Ainu people | EPFL Graph Search

Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?

Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.

The Ainu are an indigenous people of the lands surrounding the Sea of Okhotsk, including Hokkaido Island, Northeast Honshu Island, Sakhalin Island, the Kuril Islands, the Kamchatka Peninsula, and Khabarovsk Krai, since before the arrival of the Yamato Japanese and Russians. These regions are referred to as Ezo in historical Japanese texts. Official estimates place the total Ainu population of Japan at 25,000. Unofficial estimates place the total population at 200,000 or higher, as the near-total assimilation of the Ainu into Japanese society has resulted in many individuals of Ainu descent having no knowledge of their ancestry. Japanese assimilation policies since the 19th century Meiji Restoration included forcing Ainu off their land, which in turn forced them to give up traditional subsistence hunting and fishing. Ainu were not allowed to practice their religion and were pushed into Japanese-language schools where it was impossible to preserve their own language. In 1966, there were about 300 native Ainu speakers; in 2008, however, there were only about 100. This people's most widely known ethnonym, "Ainu" (アィヌ; アイヌ; Айны) means "human" in the Ainu language, particularly as opposed to kamui, divine beings. Ainu also identify themselves as "Utari" ("comrade" or "people"). Official documents use both names. The Ainu are the native people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin and the Kurils. Early Ainu-speaking groups (mostly hunters and fishermen) migrated also into the Kamchatka Peninsula and into Honshu, where their descendants are today known as the Matagi hunters, who still use a large amount of Ainu vocabulary in their dialect. Other evidence for Ainu-speaking hunters and fishermen migrating down from Northern Hokkaido into Honshu is through the Ainu toponyms which are found in several places of northern Honshu, mostly among the western coast and the Tōhoku region. Evidence for Ainu speakers in the Amur region is found through Ainu loanwords in the Uilta and Ulch people. Research suggests that Ainu culture originated from a merger of the Okhotsk and Satsumon cultures.

About this result

This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.

Related concepts (91)

Kuril Islands

The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (ˈkʊərɪl,_ˈkjʊərɪl,_kjʊˈriːl; Кури́льские острова́; Japanese: "Kuril Islands" or "Thousand Islands") are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the north Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many minor islets. The Kuril Islands consist of the Greater Kuril Chain and, at the southwest end, the parallel Lesser Kuril Chain.

Ainu people

Hokkaido

is Japan's second largest island and comprises the largest and northernmost prefecture, making up its own region. The Tsugaru Strait separates Hokkaidō from Honshu; the two islands are connected by the undersea railway Seikan Tunnel. The largest city on Hokkaidō is its capital, Sapporo, which is also its only ordinance-designated city. Sakhalin lies about 43 kilometers (26 mi) to the north of Hokkaidō, and to the east and northeast are the Kuril Islands, which are administered by Russia, though the four most southerly are claimed by Japan.