Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Japanese (日本語, Nihongo, ⓘ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people.It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide.
In addition to these two indigenous language families, there is Japanese Sign Language, as well as significant minorities of ethnic Koreans and Chinese, who make up respectively about 0.5% and 0.4% of the country's population and many of whom continue to speak their ethnic language in private (see Zainichi Korean).
The Japanese government provides standardized tests to measure spoken and written comprehension of Japanese for second language learners; the most prominent is the Japanese Language Proficiency Test (JLPT), which features five levels of exams (changed from four levels in 2010), ranging from elementary (N5) to advanced (N1). The JLPT is offered ...
Easy Japanese (やさしい日本語, yasashii nihongo) refers to a simplified version of the Japanese language that is easy to understand for children and foreigners who have limited proficiency in the Japanese language by using simple expressions, simplified sentence structure, and added furigana (kana indicating pronunciation) to kanji ...
The education system was the heart of Japanization, where Okinawan children were taught Japanese and punished for speaking their native language, being told that their language was just a "dialect". Language shift to Japanese in Ryukyu/Okinawa began in 1879 when the Japanese government annexed Ryukyu and established Okinawa Prefecture.
The Tokyo dialect (Tōkyō hōgen, Tōkyō-ben, Tōkyō-go (東京方言, 東京弁, 東京語)) is a variety of Japanese language spoken in modern Tokyo. As a whole, it is generally considered to be Standard Japanese, though specific aspects of slang or pronunciation can vary by area and social class. Yamanote (red) and Shitamachi (blue)
The Hokkaidō dialect is the closest to Standard Japanese because colonists from various regions settled the area, so that use of the standard language was required in order to facilitate communication. In the Ryukyu Islands, Standard Japanese developed into a dialect known as Okinawan Japanese, which has been influenced by the Ryukyuan languages.
This is an accepted version of this page This is the latest accepted revision, reviewed on 15 June 2024. Problem of relating Japanese and the Ryukyuan languages to other languages This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations. (January 2015) (Learn how and ...