Editing Ainu people (section)

===Language===
{{Main|Ainu language}}
[[File:Ainu_map.svg|thumb|Map of the pre-1945 distribution of Ainu languages and dialects]]
In 2008, the news block ''[[World Watch]]'' gave an estimate of fewer than 100 remaining speakers of the Ainu language.{{sfnp|Hohmann|2008|p=19}} In 1993, linguist [[Alexander Vovin]] placed the number at fewer than 15 speakers, characterizing the language as "almost extinct".{{sfnp|Vovin|1993|p=1|loc="The Ainu language, almost extinct nowadays, is located on Hokkaidô, the northernmost island of the Japanese Archepelago. Several thousands of Ainu still live there, but there are no more than ten or twenty native speakers of this language among them."}} Because so few present-day speakers are left, study of the Ainu language is limited and is based largely on historical research. Historically, the status of the Ainu language was rather high and was used by early Russian and Japanese administrative officials to communicate with each other and with the Ainu people.

[[File:AinuPlaceNames.png|thumb|Place names in the Ainu language]]
Despite the small number of native speakers of Ainu, there is an active movement to [[Language revitalization|revitalize]] the language, mainly in Hokkaido but also elsewhere, such as in [[Kantō region|Kanto]].{{sfnp|Martin|2011}} Ainu oral literature has been documented both in hopes of safeguarding it for future generations and for use as a teaching tool for language learners.{{sfnp|Miyaoka|Sakiyama|Krauss|2007}} As of 2011, there were an increasing number of second-language learners, especially in Hokkaido.

The resurgence of Ainu culture and language is in large part due to the pioneering efforts of the late Ainu folklorist, activist, and former [[Japanese Diet|Diet]] member [[Shigeru Kayano]], himself a native speaker. He first opened an Ainu language school in 1987, funded by [[Ainu Kyokai]].{{sfnp|Teeter|Okazaki|2011}}

Although some researchers have attempted to show that the Ainu and Japanese languages are related, modern scholars have rejected the idea that the relationship goes beyond contact, such as the mutual borrowing of words. No attempt to show a relationship with Ainu to any other language has gained wide acceptance, and linguists currently classify Ainu as a [[language isolate]].{{sfnp|Shibatani|1990|pp=3–5}} Most Ainu people speak either Japanese or Russian.

The Ainu language has no indigenous system of writing and has historically been transliterated using Japanese [[kana]] or [[Russian alphabet|Russian Cyrillic]]. {{As of | 2019}}, it was typically written either in [[katakana]] or in the [[Latin alphabet]].

Many of the Ainu dialects, especially those from different extremities of Hokkaido, are not mutually intelligible. However, all Ainu speakers understand the classic Ainu language of the {{lang|ain-Latn|[[Yukar]]}}, a form of Ainu [[Epic poetry|epic]]. Without a writing system, the Ainu were masters of narration, with the {{lang|ain-Latn|Yukar}} and other forms of narration such as {{lang|ain-Latn|[[Uepeker]]}} ({{lang|ain-Latn|Uwepeker}}) tales being committed to memory and related at gatherings that often lasted many hours or even days.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ainu.htm|title=Ainu|website=omniglot.com|year=2009|access-date=August 2, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100102071247/http://omniglot.com/writing/ainu.htm|archive-date=January 2, 2010|url-status=live}}</ref>
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Concepts expressed with [[Preposition and postposition|prepositions]] in English, such as 'to', 'from', 'by', 'in', and 'at', appear as postpositional forms in Ainu. Whereas prepositions come before the word they modify, postpositions come after it. A single sentence in Ainu can comprise many added or [[agglutinate]]d sounds or [[affix]]es that represent nouns or ideas.{{Citation needed|date=July 2023}}