Ainu

Ainu is a family of languages traditionally spoken by the Ainu people of northern Japan, southern Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands, comprising three main varieties: Hokkaido Ainu, Kuril Ainu and Sakhalin Ainu. No genealogical relationship between Ainu and any other language family has been demonstrated despite numerous scholarly attempts, making it a linguistic isolate and one of the world's primary language families. Kuril Ainu was declared extinct in 1962 and Sakhalin Ainu died out with its last speaker in 1994; Hokkaido Ainu was declared critically endangered in 2009.