"日本にはアイヌの人たちがいます。"
Translation:There are Ainu people in Japan.
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This. There are/were other non-Japanese ethnic groups in Japan before the "Japanese" (Yamato) took over -- include the Ainu in Hokkaido, the Emishi in Tohoku, the Ryukyu in Okinawa...
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Except that Okinawans still don't consider themselves Japanese or that they are apart of Japan.
The Okinawan language is a part of the Japonic language family, however, making them more related than the Japanese are to the Ainu.
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In fact DNA testing has surprisingly shown that there is some genetic relationship between Ainu and Rykyuan peoples that is not shared with Yamato.
Interesting. I've read that The Rykyuan people and Yamato were two different groups that both came from the Korean peninsula thousands of years ago. It would explain the similar grammar of those 3 regions while having very different vocabulary for the most part.
My friend from Okinawa that I'm sitting next to right now considers himself to be Japanese.
I am angry at myself for buying not tea from Okinawa.
Do you know if that tea is any different from Japanese tea?
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You're very right, was wanting to say the same. I think more Okinawans abroad (e.g., in Hawaii) consider themselves exclusively Okinawan and not Japanese.
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2020.5.19 One of my native Japanese friends said that going to Okinawa felt more like traveling to a foreign country than another part of Japan
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I believe the majority ethnicity of Japan is currently referred to as "Yamato", but this is not a commonly known term for English speakers.
And Hokkaido is a part of Japan, so saying there are Ainu people in Japan isn't wrong.
So ainu are like the native Americans in the US? I'm confused,i thought Japan was a super homogenous country, wouldn't most of the country come from the original settlers? What am i missing here?
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I dont know where to begin... One study says only 5％ of japanese have pure japanese dna They actually look very different if you look carefully . Their period of closed borders came late and while phenomenal was relatively brief in the grand scheme.
Ainu are sort of japanese russian mix with their own way of life they wouldnt give up and they lost their homeland of northern japan to mainstream japanese who needed it for strategic purposes
Anyway, just keep asking the good questions like that
Ainu have no relation to Russians. Their territory was just occupied by both Russia and Japan.
Well it's very possible that they're related to Siberians, an ethnicity in Russia
No, the Ainu are like the Sami People of Scandinavia. They lived there originally but the expansion of settlements of the Germanic tribes pushed them further up north. Similar but Amerindians happened a lot later with slightly different reasons.
You can also try google for Japanese history, but most Japanese are not "pure blood" since the time when Chinese/Koreans first visited a very very long time ago.
Also, everyone is African. Or it might be Asian. But if it is it's wester asia
I don't know why you're being downvoted. Homo sapiens did begin in Africa, as best we're aware.
Native Americans are the descendants of ancient people who populate North America, thousands of years ago. The current most North Americans blood are based of the English colonies... And now with mixed southamericans
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@dsiap They only lived in the north of japan and some islands that are now part of Russia
There is actually an Aino language which was historically depressed in Japan, like every other country that had indigenous people...
I don't want to divert the discussion here so just go look it up if your into learning languages and see for yourself how much is out there.
The great question about the Ainu language, since it is traditionally only a spoken language, is whether to use cyrillic or katakana to adapt its written form. Cyrillic is phonetically a better fit, but most people know only the Hokkaido Ainu, who are probably the more active group at least online, so maybe katakana should be preferred? Hmm...
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All the Ainu language materials I've seen use Katakana with some special adaptations for sounds not in Japanese. The Ainu are not an officially recognized "living ethnic group" in Russia and these days only about 100 people in Russia identify as Ainu. This is according to Wikipedia. That's not to say there are no Russian books on Ainu using Cyrillic. I've wanted to go to Sakhalin for years but never managed it.
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I've never seen it written in Cyrillic either, except as a phonetic transcription in otherwise Russian text, but Japanese Wikipedia mentions one person writing Ainu in Cyrillic in the past. Nowadays it's usually either in extended Katakana or using Latin alphabet which seems about as common as Katakana. It's not just a romanization, but an equally valid Latin-based orthography competing with the Katakana-based one.
I believe the plural of 人 is actually 人々(ひとびと), which is an irregular plural. I'm not sure if 人たち is correct or not, but Duolingo doesn't accept 人々 even though it is correct, which is annoying.
I thought the same thing but in another thread a native speaker confirmed that 人たち and 人々 are both correct.
May be it is being strict on people because 人たち[hitotachi/people plural] is in the original Japanese sentence.
+My Japanese is poor sorry if wrong.+
It should be acceptable even without "people", but the preferred translation should include it since it's in the Japanese sentence.
It is if we want to learn properly. Learning a proper translation first is always better than learning the shortcuts and slang first.
"There are Ainu in Japan" was accepted for me.
If you see the word カナダ人 (kanadajin), most people would most naturally translate it as "Canadian" rather than "Canadian person", whereas if you have 日本人 (nihonjin) we'd say "Japanese person" because Japanese is used more as an adjective than a noun. Since Ainu is a noun, I think the former is preferable to the latter, though you could say either.
I'd say yes, because the focus would then be in the ainu people. So I would say maybe アイヌ人たちは日本にいます, or maybe アイヌ人たちは日本に住まいます (as in "The Ainu people live in Japan")
I knew I was going to get this one wrong, but I didn't think I'd be off by just one letter. I said "Ainu peoples", but I guess that's wrong if they're all considered to be of a single ethnicity/cultural background. Can anyone speak to that? Are the Ainu one people or do they comprise multiple peoples?
I think the Ainu are usually considered a single people, but you can find references online referring to "Ainu peoples", like from the Ainu Association of Hokkaido:
"Wajin" (Japanese) in Honshu acknowledge great difference among regional groups of the Ainu. In other words, the Ekotoba indicates that three groups of Ainu peoples, "Hinomoto," "Karako" and "Watarito," live on the island of Ezo-ga-Chishima(present day Hokkaido) and describes the details of each group.
The Wikipedia article describes the different subgroups of Ainu based on their location, such as Hokkaido Ainu, Sakhalin Ainu, Northern and Southern Kuril Ainu, etc.
I know nothing about anthropology, so I don't know if these distinctions count as separate "peoples" or not.
if you're interested, there is a seinen manga called golden kamuy that explains ainu customs, even one of the protagonists is ainu
The Ainu are the native people who lived in Hokkaido before the Japanese arrived there. "Ainu" is a native word in the Ainu language, which is completely separate from the Japanese language.
why is "people" necessary? There are Ainu in Japan" is also correct but they marked it wrong
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I'm a little upset that "Ainu people live in Japan" wasn't accepted, but I'm assuming that's because my translation is bad.
