6;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; font-family: Georgia;"> AjaxSmack  14:01, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It is incorrect to call only the Hokkaido one simply "Ainu language" without "Hokkaido". The present state is clearly wrong. Why making the right state have to be prevented? If you understand the matter properly, you can not get the idea of the status quo ante. Renaming "Ainu languages" to "Ainuic languages" is not an issue.--ABCEdit (talk) 14:58, 6 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree with the "borderline OR" point. It's perhaps worth noting again that the Japanese Wiki article for "Hokkaido Ainu language" was written entirely by ABCEdit except that in 4 years other editors have fixed 2 typos, formatted a reference, and changed the color of the template. No refs on the Japanese article refer to “Hokkaido Ainu” either. Dekimasu よ! 16:58, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
 * "北海道アイヌ語"(= Hokkaido Ainu language) is not OR. It is used .--ABCEdit (talk) 23:15, 9 May 2019 (UTC)
 * As you can see from the very first sentence of your first cite, the meaning of the phrase is correctly parsed as 北海道のアイヌ語地名 (the Ainu-language place names of Hokkaido), not 北海道アイヌ語の地名 (Hokkaido Ainu language place names). Dekimasu よ! 02:16, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Even if what you are saying about the first cite is correct, "北海道アイヌ語" (= Hokkaido Ainu language) is clearly used in the second cite.--ABCEdit (talk) 10:57, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * It's a non-peer reviewed article that elsewhere explicitly refers to it as a dialect. You have made the point that the phrase is "in use," but the quality of most of the sources you've listed below is not good. Some are simply mentions of the fact that Wikipedia had an article called Hokkaido Ainu language after you moved this page. WP:OR specifically relates to use in Reliable sources. Dekimasu よ! 23:55, 10 May 2019 (UTC)
 * You should not decide the quality of the sources by yourself. You seem to oppose me whatever I say. No matter how hard I insist, you find fault with and oppose me. I think discussion with you is useless.--ABCEdit (talk) 00:55, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I agree that it should not be necessary to respond to each of your comments. However, you have shown multiple times above (in reinitiating the same request that you previously withdrew, in asking for a technical move during an open move discussion, in "drastically rearranging content" during the discussion, in closing your own open request) that you take silence as tacit approval. I do not object to others reviewing the sources you listed. I am confident they will come to the same conclusions I did. As for the request for comment below, please note that this is not how requests for comment are conducted, first because the comment below is not neutrally worded, second because it is a form of forum shopping, and third because the RfC has been added into the open move discussion. Dekimasu よ! 08:59, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose per the above. This is kinda one of those "cut off my thumb to make my hangnail go away" solutions.  While it would end further disputation about naming and which content goes in which page, it would do so at too high a cost, of force-merging stuff that belongs in separate articles.  Worse, it would almost inevitably lead to the dispute re-arising, since people would split it back out into separate articles at some later point.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:20, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

"Hokkaido Ainu language" is not OR
"Hokkaido Ainu language" is used in,, , , , , and. It is not OR at all.--ABCEdit (talk) 14:29, 10 May 2019 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. <b style="color:red">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Request for comment
Current Ainu language article treats only Hokkaido, but "Ainu language" contains not only Hokkaido but also Kuril and Sakhalin. It is absolutely incorrect that only Hokkaido one is called "Ainu language". It is "Hokkaido Ainu language". And the coexistence of “Ainu languages” and “Ainu language”pages is very confusing. Obviously, current Ainu language article should be renamed to "Hokkaido Ainu language". So I requested move on this page. But a few users oppose it. They claim that the name "Hokkaido Ainu language" is on the "borderline of OR". I showed above that "Hokkaido Ainu language" is not OR. But one of them stubbornly does not admit it and the discussion is stagnant. --ABCEdit (talk) 00:55, 11 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Oppose as phrased, since this isn't a proper RM, but a "damn that other person for arguing with me" kind of venting. I agree with the proponent that the phrase "Ainu language" has ambiguity issues.  This isn't WP's doing, however.  It's just a real-world situation.  The nom's statement 'but "Ainu language" contains [three languages]' isn't linguistically correct.  The language family Ainu languages (plural) does.  The singular form Ainu language is primarily used to refer to the Hokkaido variety.  If Hokkaido Ainu [language/dialect/whatever] is well-attested in RS enough that we can use it, then I have no objection to moving the one article. But there is nothing at all wrong with the name or existence of the Ainu languages page.  I see doubt above about whether Hokkaido Ainu is attested enough.  If the majority of current RS just use Ainu [language] for this, then we should as well, and we just need to disambiguate, both with hatnotes and in the lead material, so readers are clear that they're at the correct page.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  18:27, 12 May 2019 (UTC)


 * To SMcCandlish; I replay to make your misunderstanding clear.
 * >The nom's statement 'but "Ainu language" contains [three languages]' isn't linguistically correct. The language family Ainu languages (plural) does. The singular form Ainu language is primarily used to refer to the Hokkaido variety.
 * You are making a misunderstanding. At least in Japan (,where linguistic research of Ainu language(s) is most active), when referring only to Hokkaido variety distinguishing it from the other two, it is never called simply "Ainu language". We must put "Hokkaido" before it. The reason why many sources write "Ainu language is distributed in Hokkaido" is because Sakhalin Ainu and Kuril Ainu are now extinct. Including the extinct varieties, "Ainu language is currently distributed only in Hokkaido but once distributed also in Kuril and Sakhalin" is correct. The word "Ainu language" includes Kuril and Sakhalin. All the three varieties are phylogenetically parallel and the name of the region is necessary for all the three varieties. Calling only the Hokkaido variety simply "Ainu language" is incorrect. And the difference between Ainu languages (plural) and Ainu language (singular) is just whether it is treated as a language family or a single language. （Ainu languages＝Ainu language≠Hokkaido Ainu language)


