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Conlangery Podcast

Conlangery 139: Ainu (natlang)

May 6, 2019
01:17:03

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Quick takeaways

  • Ainu is a language isolate of northern Japan with a transparent grammatical structure and polypersonal agreement in verbs.
  • The Ainu language has an extensive system of affixes, possessive forms for nouns, vigesimal numeral system, and markers for topics, negation, and various aspects, showing influence from Japanese but remaining distinct.

Deep dives

Overview of Ainu language

Ainu is a language isolate of northern Japan that used to be more widespread. It's mostly spoken on the island of Hokkaido. Ainu has a transparent grammatical structure with polypersonal agreement in verbs. The language lacks tense, but has an extensive system of affixes, including causative, applicative, reflexive, reciprocal, and more. Nouns in Ainu do not change much, but they do have possessive forms and can be marked for plurality with specific suffixes. The numeral system in Ainu is vigesimal, with classifiers used for nouns. The language also has a topic marker, negation markers, and auxiliaries for evidentiality, modality, aspect, and mood. The Ainu language shows traces of influence from Japanese, but it's important to remember that it is a distinct and unique language.

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