HOME



picture info

Ainu Language
Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu (), is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate with no academic consensus of origin. It is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO ''Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger''. Until the 20th century, the Ainu languages – Hokkaido Ainu and the now-extinct Kuril Ainu and Sakhalin Ainu – were spoken throughout Hokkaido, the southern half of the island of Sakhalin and by small numbers of people in the Kuril Islands. Due to the colonization policy employed by the Japanese government, the number of Hokkaido Ainu speakers decreased through the 20th century, and it is now moribund. A very low number of elderly people still speak the language fluently, though attempts are being made to revive it. Speakers The term "Ainu" comes from the endonym of the Ainu people, ' (), ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived from components or fragments of more complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each syllable (strictly mora (linguistics), mora) in the Japanese language is represented by one character or ''kana'' in each system. Each kana represents either a vowel such as "''a''" (katakana wikt:ア, ア); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "''ka''" (katakana wikt:カ, カ); or "''n''" (katakana wikt:ン, ン), a nasal stop, nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds like English ''m'', ''n'' or ''ng'' () or like the nasal vowels of Portuguese language, Portuguese or Galician language, Galician. In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for Japanese words not covered by kanji an ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and List of islands of Japan, thousands of smaller islands, covering . Japan has a population of over 123 million as of 2025, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh-most populous country. The capital of Japan and List of cities in Japan, its largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the List of largest cities, largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Japan is divided into 47 Prefectures of Japan, administrative prefectures and List of regions of Japan, eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of Geography of Japan, the countr ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Kuril Islands
The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands are a volcanic archipelago administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the Russian Far East. The islands stretch approximately northeast from Hokkaido in Japan to Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia, separating the Sea of Okhotsk from the north Pacific Ocean. There are 56 islands and many minor islets. The Kuril Islands consist of the Greater Kuril Chain and, at the southwest end, the parallel Lesser Kuril Chain. The group termed the 'South Kurils' consists of those of the Lesser Kuril Chain together with Kunashir and Iturup in the Greater Kuril Chain. The Vries Strait between Iturup and Urup forms the Miyabe Line dividing the North and South Kurils. The Kuril Islands cover an area of around , with a population of roughly 20,000. The islands have been under Russian administration since their Invasion of the Kuril Islands, 1945 invasion by the Soviet Union near the end of World War II. Japan claims the four southernmost islands, including two of the ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Youtube Channel
YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in San Bruno, California, it is the second-most-visited website in the world, after Google Search. In January 2024, YouTube had more than 2.7billion monthly active users, who collectively watched more than one billion hours of videos every day. , videos were being uploaded to the platform at a rate of more than 500 hours of content per minute, and , there were approximately 14.8billion videos in total. On November 13, 2006, YouTube was purchased by Google for $1.65 billion (equivalent to $ billion in ). Google expanded YouTube's business model of generating revenue from advertisements alone, to offering paid content such as movies and exclusive content produced by and for YouTube. It also offers YouTube Premium, a paid subscription op ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Agency For Cultural Affairs
The is a special body of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT). It was set up in 1968 to promote Japanese arts and culture. The agency's budget for FY 2018 rose to ¥107.7 billion. Overview The agency's Cultural Affairs Division disseminates information about the arts within Japan and internationally, and the Cultural Properties Protection Division protects the nation's cultural heritage. The Cultural Affairs Division is concerned with such areas as art and culture promotion, art copyrights, and improvements in the national language. It also supports both national and local arts and cultural festivals, and it funds traveling cultural events in music, theater, dance, art exhibitions, and film-making. Special prizes are offered to encourage young artists and established practitioners, and some grants are given each year to enable them to train abroad. The agency funds national museums of modern art in Kyoto and Tokyo and The National ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Ainu Culture
Ainu culture refers to the traditions of the Ainu people, dating back to around the 13th century (late Kamakura period) to the present. Today, most Ainu people live a life superficially similar to that of Yamato people, mainstream Japanese people, partly due to cultural assimilation. However, while some people conceal or downplay their Ainu identity, Ainu culture is still practiced among many groups. The Ainu way of life is called in the Ainu languages, Ainu language (literally + "customs, manners"1905, ''An Ainu-English-Japanese Dictionary'', John Batchelor, Tokyo: Methodist Publishing House. ''Puri'' entry viewable onlinhere). The unique Ainu patterns and oral literature () have been selected as features of Hokkaidō Heritage, Hokkaido Heritage. Overview The term "Ainu culture" has two meanings. One is an Cultural anthropology, anthropological perspective, referring to the cultural forms held by the Ainu people as an ethnic group, which includes both the culture held or c ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  