 * <Phylogeny>
 * Ainu languages (=Ainu language)
 * Hokkaido Ainu language (=Hokkaido dialect)（≠Ainu language)
 * Kuril Ainu language (=Kuril dialect)†
 * Sakhalin Ainu language (=Sakhalin dialect)†


 * >I see doubt above about Hokkaido Ainu is attested enough.
 * I think "Hokkaido Ainu" is commonly used enough. It is also used in Glottlog.
 * --ABCEdit (talk) 11:22, 13 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I understand all that. I'm making a point about English grammar: '... but "Ainu language" contains [three languages]' is a nonsensical statement in English, and confuses these proceedings. Structurally, it's the akin to saying that my parent consists of my father and my mother. Plurals and singulars cannot be swapped around like that, and "Ainu language" (an ambiguous term) and "Ainu languages" (not an ambiguous term) aren't synonymous phrases.  Back to the central matter here:  I don't doubt that someone somewhere says "Hokkaido Ainu language", but the above thread finds very little evidence of its use in reliable sources.  I suspect that perhaps the roughly equivalent phrase in Japanese is used in Japan (since Japanese linguists are probably not spending much time talking amongst themselves in English about Ainu or about much else); that doesn't mean that the English language phrase "Hokkaido Ainu [language]" is well-attested.  Maybe it is and we just haven't noticed, but I don't see evidence supporting this position.  I'm not a WP:COMMONAME "bible thumper"; it's not even one of the WP:CRITERIA, but simply the default first choice to test against those criteria and against other applicable policies and guidelines.  But it does matter.  If we can't find any real evidence of "Hokkaido Ainu" being used in English then we're not likely to use that as an article title.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  15:38, 13 May 2019 (UTC)


 * Oppose, we need to follow what majority sources say. I am in support of a disambiguation, though. Barca (talk) 16:52, 20 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Even if the phrase "Hokkaido Ainu language" is not used in majority sources, it is incorrect to call the Hokkaido variety merely "Ainu language" without "Hokkaido". No sources call "Ainu language" only referring to the Hokkaido variety.--ABCEdit (talk) 21:43, 20 May 2019 (UTC)

Remerge redux
In the course of the RM discussion and related discussions above, as well as previous discussions, the possibility of merging the with the  article was broached (by myself among others). Following the close of previous discussion, one user has been merging the former into the latter. Despite my support of this, I feel it should be discussed first, so here's the place. Pinging previous participants. — <span style="border:1px solid #93010b;background:#ef0000;padding:2px;color:#efe6e6;text-shadow:black 0.2em 0.2em 0.3em; font-family: Georgia;"> AjaxSmack 01:59, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Support No sources say merely "Ainu language" when referring only to the Hokkaido variety distinguished from the other two (Sakhalin and Kuril). "Hokkaido" is necessary when we refer to the Hokkaido variety only. And "Ainu language" is the same as "Ainu languages". Therefore, the content of this page is incorrect unless the title is renamed to Hokkaido Ainu language. So I proposed the RM above. However, this RM was rejected. So now, there is no choice but to redirect Ainu language to Ainu languages and lose the page of the Hokkaido variety. It is no room for argument any more.--ABCEdit (talk) 12:25, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid this is more of the behaviour that we have seen from ABCEdit. They don't seem to be able to accept consensus. &mdash; Martin (MSGJ · talk) 19:44, 24 May 2019 (UTC)
 * There is clear disruption going on, and no one editor is or should be in a position to say that "there is no choice but to" do what he or she wants. I'm sure ABCEdit doesn't want to hear from me about it anymore, I'm an involved editor here, and like AjaxSmack above, I think the merge itself is not the worst possible option. However, given ABCEdit's singleminded focus on this subject I am worried that this is a preview to an attempt to fork a new Hokkaido Ainu language article from Ainu languages as an end-around the failure of the RM above–whether now, or after he thinks the issue has faded from our attention. Dekimasu よ! 09:21, 25 May 2019 (UTC)
 * Discussion here is about merging, not about my behavior. However, I apologize for causing disruption. Because of my lack of English ability, I may possibly not have understood exactly what other users are saying, and I may possibly not have been able to accurately convey my thoughts. Politeness and courtesy may have been lacking. My use of words may not have been appropriate. My ignorance of enwiki's rules has also caused problems. I admit the wording of my sentence may have been very strong because of my firm belief that the current incorrect state of Ainu language page of enwiki must not be tolerated so as not to give incorrect understanding of Ainu language to people who see enwiki in the world. I just have said what I think is correct, but I would like to introspect that my behavior has caused problems.--ABCEdit (talk) 12:47, 26 May 2019 (UTC)


 * There is no opposition for about three weeks. If no opposition is presented in one week, I will merge Ainu language to Ainu languages. I entreat you to allow me to correct the apparently erroneous current state, for the readers of enwiki in the world to understand Ainu language correctly. And I promise not to fork a new Hokkaio Ainu language article without agreement. Don't worry. I will back away from this subject after this merger is achieved.--ABCEdit (talk) 15:28, 19 June 2019 (UTC)


 * More than one week has passed since my declaration above and there was no objection, so I made this merger. If you have any objections to this merger, please discuss on this page before reverting.--ABCEdit (talk) 14:19, 28 June 2019 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ainu languages which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 03:47, 18 August 2019 (UTC)