Language Communities in Japan (Ed)

John C. Maher
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Language Communities in Japan
Language Communities
in Japan

Edited by
JOHN C . M A H E R

3
 3
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 Contents

List of figures and tables viii

The contributors xi

Introduction: Tradition in motion 1

John C. Maher

I. NAT IONA L L A NG UAG ES

1. Japanese in the world: The diaspora communities 15
Kazuko Matsumoto
2. Japanese in Japan: The national language and regional
varieties 31
Junko Hibiya
3. Language communities of the Northern Ryukyus:
Okinawan, Amami, and Kunigami 43
Patrick Heinrich
4. Language communities of the Southern Ryukyus: Miyako,
Yaeyama, and Yonaguni 51
Sachiyo Fujita-Round
5. Japanese Sign Language: A language of the deaf community 59
Norie Oka
6. Ainu: An urban-rural indigenous language of the North 68
Hidetoshi Shiraishi

II . C OMMUN I T Y L A NG UAGES
7. Korean: Transnational links of language and culture 79
Hye-Gyeong Ohe
8. Chinese: A historic language of cultural influence 91
Jie Shi
9. Portuguese: Diaspora, ethnolinguistic vitality, and cultural
influence 99
Lucila Etsuko Gibo
vi contents

10. Spanish: From Renaissance missionaries to the Nikkeijin

community 109
Daniel Quintero
11. Urdu and Hindi: Languages of transnational history,
business, and culture 121
Rika Yamashita
12. Nepali: Outmigration and the evolving diaspora 129
Tina Shrestha
13. Vietnamese: From refugee community to cultural
transitions 138
Mayumi Adachi
14. Filipino: A nationwide migrant language and culture 147
Sachi Takahata
15. Burmese: Refugees and Little Yangon 156
Kosei Otsuka
16. Turkish, Kurdish, and Uyghur: Linguistic and political
presence from the Meiji period 164
John C. Maher
17. Persian: Migration waves and diversification 169
Hourieh Akbari

III. L ANG UAGE S OF C U LT U RE, POL I TICS , AND

MODE R N I Z AT ION
18. English: International language of work and education 179
Simon Cookson
19. Dutch and German: Mediator languages of science,
politics, and law 191
Florian Coulmas
20. French: Culture, linguistic landscape, and modernization 199
Simon Tuchais
21. Russian: A historic language community and Russian
language education 209
Petr Podalko
22. Esperanto: Internationalism, dialogue, and an evolving
community 217
Kimura Goro Christoph and Gotoo Hitosi
 contents vii

23. Latin and Sanskrit: Hidden Christians, Buddhism, and

religious scholarship 224
John C. Maher

References 234
Index 252
 List of figures and tables

Figures

1.1. Countries where Japanese emigrants settled together with estimated

populations of Japanese and Nikkei-jin 19
1.2. Map of the Japanese Empire (Japan’s first empire on the left; Japan’s second
empire on the right) 20
1.3. Number of Japanese citizens residing outside of Japan as permanent
or long-term residents in 2018 by region 26
1.4. Number of Japanese language learners abroad in 2015 by region 29
2.1. Dialect divisions of Japanese 33
2.2. Use of pronominal forms referring to oneself: overall result % (N=2,107) 39
2.3. Use of pronominal forms referring to oneself: overall result
(Male) % (N=999) 40
2.4. Use of pronominal forms referring to oneself: overall result
(Female) % (N=1,108) 40
2.5. Braille examples 42
4.1. Map of two districts in the Southern Ryukyu, Okinawa prefecture 53
5.1. Users of Japanese, JSL, and Manually Coded Japanese (MCJ) 62
6.1. Map of Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and the Kurils 73
7.1. Change in the number of Korean residents in Japan 81
7.2. Estimated number of Korean travellers to Japan 83
7.3. Estimated number of foreign travellers to Japan 84
7.4. Korean language presence in public transportation in Japan 85
7.5. Shin Okubo Korea town 88
7.6. Change in number of high schools offering foreign language courses in Japan 90
9.1. Portuguese language flyer in Oizumi 103
9.2. Flyer for ‘Festa Junina’ in the Catholic Community of Ota 106
10.1. Japanese secondary education institutions’ language uptake since 1993 118
10.2. Foreign languages studied at national, public, and private universities 120
13.1. The population of Vietnamese residents in Japan 140
13.2. Self-evaluation of two language abilities 143
13.3. Language choice with Vietnamese conversation partner 144
13.4. Language use in each social domain 144
 list of figures and tables ix

13.5. Important language(s) for the future 145

14.1. Filipino population in Japan by major visa category (1998–2017) 149
14.2. Residential distribution of Filipinos in Japan (2017) 151
17.1. Number of Persian native speakers in Japan over 18 years 173
19.1. ‘The Japanese government pays ten guilders to bearer’. Legal tender issued
in Dutch by Japanese occupation of Dutch East Indies, 1940s. 194
20.1. Evolution of the number of schools teaching languages other than English
from 1993 to 2016 208

Tables

1.1. Number of Japanese settlers in Japanese colonial territories and spheres

of influence by year 22
1.2. The top 20 countries for Japanese permanent or long-term residents in 2018 27
1.3. Top ten prefectures for Japanese children who spent more than a year
abroad before returning to Japan in 2017 28
1.4. The top 20 countries in terms of the number of Japanese language learners
abroad in 2015 30
2.1. Common (standard) first-person pronominal forms 39
4.1. Word comparison among the Southern Ryukyuan languages 53
4.2. Tourist phrases in the Southern Ryukyuan languages 56
7.1. Vowels in Korean and Zainichi Chōsen-go 85
9.1. Prefectures with largest Brazilian populations 102
9.2. Cities with largest Brazilian populations 102
9.3. Brazilian schools in Japan run by MEC 107
10.1. Spanish-speaking immigrant population by country of origin
and prefectural residence 112
10.2. Percentages of masses in Spanish by prefecture 117
10.3. Percentages of masses in Spanish by prefecture according to the number
of registered Catholics 117
10.4. Spanish taught in private language schools and cultural centres by region
in Japan 119
13.1. The generations of the immigrants 143
14.1. Number of Catholic churches conducting masses in Filipino by parish 153
18.1. Foreign residents in Japan in 2017 from countries with English as an official
language 184
18.2. Tourists visiting Japan in 2018 from countries with English as an official
language 184
x list of figures and tables

18.3. JET assistant language teachers (ALTs) in 2018 from countries with English
as an official language 189
20.1. Number and percentage of books registered in the NACSIS-Cat catalogue
as of end of 2018 for main languages 202
20.2. Number and percentage of periodicals newly registered in the NACSIS-Cat
catalogue in 2018 for main languages 203
20.3. Number and percentage of books newly registered in the NACSIS-Cat
catalogue in 2018 for main languages 203
20.4. Languages other than English taught in Japanese junior high schools
as of May 2016 206
20.5. Main languages other than English taught in Japanese senior high schools
as of May 2016 207
21.1. Russian language instruction at Japanese universities 213
21.2. Russian language instruction at Japanese high schools 215
 The contributors