Shiraoi, Hokkaido
is a List of towns in Japan, town located in Iburi Subprefecture, Iburi, Hokkaido, Japan. As of September 2016, the town had a population of 17,759. It was established in 1867 by the feudal lords of Sendai Domain, Sendai. Most of the area of the town is forested and parts lie within the Shikotsu-Tōya National Park. History Shiraoi, like the rest of Hokkaido, was populated by the Ainu people, Ainu. According to the town's official website, the name, Shiraoi, means ''Rainbows'' in the Ainu language. Other sources state that the name comes from ''Shiraunai'' meaning ''Horse-fly, Horse-flies''. In 1867, the Sendai domain established a fort in Shiraoi and work began on . The following year the Boshin War caused Sendai to retreat from Shiraoi and return to Sendai proper. After the revolt was put down the government dismantled the fort in 1870. The end of the 19th century saw expansion of the town. A road was established connecting Shiraoi with Muroran, Sapporo, and Hakodate in 1873. ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


National Ainu Museum
The is a museum located in Shiraoi, Hokkaidō, Japan. It is situated within the grounds of Upopoy (ウポポイ), a park complex that serves as a "symbolic space for ethnic harmony". The museum's mission is "to promote a proper understanding and awareness of Ainu history and culture in Japan and elsewhere out of respect for the dignity of the indigenous Ainu people, while contributing to the creation and development of new aspects of Ainu culture". History The museum was originally scheduled to open on 24 April 2020. However, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, this was rescheduled several times. It officially opened on 12 July 2020. It serves as one of the three main facilities of Upopoy ( Ainu: "singing together in a large group"), alongside the National Ainu Park and a memorial site on high ground on the east side of , where Ainu services are held. The national museum supersedes and replaces the former Ainu Museum, which closed on 31 March 2018. The former museum was nestled besi ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Bill (law)
A bill is a proposal for a new law, or a proposal to substantially alter an existing law. A bill does not become law until it has been passed by the legislature and, in most cases, approved by the executive. Bills are introduced in the legislature and are there discussed, debated on, and voted upon. Once a bill has been enacted into law by the legislature, it is called an '' act of the legislature'', or a ''statute''. Usage The word ''bill'' is mainly used in English-speaking nations formerly part of the British Empire whose legal systems originated in the common law of the United Kingdom, including the United States. The parts of a bill are known as ''clauses'', until it has become an act of parliament, from which time the parts of the law are known as ''sections''. In nations that have civil law systems (including France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain and Portugal), a proposed law is known as a "law project" (Fr. ''projet de loi'') if introduced by the government, or a " ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


Indigenous Language
An indigenous language, or autochthonous language, is a language that is native to a region and spoken by its indigenous peoples. Indigenous languages are not necessarily national languages but they can be; for example, Aymara is both an indigenous language and an official language of Bolivia. Also, national languages are not necessarily indigenous to the country. Many indigenous peoples worldwide have stopped the generational passage of their ancestral languages and have instead adopted the majority language as part of their acculturation into their host culture. Furthermore, many indigenous languages have been subject to linguicide (language killing). Recognizing their vulnerability, the United Nations proclaimed 2019 the International Year of Indigenous Languages "to draw attention to the critical loss of indigenous languages and the urgent need to preserve, revitalize and promote indigenous languages." Language loss Indigenous languages are disappearing for various ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]  


picture info

Government Of Japan
The Government of Japan is the central government of Japan. It consists of legislative, executive (government), executive and judiciary branches and functions under the framework established by the Constitution of Japan. Japan is a unitary state, containing forty-seven Administrative divisions of Japan, administrative divisions, with the Emperor of Japan, emperor as its head of state. His role is ceremonial and he has no powers related to the Government. Instead, it is the Cabinet of Japan, Cabinet, comprising the Prime Minister of Japan, prime minister and the Minister (government), ministers of state, that directs and controls the government and the Civil service of Japan, civil service. The Cabinet has the executive power and is formed by the prime minister, who is the head of government. The Prime Minister is nominated by the National Diet and Imperial Investiture, appointed to office by the Emperor. The current cabinet is the Second Ishiba Cabinet, which was formed on 11 ...
[...More Info...]      
[...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]