Japanese is the primary language of Japan and the sole well-established member of the Japonic family alongside the Ryukyuan languages. It is written with a mixture of three scripts used together in ordinary text: kanji, Chinese-derived logographic characters, and two native syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, developed in the ninth century from cursive and abbreviated forms of kanji respectively.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker Count Attested From (Year)Early 8th century; the Kojiki, the earliest substantial Old Japanese text, dates to this period. RegionJapan, the only country where it is the national language; Japanese diaspora communities including Brazil, Hawaii, and the United States 1 Classification
Official StatusNational Language (Symbolic, Not Sole Official) 1 Japanese
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Ancestor Of
Source Wikipedia: Kansai Dialect
In Family
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)
Written In
Han Script, Scripts Japanese is written with kanji (Han-derived characters) alongside two native syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, neither of which is yet modeled as its own script entity in this atlas.
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Japanese Language
Wikipediainfobox
Native to Japan
Earliest text, Kojiki dating
The earliest text, the Kojiki, dates to the early eighth century
Official status, Japanese entity page
It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide.
View the Source 2. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
- Written In: Han Script
- Written In: Hiragana
- Written In: Katakana
View the SourceWikipedia: Kansai Dialect
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Kansai Dialect, Background sectionQuote, Ancestor Of: Kansai Dialect, Background section
The Kansai dialect is typified by the speech of Osaka, the major city of Kansai, referred to as Osaka-ben.
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