Mayumi Adachi is Assistant Professor at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures
of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She is also Lecturer of Vietnamese
language at Showa Women’s University, Tokyo. She studied linguistics at International
Christian University. Her master’s degree from the University of Tokyo (UT) was on the
acquisition of Japanese as a second language by Vietnamese children. Her PhD from UT
dealt with Vietnamese pragmatics. She is the author of a monograph on demonstratives,
sentence-final particles, and interjections (Benseisha, 2021). Her current research interests
are sociolinguistics and Vietnamese immigrant communities in Japan.
Hourieh Akbari is a lecturer at Shirayuri Women’s University and a researcher at Chiba
University, Japan. She holds a master’s degree in Japanese language education from Tehran
University, Iran. Her PhD is from the School of Humanities and Social Science of Chiba
University. Her research interests are ritual communication and contact situations. In par-
ticular, she is investigating the problem of second language use by native Persian speakers
living in Japan.
Simon Cookson is Associate Professor in the College of Business Management at J. F. Ober-
lin University, Tokyo, Japan. He has an MEng. in aerospace systems engineering from the
University of Southampton and an MSc in teaching English to speakers of other languages
from Aston University and a PhD from International Christian University on communi-
cation breakdown in aviation contexts. His research interests include applied linguistics,
sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, and English for special purposes. He has
published numerous articles on aviation English and has co-authored several books, includ-
ing Ready for Departure, a textbook which prepares commercial pilots for the International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) English proficiency test in Japan.
Florian Coulmas is Senior Professor for Japanese Society and Sociolinguistics at the Uni-
versity of Duisburg-Essen. He was the Director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies
in Tokyo from 2004 to 2014. He regularly writes for the Japan Times and The Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung. He is the author of numerous works on sociolinguistics with an empha-
sis on language regimes in Japan and on writing systems. He is editor of the International
Review of the Sociology of Language. In 2016, he was awarded the Meyer-Struckmann-Prize
for Research in Arts and Social Sciences.
Sachiyo Fujita-Round is Visiting Associate Professor at International Christian University,
Tokyo. She studied sociolinguistics at the universities of Lancaster and Hitotsubashi. Her
PhD from the International Christian University dealt with bilingualism and ethnography
of a JSL (Japanese as a second language) Korean child. Since 2012, she has been engaged
xii the contributors

in fieldwork in the Miyako Islands. Her latest paper is entitled ‘Bilingualism and bilin-
gual education in Japan’ in the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (edited by
P. Heinrich and Y. Ohara, 2019).
Lucila Etsuko Gibo is Associate Professor in the Department of Luso-Brazilian Studies at
Sophia University. She has a BA from the University of San Paolo, an MA, and a PhD in
linguistics from the University of the Ryukyus. Her research interests include grammar and
contact linguistics between Ryukyuan and Japanese as well as the Okinawan heritage lan-
guage and community in Brazil. She is a chapter contributor to several books including the
Português do Brasil para estrangeiros: polı́ticas, formação, descrição, ‘Uma análise do PLE
de aprendizes japoneses sob a perspectiva da teoria do contato linguı́stico’ (2018), and the
Dicionário Okinawano-Português (2016).
Gotoo Hitosi is Emeritus professor linguistics at Tohoku University. He specializes in
Romance linguistics, corpus linguistics, Esperanto studies, and the history of linguistics.
Patrick Heinrich is Professor of Japanese Linguistics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
where he is also Director of the PhD programme on Asian and North African Studies. He
has taught at universities in Germany, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Finland, France, and Austria. He
is co-editor of the Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages (de Gruyter, 2015) and of the Rout-
ledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (Routledge, 2019). He has been the founding
general secretary of the Ryukyuan Heritage Language Society.
Junko Hibiya obtained her PhD in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a
professor of linguistics at International Christian University specializing in sociolinguistics
(language variation) and was appointed president of the university in 2012. She is a member
of the Central Council for Education, and a member of the Science Council of Japan.
Kimura Goro Christoph is a professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia Univer-
sity. He specializes in sociolinguistics, especially the revival and revitalization of minority
languages, interlingual communication, and the social functions of second and foreign
languages.
John C. Maher is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at International Christian University,
Tokyo, specializing in sociolinguistics. He has held positions at the University of Edinburgh,
St Antony’s College, Oxford, and De La Salle University, Manila. His many publications
in both English and Japanese include Introducing Chomsky (Multilingual Matters, 1995),
Multilingualism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2017), and Metroethnicity, Naming and
Mocknolect: New Horizons in Japanese Sociolinguistics (John Benjamins, 2021). He is a
founding member of the Japan Association of the Sociolinguistic Sciences.
Kazuko Matsumoto is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Tokyo. Employing
the variationist sociolinguistic paradigm, she has investigated dialect contact and new di-
alect formation (e.g., Palauan Japanese as an obsoleting colonial koiné in postcolonial Palau
in the Pacific; Brazilian Portuguese as a newly emerging immigrant koiné in Japan; and Ko-
rean dialect contact and koinéization in Tokyo and Sakhalin, Russia). Her interests also
include contact linguistics, such as contact-induced borrowing in Palauan and Sakhalin
Russian, particularly food-related loanwords. She also studies the nativization of Palauan
English, and comparative analyses of matching features across Micronesian Englishes.
 the contributors xiii

Petr Podalko graduated from Novosibirsk State University in 1987 with an integrated MA
in history and Japanese language. He moved to Japan to conduct research on the cultural
history of Russian emigration to the Orient and became the first Russian native to obtain
both MA and PhD degrees in Japan, writing his thesis in Japanese (Osaka University). In
2004, he became a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, where he teaches
courses on history, comparative studies, language, and cultural studies. He is a member
of research teams and research societies in Russia and Japan.
Daniel Quintero teaches Spanish at International Christian University, Tokyo. He holds
degrees in Spanish, communication, and linguistics from the Universidad de Málaga and
the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija. His PhD from Kobe City University of Foreign Stud-
ies dealt with multilingualism, family trilingualism, and the Spanish-speaking community
in Japan. His research interests are sociolinguistics, language teaching methodology, and
intercultural communication.
Hye-Gyeong Ohe has been teaching Korean language and culture and has served as a pro-
gramme coordinator of world languages at International Christian University, Tokyo. She
has also investigated how to improve intercultural communicative competence in higher
education in the context of East Asia. Her academic work includes technology-enhanced
approaches to the development of intercultural sensitivity in a collaborative language pro-
gramme, ethnic education for Zainichi Koreans in the public schools as well as in Korean
schools in Japan, and discourse analysis employing a complex sociolinguistic framework.
Norie Oka teaches English to deaf students at Meisei Gakuen School for the Deaf in Tokyo.
She holds a BA in linguistics from the University of Tokyo, and an MPhil from the Uni-
versity of Cambridge. She received a PhD from Hitotsubashi University for her thesis titled
‘Japanese Sign Language: How a minority language without written forms survives a mod-
ern era’. She has published books on the structure of JSL, and her paper (co-authored) in
English from 2016 is ‘A Preliminary Study on Teaching Written Japanese to Deaf Chil-
dren’. Her research interests are bilingual deaf education, second language acquisition, and
language policy.
Kosei Otsuka teaches Burmese at Osaka University. He holds degrees in language and area
studies as well as literature from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Tokyo Uni-
versity. His doctoral work at Tokyo University unpacked the grammar of a Kuki-Chin
language, Tiddim Chin. His research interests include descriptive linguistics and method-
ologies for language teaching. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers
JP17H04523, JP18H03599, JP17K13442.
Jie Shi is Professor of English at the University of Electro-Communications (UEC), Tokyo,
and has been working as an educator and researcher in sociolinguistics, bilingualism and
multilingualism, cognitive education, English for Academic Purposes and English for Spe-
cific Purposes, and translation studies. She is the director of the ESP (English for Specific
Purposes) programme and the head of the Research Station for Innovative and Global
Tertiary English Education at UEC.
Hidetoshi Shiraishi teaches linguistics at Sapporo Gakuin University. He holds degrees in
Ainu phonology from the International Christian University and Chiba University. His
xiv the contributors

PhD from the University of Groningen dealt with the phonology of Nivkh, an indigenous
language in Northeast Asia. His research interests are the phonology of Nivkh and Ainu.
Tina Shrestha is Assistant Professor in the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS)
at Waseda University. She received her PhD in anthropology from Cornell University. She
is fluent in English and Nepali and has conducted fieldwork in Nepal and the Nepali di-
aspora in the United States and Malaysia. Her publications have appeared in Anthropology
of Work Review (2019), Pacific Affairs (2018), Studies in Nepali History and Society (2015,
2018, 2019), and Refugee Resettlement in the United States: Language, Pedagogy and Politics
(UK: Multilingual Matters, 2016). She is working on her monograph Surviving the Sanctuary
City: Ordinary suffering and asylum-seeking work among Nepali New Yorkers. Her current
research is on Nepali student-migration and diasporic cultural formation in Japan (awarded
JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists, 2019–2021).
Sachi Takahata is Professor in the School of International Relations, University of Shizuoka,
Japan. She completed her PhD in sociology at Osaka City University. Fluent in both English
and Filipino (Tagalog), she has conducted fieldwork on Filipino migrants in Japan since
the early 1990s. She has also investigated migration and settlement of other communities,
including ethnic Koreans and Brazilians. Aside from academic works, she has been active
as a court interpreter since 1993.
Simon Tuchais teaches French at the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia University,
Tokyo. He holds degrees in French and Japanese from Université Paris IV Sorbonne,
INALCO (Paris), a master’s degree in Japanese linguistics from Tokyo University, and a PhD
in language sciences from École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) (Paris). His
PhD thesis was a contrastive linguistic study of expression of personal opinions in French
and Japanese. His current field of interest includes French and Japanese corpus linguistics,
especially applied to the study of discourse markers.
Rika Yamashita (PhD, University of Tokyo) is Associate Professor in English and linguis-
tics at the College of Economics, Kanto Gakuin University in Yokohama, Japan. Rika has
a monograph on the sociolinguistic study of Japanese-Urdu bilingual pupils (in Japanese,
Hituzi Syobo, 2016), and an award-winning paper on Pakistani pupils’ codeswitching in
Japanese Journal of Language in Society (2014). As a sociolinguist and linguistic anthropol-
ogist, Rika is interested in bi/multilingual practices and ideologies. Apart from works in
Japanese, Rika has chapter contributions in Urban Sociolinguistics (with Patrick Heinrich,
Routledge, 2017) and the Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (Routledge, 2019).
 Introduction
Tradition in motion
John C. Maher

Re-imagining past in the present

Language helps us know who we are. It is both social institution and epistemology.
Society is a set of complex realities inhabited by people with complex lives. It is
the place we live in. We want to make sense of it. Languages do this for us. They
are word-worlds that speak to the human condition, but they are experienced as
‘societal history’ (Weber’s Gesellschaftsgeschichte).
Languages are visible when we choose to see them. When we find them, they
can be a doorway to understanding the shared life of society. This social space
comprises a layering of individuals and groups, cultures, and languages. Whilst
the telos of multilingual society is well defined (Maher 2017), how it is conceived
in individual states, comprising many language communities, remains unresolved.
We know from the ‘invented tradition’ of nations (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983)
how small regional languages, as nationalism itself proposes, ‘help invent nations
where they do not exist’ (Gellner 1964: 164).
Linguists routinely examine the languages of states and communities because
they constitute complex communication amongst persons. Languages spread out
through multiple pathways of speech. They constantly change. They live, die, and
reinvent themselves. Language resists hypostasis—the tendency to essentialize—
even as it seeks normativity to stabilize itself into fixed, universal patterns.
Language is the measure of our relations with other persons. It is a barometer
of how we treat our neighbours near and far. It makes us human. Social theory
from John Locke to contemporary political philosophy and liberal individualism,
as Peter Ives (2019) has pointed out, has long employed a different description of
language that is both simplistic and distorted. Prêt-à-porter, it goes something like
this, ‘language is a vehicle of communication’. Such an instrumentalist description
is far from the notion that language is what makes us persons.

John C. Maher, Introduction. In: Language Communities in Japan.

Edited by John C. Maher, Oxford University Press.
© John C. Maher (2022). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198856610.003.0001
2 john c. maher

The sensitive reality of language as a maker of personal relation and identity is

the reason why it is employed effectively as a mechanism of power and authority.
As Antonio Gramsci, a speaker of the minority language Sard, in Italian Turin,
noted,

every time the question of language surfaces, in one way or another,

it means that a series of other problems are coming to the fore: the
formation and enlargement of the governing class, the need to es-
tablish more intimate and secure relationship between the governing
groups and the national-popular mass, in other words to reorganize
the cultural hegemony.
(1985: 183–184)

The legitimation of one (dominant) language over another—linguistic ‘hege-

mony’ in Gramsci and Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘linguistic capital’—involves authority
and consent. How, then, are languages reproduced in social life: work, religion,
government, schools, festivals, and neighbourhoods? This book addresses this
question.
Speakers of languages have a right to their own history and culture. The past has
a right to be acknowledged in the present. The ultimate aim of language commu-
nities is not to return to a golden past where interactions were minimal and where
differences could be controlled. Rather, the purpose is, as the Yiddish scholar and
sociolinguist Joshua Fishman wrote, ‘to achieve greater self-regulation over the
processes of sociocultural change which globalization fosters and to counterbal-
ance it with their own language-and-culture institutions, processes and outcomes’
(2001: 6). Language, yours and mine, is the means through which we situate our
lives in communities. But not all languages are equal. For some speakers it is a
source of security and privilege, and for others it is devoiced insecurity typically
leading to deracination from their communities (see Shani 2015 on the relation
between identity and security in a globalizing world).
The very diversity or ‘differentiation’ of social objects, like languages—what so-
ciolinguists term ‘variation’ and ‘diffusion’—is unstoppable. As neo-functionalist
sociologists narrate, such social objects spread ‘from community membership that
reaches beyond ethnicity to territorial and political criteria [to the] general con-
tours of world history’ (Alexander 1988: 49). This book on the languages of Japan
is, therefore, a description of diversity and ‘differentiation’. It is a recognition of
the linguistic past in the present; many languages have forged the Japan of to-
day. In addition to the indigenous Ainu and the Ryukyuan languages as well as
Japanese Sign Language, there is the historic presence of Chinese and Korean. In
the modern period, Dutch, French, and German have been crucial in culture and
technology, Sanskrit and Latin studied in religious domains, and new language
 introduction 3

communities have emerged in the 20th/21st century. Languages come and go.
Language in society is language in motion.

A grey bell

A grey bell hangs in a city park in western Japan. The dome-shaped bell is
embossed with the map of a borderless world. Its surface bears a multilingual in-
scription. The first is Greek with the aphorism γνῶθι σεαυτóν gnōthi seauton ‘know
thyself ’ by the philosopher Socrates (4th century bce). A Japanese version of this
ancient wisdom reads, 汝自身を知れ nanji jishin o shire. The third inscription is
a quotation written in Sanskrit, rendered in Japanese as, 大無量寿経 daimuryō
jukyō—‘great everlasting life’, taken from one of the Indian Mahayana sutras. The
Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra—the ‘Infinite Life Sutra’—is an influential Sanskrit scrip-
ture in Japanese Buddhism, especially in the ‘Pure Land’ sects, Jōdo-shū and Jōdo
Shinshū.
The trilingual bell hangs in Hiroshima, the first city in the world to be nu-
clear bombed. There is symbolism in this ‘Peace Bell’ forged by the bronze artist
Masahiko Katori (1964). The bell was made in the same year as the 1964 Tokyo
Olympics were held, a turning point for Japan as it attempted to reintegrate a
still war-traumatized nation into global society. In 2021, the Olympic games re-
turned to Japan—a country that is now more multicultural than at any time in its
history—and in the closing days, the multilingual Peace Bell sounded on A-Bomb
day, 6 August.
Great languages of the world, like Sanskrit, Greek, and Japanese, are a sure
guide to knowing who we are and what we need to become. Greek symbolizes
a European culture that has deeply influenced Japanese society. In the 16th cen-
tury, the influx of European culture and languages changed Japan in language and
the arts, science and technology, food and architecture, and philosophy and ed-
ucation. Jesuit presses in Nagasaki published in Japanese, Latin, and Portuguese,
followed by the Dutch trading post of Dejima that functioned as a conduit for
Dutch and German culture during sakoku, the ‘lock up’ of the country from 1633
to 1853 (see the chapter by Florian Coulmas). Meanwhile, in the 20th century,
English achieved a unique prominence in the commercial, cultural, and educa-
tional life of the nation—as described in the chapter by Simon Cookson. Japanese
is one of the vibrant languages of the world spoken by 128 million people in Japan
and found in diaspora throughout the world from Hawaii to Frankurt and from
Southern California to Brazil. Sanskrit was the classical language brought from the
Asian continent. In the 9th century, monks from across Asia assembled in Yamato
(Japan) to pursue Buddhist studies; language teaching in Nara began from 750.
Although Sanskrit is written in the (endangered) Indic sacred alphabet Siddham
(J. shittan), the script is nevertheless studied in monasteries in Japan and extant
4 john c. maher

today throughout the linguistic/religious landscape (see the chapter by John Maher
on Latin and Sanskrit).
Languages change, but their history and value make up the present. In the book
The Languages of Ireland (2003), Michael Cronin and Cormac O Cuilleanain write,
‘For as far back as we can go the island of Ireland has been a host to a variety of
different languages and cultures. Every area of language life and cultural expression
has been informed by this contact with diverse language groups’ (9).
Among the languages and cultures in the volume are Ancient Greek and Latin,
Irish, English, French, German, Ulster Scots, and Irish Sign Language. The book
on Japan presented here adopts a similar stance. People alter their customs and
values over time. They pass them on, together with languages. These connections
can be easily forgotten. People lose interest in traditional practices or they become
difficult to maintain. Migrants, especially, adapt their former ways of doing things
to their new situation. The symbolic meanings attached to features of language and
culture like greetings and dress, food, and family customs may become obscured
and disappear. New ways and social norms supplant them. Language is tradition
in motion.

Minding the gaps

Japan lies geographically on the periphery of the Eurasian continent but lin-
guistically in an axis of language contact and language change in the region.
Japan is a dynamic interplay of territory and community, language and dialect,
people and history. Community languages in Japan have hybrid configurations.
Some are bound to ethnicity—like Ainu. Some are coterminous with territory—
like Ryukyuan, or active in social networking and education—like Japanese Deaf
Sign, or historically linked to urban neighbourhoods like Chinatown and Korea-
town. Some languages are located in migrant-newcomer industrial towns, such as
Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish.
Language is a social kaleidoscope that forms endless shapes and colours: stan-
dard and community languages, indigenous languages, dialects, and styles of
speech. It can take the form of a big common language like Standard Japanese that
unifies citizens, creating a means for nationwide dialogue. It can take the shape
of the historic, regional dialects of Hakata, Kyoto, and Sendai, reflecting differ-
ent histories and traditions. Language is shaped differently in the speech style of
children in a junior high school in urban Osaka or the conversation of old people
doing morning calisthenics in a park in Wakkanai, northern Hokkaido. Language
looks different in the specialist register used in a hospital in downtown Tokyo
and a fishing boat off the coast of Nagasaki. Recognizing diversity is a call to re-
structure attitudes, our doxa of unquestioned views about language in society. The
diversity of languages in various speech communities challenges our conception of
 introduction 5

society. It is also a call to revise the operation of social institutions, like school and
the workplace, so that language and language disadvantage may be more clearly
understood.
In many 21st century nations of the world, there still exists the disjuncture
between popular nostalgia/desire for static traditions and cultural homogeneity
bolstered by robust anti-immigration law, and on the other hand, serious ac-
commodation by local cities and towns to manage and understand their ‘ethnic
spaces’, minority populations, and language diversity. The meta-problem of how
to describe language diversity in society is also a problem of social history. It is a
question of how we picture ‘our past’, ‘our history’, and ‘our national identity’.
This book provides new avenues for reflection on multilingual and multicul-
tural living in Japan. It is both descriptive and illustrative as well as presenting a
sociolinguistics of ideas. It straddles the divide that Heinrich (2019) illuminates
between the laissez-faire and socially uncritical gengo seikatsu (‘language life’), the
traditional study of language in Japan, and a more socially engaged sociolinguis-
tics that is inclusive and questioning. The book narrates the various languages and
communities found in urban and rural life, throughout the Japanese archipelago
today, as well as in the cultural history of Japan. It describes the current situation
of the languages of Japan: mainstream and minority languages, indigenous lan-
guages, and new migrant languages. This book provides a perspective on Japan as
a historic, multilingual region that is undergoing globalization of the economy,
tourism, labour, and migration.

Conceptualization and structure

The Japanese archipelago consists of approximately 1,000 islands. A variety of lan-

guages and dialects are used by a population of 127,000,000 who mostly live in
the densely populated coastal areas along four main islands of Honshu, Kyushu,
Hokkaido, and Shikoku. Cultural and linguistic diversity is part of the heritage of
the Japanese-speaking populations. This book, therefore, captures the situation of
language and cultures of contemporary Japan. A mainstream language—such as
Japanese described in this book from a global as well as multiple perspective—is
itself not a hard-shelled, well-defined entity (see the chapters on global Japanese by
Kazuko Matsumoto and intranational Japanese by Junko Hibiya). Everyday spo-
ken Ainu has declined, but its symbolic cultural role in the Ainu communities is
robust and there are numerous Ainu language classes. Historic languages such as
Chinese and Korean have been spoken and written in Japan for several hundred
years. They have been revitalized by increased migration. The number of new-
comer languages, such as Nepalese and Vietnamese, is increasing as Japan opens
the door to systematic immigration. Language planning which in Europe is termed
‘lesser-known languages’ is taking a new direction. For instance, the profile and
6 john c. maher

general awareness of Japanese Sign Language (JSL) have increased dramatically

and there is pressure for Japan to adopt JSL as an ‘official language’.
The book is divided into three parts that reflect how the languages of Japan might
be conceptualized. This is not a definitive method of categorization, rather one
version; to this editor it seems persuasive.

PART I: National Languages

PART II: Community Languages
PART III: Languages of Culture, Politics, and Modernization

The first part deals with Japanese as the majority language of Japan together with
its dialects, some of which, like Hachijoan, can be considered as distinct languages.
Japanese is also geographically extraterritorial—beyond the Japanese archipelago.
It can be found in South America and the Pacific. The second part deals with
other important but not mainstream mother tongues: the Ryukyuan languages,
Ainu, and JSL. These are a widely recognized as independent languages and an
intangible heritage. The second part begins with the traditional historic language
communities that have been in Japan since ancient times. They can be found in
the present day both in living urban communities and in historic place names
throughout the nation. This section also documents the modern community lan-
guages from Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish to Persian and Urdu. Part III goes
further back in time to examine the languages of culture and modernization—
those languages that have ‘made’ Japanese culture the variegated object that it is
today. The status of English as a global language of communication—sometimes
called English as a lingua franca—has increased in Japan to the extent that it
now can be said—together with an increasingly high-profile JSL—to possess semi-
official status. Lesser-known languages such as Esperanto have also contributed
to Japan’s cultural development. As Japanese society changes its perceptions
about multiculturalism, these new perspectives have implications for educators
and policy makers, language teachers and learners, and political and cultural
commentators.
The chapters of this book adhere to a common structure. Following Alladina
and Edwards (1991), a geolinguistic approach allows us ‘to identify broad trends
which draw together different speech communities since patterns of migration as
well as the sociolinguistic situation, tend to be broadly similar within a given geo-
linguistic area’ (14). The author describes the language situation in the country
of origin including standard language and varieties, the written language and lit-
eracy. This is followed by a brief history of the language community, the history
of arrival and settlement, migration ‘waves’ and the location of the community.
Patterns of language use are described including the linguistic behaviour of speak-
ers in the community, code-switching, intergenerational transmission and shift,
changes in pronunciation, language in the family and bilingualism. Finally, the
 introduction 7

author describes culture, language, and education, languages of church, mosque,

temple, secular organizations, the social life of the community, religious or secular
festivals, weddings and funerals, internet presence, language reproduction, ethnic
schools, and so forth.

Multilingualism in normative structures and transcultural flows

Japan is a hub of language diversity. The Ryukyus (see chapters by Patrick Hein-
rich and Sachiyo Fujita-Round) were thriving regions of transcultural flows for
hundreds of years, but the whole of Japan is today a place of multilingual and mul-
ticultural activity. Multilingual societies come and go. Chinatowns set up in towns
and cities in Japan subsequently disappeared—like Kanda Chinatown in central
Tokyo or the Chinatown of ancient times in Fukuoka where the only trace is its
place name: Tōjinmachi (lit. ‘Chinese-people-town’).

Everyday multilingualism: Past and present

For a big linguistic picture of Japan, we must look to multiple levels of activity.
There are conventional tourist languages in speech and signage stations, streets,
shops, and transport (typically English, Chinese, and Korean). There are ethnic
towns and neighbourhoods like Shin-Okubo in Tokyo (see the chapters by Hye-
Gyeong Ohe and Jie Shi). In addition to international and ethnic schools, English
is found everywhere in education and business, and dense populations of migrant
communities in housing complexes. There is a vibrant multicultural literature:
Japanese writings by ethnic Koreans such as Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko, Yang
Sogil’s In Shinjuku, or the tanka poetry of Lee Jungja (Nagune Taryong: The Eter-
nal Traveler; see Lie 2018). By contrast, JSL is a language and culture that possesses
no ‘towns’ but has instead its own social network of conventions and film festivals,
theatre, and sport. It is also noticeable in the media—in television courses and sign
translation, as described in the chapter by Norie Oka.
This book describes the social reality in a Japan that is multilingual and mul-
ticultural away from the cultural iconography of monolingualism. In the last
40 years, there has been a growing body of literature on migrants and migrant
languages in Japan. The chapters here connect an aspiration: tolerance for lan-
guage diversity. This has implications for peace and coexistence. If the 20th
century was bathed in the most powerful ideology of the planet—nationalism—
the 21st century may not look much better. Societies are still troubled by na-
tional and ethnic and religious identities. Likewise, linguistic and cultural plural-
ism within the body politic is still not fully comprehended, taught, learned, or
accepted.
8 john c. maher

Telling the story

Language communities have tales to tell: stories of in- and out-migration, popu-
lation displacement and dispersal, territorial annexation, war, the formation of
a diaspora, trans-generational change, language decline and extinction as well
as language revitalization. To the present day, the space called ‘Japan’ has been
endowed with linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity across an archipelago of
almost 7,000 islands stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the
Philippine Sea in the south. Indeed, the ancient inhabitants of the Japanese
archipelago—Jomon and Yayoi populations in particular—have been described as
descendants of ancient Eurasian continental peoples. A historical understanding is
important since Japan’s cultural diversity is not a postmodern phenomenon. Both
Sanskrit and German in their respective domains of religion and science as well as
Vietnamese and Nepali (see the chapters by Mayumi Adachi and Tina Shrestha) in
newly formed urban neighbourhoods are bona fide examples of multilingualism.
The narratives of communities—large and small—are important because they
confront a nation’s dominant self-image, often the baleful heritage of former em-
pires that may rapidly overpower the voices of smaller communities that possess
their own languages and dialects.

Continuity and hypostasis

A book about language and cultural diversity is not a declaration of compassion.

It is a challenge to society’s complicity in the marginalization of citizens, not least
children in school whose mother tongues are set aside, and who are regarded as
linguistically disadvantaged. What mother tongues? This book describes lesser-
known languages, smaller languages, and minority languages. There is a reason for
this. Societies tend towards hypostasis: the essentializing of both a majority and a
minority—the term itself reifies. Essentialisms mask how our language life is lay-
ered. The everyday heteroglossia of an individual in society consists of idiolect and
regional dialect, family-lect, work register, mixed language and code-switching,
and writing and reading.
The discourse of essentialism has its highs and lows. Gayatri Spivak first attacked
the discourse of essentialism, and then later espoused its ‘strategic use’ as a weapon
in the struggle against colonial and neocolonial oppression.

Representation and the politics of being human

The presentation of cultural and linguistic difference in society is an alternative

political representation. This book deals with languages and cultures in Japan.
 introduction 9

Structured narratives are not an exercise in ‘cultural gaze’. The speech commu-
nities described here are not a cultural ‘collection’ (see Morton below); neither is
this book’s approach concerned with social variation and enculturation per se (i.e.
a cultural anthropology). The starting point for this book is to describe the every-
day multilingualism of people who associate with particular speech communities.
The use of multiple languages is a fact of life in Japan.
The anthropologist Miyuki Morita (2007) in her study of the colonial displays
of the Ainu alludes to the problem of the objectivity of Exposition presenters, their
intentions: comparing past displays of the Ainu with current displays in museums
and events. Such displays ‘juxtaposed objects to rank and heighten difference and
to produce new cognitive entities’ (ibid: 142). The new National Ainu Museum
(Kokuritsu Ainu Minzoku Hakubutsukan) in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, which opened in
2020, likewise presents numerous challenges as its mission attempts, ‘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 whilst con-
tributing to the creation and development of new aspects of Ainu culture’ (2019).
Hidetoshi Shiraishi describes the historical background of these challenges in the
chapter on Ainu. In this book, authors have made reference to the problem of how
‘other’ languages and cultures invited stereotype or symbolize cultural desire (e.g.
the cultural chic of Brazilian bossa nova in Japan’s cafe culture mentioned in the
chapter by Lucila Etsuko Gibo).

Tabunka multiculturalism

There are now over two million foreign residents in Japan, many married to
Japanese citizens. The stunning appearance of multiethnic sportsmen has reignited
discussion about ‘being Japanese’. In field and track athletics, basketball, judo,
rugby, tennis, and football, multiethnic athletes are breaking the conventional
mould of what constitutes national representation. Intermarriage, immigration,
and the increase in the foreign student population are socializing factors that call
for a different set of terms for what are new circumstances. Thus, tabunka kyōsei
(multiculturalism or ‘multicultural co-existence’) comprises a national discourse
about a new identity for Japan—an identity that might be appropriate for a peaceful
and mostly successful society.
There is justifiable desire to make a nation a tangible whole. It is the place
we live in. We want to make sense of it. The categories of understanding by
which we approach a ‘national language regime’ represent the important ques-
tion (Coulmas and Heinrich 2005). Classification tells the story. What sustained
the seemingly endless search for identity and the hegemony of homogeneity? Such
belief must cling to an essentialized and misleading dichotomy of ‘the West’ and
‘Japan’ (Sugimoto 2003). It extrapolates from a visible ethnic homogeneity—that
10 john c. maher

people ‘look the same’. It ignores the cultural and linguistic variation across the
Japanese archipelago that historians and sociologists recognize as a feature of both
ancient and modern/pre-war Japan (Morris-Suzuki 2001; Oguma 2002, 2005). It
ignores the transnational origins and transcultural flows that underpin Japan’s
language, art, cuisine, music, religion, and cultural practices. In Befu’s (2001) com-
pelling analysis, Nihonjinron has served as a form of belief, an ersatz nationalism, a
‘secular religion’ that fills an existential emptiness in the wake of the national catas-
trophe of wartime nationalism and military defeat. The terminology of political
economy has increasingly swung from ideas of Nihonjinron, kokusaika (‘interna-
tionalization’), and globalization towards the discourse of tabunka kyōsei ‘mutual
co-existence’, which points towards a greater consciousness of Japan as an inclusive
and ‘diverse’ society.
Language and cultural diversity is a visible characteristic of 21st century Japan,
in urban as well as rural areas: a multilingual and multicultural diversity threaded
through history (Morton 2000). The Japanese archipelago has always been ‘diverse’:
rich in languages and cultures resulting from the presence of indigenous ethnic
peoples, transnational flows, in-migration from the nearby Eurasian continent as
well as from South America.

Language in national surveys

Language diversity is often missing from the pages of books on Japan, even those
that describe cultural minorities, such as John Lie’s Multiethnic Japan. Linguists
themselves have traditionally selected only particular languages for description.
Shibatani (1991) in The Languages of Japan identified three languages of Japan
because three languages only are held to be ‘indigenous’ to Japan. The term ‘in-
digenous’ might have been extended to include JSL. Maher and Yashiro (2005)
identified five languages and two ‘non-ethnic specific’ topics—‘returnees’ and
‘bilingual families’. There was no entry on JSL. What languages ‘belong’ to a na-
tion? How are they selected? Categorization is meaningful because it signals how
we view national language diversity.
A different approach to the study of language minorities is informed exploration
of sociolinguistic diversity in cities with its superdiverse fluidities. Dirk Smakman
and Patrick Heinrich in Urban Sociolinguistics (2018) investigate ‘the city as a lin-
guistic process and experience’, whilst the more country-specific Routledge Hand-
book of Japanese Sociolinguistics (2019) by Patrick Heinrich and Yumiko Ohara
includes numerous studies of Japan’s multilingual ecology, issues of language plan-
ning, and language varieties. They start with the by now widely accepted canon,
‘While it was once believed that Japan was a linguistically homogenous country,
research over the past two decades has shown Japan to be multilingual and socio-
linguistically diversifying country’ (Introduction). Multilingualism in Japan is part
 introduction 11

of the thesis of that book, specifically that people communicate in increasingly

diverse languages. Likewise, the range of communicative practices in changing
towns and cities is the topic of the illuminating study Metrolingualism—Language
in the City (Pennycook and Otsuji 2015) of the perpetual exchange of languages in
Sydney and Tokyo as people go about their daily lives—buying and selling, eating
and drinking, talking and joking, and getting things done. Peter Backhaus’ unique
Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo
(2007) analysed thousands of multilingual signs (official/non-official) in Tokyo.
Japanese cities are places of language contact containing millions of messages—
spoken and written—transmitted every day. Such studies continue to challenge the
contested notion of a national monolingualism, illuminating a changing language
regime in Japanese towards multilingualism.
This book captures the situation of contemporary Japan as well as its historic
background from the perspective of language and cultures of various communi-
ties. Languages in Japan are layered in local interactions as people go about their
daily lives. Languages are at work and play in a street, shop, or downtown market.
They are Japan’s indigenous languages, historic minority languages, and languages
of cultural impact. As ‘globalization’ in numerous forms affects Japan’s traditional
practice in fields such as labour, economy, inbound tourism, and education, this
book provides an ongoing perspective on Japan as a multicultural and multilingual
region of the world.

Note on names

The traditional Hepburn system is employed in most Japanese names. Some con-
tributors have written their names otherwise. The order of contributor names is
given name followed by family name; the authors of Chapter 22 are family name
then given name. Acknowledging cultural diversity the editor respects the right of
contributors to write and order their names as they prefer.
 PART I

NATIONAL LANGUAGES
 1
Japanese in the world
The diaspora communities
Kazuko Matsumoto

The traditional Palauan language, particularly the dialect spoken by the

people of Angaur State, shall be the language of the State of Angaur.
Palauan, English and Japanese shall be the official languages.
(Article XII, General Provisions, Constitution of the State of
Angaur (1982), The Republic of Palau)

1.1 Japanese diaspora communities

For the past four centuries, Japanese samurai, traders, indentured labourers,
war brides and picture brides, colonial settlers, global business expats, and aca-
demic sojourners have gone abroad. Japanese culture, language, and dialects have
travelled with them evolving in newly formed diaspora communities. Such transi-
tions involve cultural inheritance and adaptation, and the formation of both new
educational and social organizations as well as new contact varieties.
Japanese diaspora communities may be classified into several types based on
the chronology and nature of their establishment: (a) nihon machi (Japan town)
communities; (b) Nikkei (Japanese migrants and their descendants who share a
similar historical experience, whether ethnically homogenous Japanese or ethni-
cally mixed) communities; (c) colonial communities in former Japanese overseas
possessions; (d) contemporary communities of long-term and permanent res-
idents; (e) Japanese language learners overseas. Diaspora Japanese spans the
historical to the present day, with a geographical range that includes Asia-Pacific,
North, Central, and South Americas, and Europe.

Kazuko Matsumoto, Japanese in the world. In: Language Communities in Japan.

Edited by John C. Maher, Oxford University Press.
© Kazuko Matsumoto (2022). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198856610.003.0002
16 kazuko matsumoto

1.1.1 Japanese migrant diaspora communities before WWII

Japanese settlements called nihon machi ‘Japan towns’ have long existed across
Southeast Asia. In Ayutthaya, Thailand, Japanese rōnin—samurai who had lost
their master during the Warring States period (1467–1600)—began settling. These
masterless samurai were joined by Japanese traders on armed Japanese merchant
ships called shuinsen during the early Tokugawa Shogunate (1604–1635). An es-
timated 350 Japanese ships sailed abroad carrying over 100,000 Japanese, about
10,000 of whom took up permanent residence in their new destinations (Iwao
1940). The most popular of these destinations were Siam (present-day Thailand),
Luzon (northern Philippines), Cochinchina (southern Vietnam and southern
Cambodia), and Cambodia. Others included Tonkin (northern Vietnam), Taiwan,
Brunei, and Macao (Iwao 1940). Religious exile prompted an influx of Japanese-
Christian refugees to the Philippines during the suppression of Christianity in
Japan from the late sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth centuries. The Tokugawa
Shogunate’s sakoku ‘national seclusion’ policy (1639–1854) prohibited any person
from leaving or entering the country. This inhibited fresh emigration from Japan.
Consequently, by the end of sakoku, the once vibrant nihon machi settlements had
disappeared, integrating into local socio-economies (Frei 1978).
The Meiji period witnessed large-scale population mobility involving dekasegi
‘indentured work’, domestically, to Japan’s newly acquired northern territory of
Hokkaido and internationally, beyond Southeast Asia. The expression dekasegi
is a key term in Japanese migration meaning ‘to leave home temporarily to
earn money’: dekasegui in Spanish-speaking countries; decasségui in Brazil; and
dekasegi in English-speaking countries. Many workers stayed for prolonged pe-
riods or eventually settled permanently. Emigrants engaged in agriculture (e.g.,
coffee or sugar plantations), construction (e.g., railways), manufacturing (e.g.,
silk and cotton industries), shipping, and fishing. Some migration was driven
by penury. Japanese women were trafficked as prostitutes (karayuki-san) from
impoverished rural areas of Japan to East and Southeast Asia during the late nine-
teenth and early twentieth centuries. Some migration was educational; in North
America, Japanese migrants attended school while working as domestics for white
families (Azuma 2002).
The major overseas destinations of dekasegi migrants were Hawaii, Guam, New
Caledonia, and Australia in Oceania; the Philippines, French Indochina (present
Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia), Siam (Thailand), British Malaya and Singapore,
British North Borneo (part of Malaysia), the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) in Asia;
the USA and Canada in North America; Mexico, Cuba, and the Dominican Re-
public in Central America; Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Chile, and
Colombia in South America. Japanese emigration began with the gannenmono in-
dentured migrants to Hawaii in the first year of Meiji, 1868; a total of 776,304
Japanese had emigrated abroad by 1941. At its peak, 25,752 out of 36,124 Japanese
 japanese in the world 17

who emigrated abroad in 1906 left for Hawaii (JICA 2014). During the early migra-
tion period, endogamy was the norm so that numerous so-called ‘picture brides’
were sent from Japan through professional agents or family members.
Japanese Associations (Nihonjin-kai) and Prefectural Associations (Kenjin-kai)
were founded where Japanese resided, organizing Japanese schools and cultural
events. As of 1932, Japanese Associations included 99 in Asia, 29 in Hawaii, 103
in the USA, 20 in Canada, 64 in Brazil, 30 in Peru, and 23 in Mexico (Min-
istry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, hereafter MFA, 1932). Concentrations of old
and new Japanese migrants were bolstered by association support, which served
as a foundation for access to the Japanese language and culture by subsequent
generations.
Cultural memory and Japanese literacy in Japanese in the diaspora communities
were sustained through the widespread print media Hōji Shinbun. Media activity
reflected the exigencies of the political climate. In Seattle, The Hokubei Jiji (1902–
1942), a monolingual Japanese publication renamed itself The North American
Times with a front page only in English—signalling support for the American war
effort. In Brazil, The São Paulo-Shimbun (1946–2019) resumed to resolve violent
disputes over local Brazilian war coverage, which had led to internecine conflict
in the Japanese community. Core literacy skills as well as cultural beliefs were
facilitated by the availability of Japanese-medium publications.
Dialect contact and second dialect acquisition continued during the early pe-
riod of Japanese migration. Japanese migrants possessed diverse regional dialects.
In Hawaii, minority Tōhoku dialect speakers acquired features of the Chūgoku di-
alect spoken by the Japanese migrant majority (Hiramoto 2010). In Mexico, a local
variety of Japanese showed dialect mixture, levelling, and simplification (Okumura
2022).

1.1.2 Japanese migrant diaspora communities after WWII

Post-war Japanese emigration resumed in 1951, and by 1993, 72,607 Japanese had
emigrated to the Americas. At its peak, 6,832 out of 8,386 Japanese who emi-
grated in 1960 left for Brazil. Emigration to the Americas at over 1,000 people
per year continued until 1972 (JICA 2014). The turmoil of post-war Japan led to
a reconsideration of ‘homeland return’. Together with the traumatic experience
of incarceration and discrimination in the Americas, this meant that cultural and
linguistic assimilation into the host country became a paramount concern.
The exigencies of intergenerational communication during the 1980s led
to bilingualism and code-switching observed in Toronto and San Francisco
(Nishimura 1997). Likewise, in Brazil and Paraguay, mixed varieties occurred
between Japanese and Brazilian Portuguese (called koronia-go or japonês de colô-
nia: Gibo 2015) and between Japanese and Spanish (Hiraiwa 2016). In Mexico,
18 kazuko matsumoto

linguistic transfer from Mexican Spanish was observed in the Japanese of Mexican
Spanish dominant speakers (Okumura 2022).
Assimilation into the host country and exogamic marriage inhibited intergen-
erational transmission of Japanese: the home language shifted from Japanese to
the mainstream in third-generation speakers (Nakato 2011).
Cultural inheritance is vibrant in Japanese migrant communities. In Hawaii, the
Japanese bon-odori ‘bon dance’ is widely popular. In 2012, 118 festivals were held
in 82 locations on six Hawaiian islands by Japanese temples (e.g., Hongan-ji) (JICA
2012). Japan’s August o-bon (a holiday based on a ritual Buddhist commemoration
of the dead) is replicated in Hawaii as a three-month event that is June–September.
It features Japanese folk dance Iwakuni-ondo (from the Yamaguchi Prefecture)
with Japanese place names being replaced by those in Hawaiian, and Ryukyuan
eisa (Okinawa Prefecture) with creative karate innovation. Performances reflect
the regional origins of migrants and how Japanese culture has been adapted in the
diaspora.
Supranational Japanese Associations are a new trend. The Asociación Panamer-
icana Nikkei or ‘Pan American Nikkei Association’ established in 1981 spans
14 countries in North, Central, and South America, delegates identifying not as
‘Japanese’ raised in Japan but as ‘Nikkei’ who share similar historical experience
outside of Japan. The nomenclature of identity is germane to the establishment of
such organizations.
Figure 1.1 illustrates the present-day locations of Japanese diaspora commu-
nities together with estimated populations (Association of Nikkei and Japanese
Abroad 2017). Brazil received the largest population of Japanese immigrants, fol-
lowed by the US mainland, Hawaii, Canada, and Peru. In total, 3.8 million Japanese
emigrants and their descendants reside outside of Japan. Exogamic marriage and
the existence of ethnically mixed children (Nikkei, happa, mestiço, or mestizo)
make precise figures difficult.
The large number of Nikkei residing in Japan (Figure 1.1) reflects the radical
revision in Japan’s Immigration Control and Refugee Recognition Act of 1989.
This allowed up to third-generation Japanese descendants living abroad to work
in Japan: the beginning of ‘reverse-migration’ as a form of dekasegi. Nikkei com-
munities (mostly from Brazil and Peru) now show an increase in their Japan-born
population. Language and dialect contact between Brazilian Portuguese, Peruvian
Spanish, and Japanese has led to the formation of both contact varieties called
Dekasseguês (Shigematsu 2009) and immigrant koinés (Matsumoto and Okumura
2019, 2020) in contemporary Japan.
The 2008 world financial crisis and the Great East Japan Earthquake in
2011 were discouraging factors for Nikkei immigrants to remain in Japan.
Thus, Japanese migrant diaspora communities in South America have received
Japan-born and Japanese-dominant returnee children of dekasegi parents. The
Asociación Peruano Japonesa (Peruvian Japanese Association) established in 1917
 japanese in the world 19

*Based on the 2016 Census.

**Based on the 2010 Census.
All other figures are estimates.
Canada
121,485 people*

United States
Nikkei in Japan 1,304,206 people**
250,000 people

Cuba The Dominican

Republic
1,100 people
Mexico 800 people
Hawai'i
20,000 people
The Philippines 240,000 people Venezuela
33,000 people 800 people
Colombia
1,800 people
Ecuador Brazil
Indonesia 300 people 1,900,000 people
4,500 people Peru
100,000 people
Australia
36,000 people Bolivia Paraguay
11,350 people 10,000 people

Chile Uruguay
3,000 people 350 people
Argentina
85,000 people

Fig. 1.1 Countries where Japanese emigrants settled together with estimated
populations of Japanese and Nikkei-jin
Source: Based on the Association of Nikkei and Japanese Abroad 2017.

has now added socialization support for returnee children such as monthly meet-
ings of a ‘Why don’t we talk Group’ (shaberankai) (Tokumasu 2022).

1.2 Japanese colonial diaspora communities

The late nineteenth and the first half of the twentieth century saw an expansion of
the Empire of Japan. The maps in Figure 1.2 show the stages in the outspread of
Imperial Japan’s sphere of influence.
Japan’s first empire (map left) shows that, firstly, the Ryukyu, Bonin, and
Kuril Islands were annexed by Japan in 1872, 1873, and 1875, renamed as ‘Oki-
nawa’, ‘Ogasawara’, and ‘Chishima’ Islands, respectively. Japan’s foreign wars then
brought about the acquisition of colonial territories in East Asia, Russia, and Mi-
cronesia. As a result of the First Sino-Japanese War, Taiwan became a colony in
1895. The Russo-Japanese War and the Treaty of Portsmouth had three conse-
quences: (a) the southern part of Russia’s Sakhalin Island was administered by
Japan in 1905 as ‘Karafuto’; (b) Korea was annexed in 1910; and (c) the south-
ern half of Dalian (including Port Arthur) on the Liaotung Peninsula, China, was
transferred from Russia to Japan in 1905, governed as Kantō-shū (also known as
the ‘Kwantung Leased Territory’ in English). Manchuria (Figure 1.2) became a
puppet state of the Empire of Japan in 1931.
 20

Japanese empires
Japan’s first empire Japan’s second empire
Yakutsk
a
Yakutsk Len Magadan
R U S S I A
Lena Kamchatka
Mangadan
Peninsula
Japanese colonists encouraged ds
R U S S I A SEA OF an
after 1932 Isl
OKHOTSK Peteopavlovsk A l e utian
Southern Sakhalin:
up to 1875 Japanese sphere of influence
1875–1904 occupied by Russia S E A O F O K H O T S K
1904–1905 Japanese Hailar
Northern half Russian,
1914–1944 Japanese colonization from 1858 Am ur
Khabarovsk

Harbin
Sakhalin
Vladivostok Sapporo
Hailar Hokkaido North Manchuria invaded by Japan 1931,
kazuko matsumoto

C H I N A S E A O F Puppet state 1933 (Manchukuo)

second empire on the right)

Beijing
Amur Khabarovsk J A P A N
M O N G O L IA Qiqihar Dairen(Dalian) KOREA
ds Seoul
South Manchurlia under Japanese influence by 1905
lan J A P A N
l is Tokyo
Harbin rri1875 Tsingtao (Qingdao) Nagoya Honshu
Ku Kyoto
Vladivostok Hokkaido Taken from
Jilin Sapporo Germany in 1914 Shikoku
Kyushu
Shenyang Shanghal
C H I N A
S E A O F JA PA N Wenzhou P A C I F I C O C E A N
Beijing
Ryukyu
Tianjin KO R E A Islands Bonin Is.
Port Arthur Dairen (Dalian) 1910 Taipei
Seoul Niigara Sendai
Jinan
R. TAIWAN
w JA PA N
llo Tsingtao (Qingdao)
Ye
Leased territory of the
Liaotung peninsula, including
Port Arthur and Dairen. 1905
Fukuoka
Chaju
Shikoku
Nanjing Tori Jima Luzon
Kyushu Mariana Islands

Used here by kind permission of Walter de Gruyter and Company.

e Shanghal
gtz Manila Saipan
yan
Guam
PHILIPPINES
American
Nanchang Panay Samar
Wenzhou 1872
Ryukyu Negros Yap
Islands Bonin Is. Ma r s h a l l
Fuzhou Is .
Okinawa 1873 Mindanao 1920 - 1945
Palau Truk
Taipel Pohnpei
Iwo Jima
C a r o i i n e s
TA I WA N League of Nations mandate -
1895 significant number of colonists settle after 1925
Manado
P A C I F I C O C E A N Halmahera
Sulawesi Nauru

Fig. 1.2 Map of the Japanese Empire (Japan’s first empire on the left; Japan’s

Source: Adapted from Map 43 in Mühlhäuser and Trew (1996), compiled by S. Wurm et al.
Manus
I N D O N E S I A
PHILIPPINES Ir i a n Jay a New Ireland
 japanese in the world 21

After WWI, in accordance with the Anglo-Japanese Alliance, Japan seized con-
trol of the former German territories of Micronesia called ‘Nan’yō-Guntō’ in the
Western Pacific Ocean in 1914 and governed it as Japan’s ‘South Pacific Mandate’
authorized by the League of Nations from 1919. The South Pacific Mandate in-
cluded Palau (presently the Republic of Palau), Saipan (the Commonwealth of
the Northern Mariana Islands), Yap, Kosrae, Pohnpei, and Chuuk (the Federated
States of Micronesia), and Marshall (the Republic of Marshall Islands).
In order to develop these newly acquired territories, imperial Japan sent millions
of Japanese settlers to the northwest Pacific from overpopulated Japan. Table 1.1
presents the number of Japanese settlers in former Japanese colonial territories
by region; Manchuria, together with the Manchuria Railway Zone and Kwantung
received the largest number (1,319,599 in 1942), followed by Korea (752,823 in
1942), Sakhalin (386,058 in 1941), Taiwan (397,090 in 1945), and the South Pacific
Mandate (84,245 in 1941). Over 2.7 million settlers resided in colonial territories
as of 1941.
Data from Chianbu keimushi (1938), Chōsensōtokufu (1944), Kantōkyoku
(1938, 1944), Karafutochō (1910, 1921–1935, 1937ab, 1939, 1940ab, 1942, 1943),
Naikaku tōkeikyoku (1912, 1918, 1920, 1921), Nan’yōchō (1934, 1936, 1941ab,
1942), Taiwansōtokufu (1944), and Takushokukyoku (1921, 1922). See Matsumoto
(2021) for original references.
Japanese colonization may be sociolinguistically classified as ‘settlement colony’
style (Schneider 2007) with a demographic prominence of speakers of the colo-
nial language. The Japanese population exceeded indigenous populations in both
Sakhalin and some islands of the South Pacific Mandate and substantially in
Manchuria, Korea, and Taiwan. