Kuril Ainu language

Last updated
Kuril Ainu
Kuril
аину курил[ citation needed ]
Native to Russia, Japan
Region Kuril Islands, later Kamchatka and Hokkaidō
Ethnicity Kuril Ainu
Extinct 1962
Ainu
  • Kuril Ainu
Language codes
ISO 639-3
Glottolog kuri1271
Lang Status 01-EX.svg
Kuril Ainu is classified as Extinct by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger
[1]

Kuril Ainu or Kuril is an extinct and poorly attested Ainu language of the Kuril Islands. [2] [3] The main inhabited islands were Kunashir, Iturup and Urup in the south, and Shumshu in the north. Other islands either had small populations (such as Paramushir) or were visited for fishing or hunting. There may have been a small mixed Kuril Itelmen population at the southern tip of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

The Ainu of the Kurils appear to have been a relatively recent expansion from Hokkaidō, displacing an indigenous Okhotsk culture, which may have been related to the modern Itelmens. When the Kuril Islands passed to Japanese control in 1875, many of the northern Kuril Ainu evacuated to Ust-Bolsheretsky District in Kamchatka, where about 100 still live. In the decades after the islands passed to Soviet control in 1945, most of the remaining southern Kuril Ainu evacuated to Hokkaidō, where they have since been assimilated.[ citation needed ]

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References

  1. Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger (Report) (3rd ed.). UNESCO. 2010. p. 39. Archived from the original on 2020-11-11. Retrieved 2024-05-25.
  2. Bugaeva, Anna; Satō, Tomomi (2021-12-21). "A Kuril Ainu Glossary by Captain V. M. Golovnin (1811)". International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics. 3 (2): 171–216. doi:10.1163/25898833-00320002. ISSN   2589-8833. Archived from the original on 2022-03-01. Retrieved 2023-09-21.
  3. Fuente, José Andrés Alonso de la (2021-08-17). "Kuril Ainu Zoonyms and Phytonyms in Pallas's Zoographia and Flora Rossica". International Journal of Eurasian Linguistics. 3 (1): 7–49. doi:10.1163/25898833-12340040. ISSN   2589-8833. Archived from the original on 2022-02-24. Retrieved 2023-09-21.