Ainu language

Ainu, also known as Hokkaido Ainu (Japanese: 北海道アイヌ語), is a language native to the Ainu people of the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, considered to be an independent language family with no academic consensus regarding its origin. Until the 20th century, the three Ainu languages – Hokkaido Ainu, Kuril Ainu, and Sakhalin Ainu – were spoken throughout Hokkaido, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and by small communities in the Kuril Islands, up to the southern tip of Kamchatka. Following the colonization of Hokkaido, the number of Hokkaido Ainu speakers declined steadily throughout the 20th century, eventually becoming critically endangered. By 2008, only two native speakers of Ainu remained, both elderly. By 2017, Ainu was reportedly dormant. Hokkaido Ainu is now a heritage language with some native semi-speakers. The term Ainu comes from the endonym of the Ainu people, aynu (アイヌ), meaning 'person' or 'human'.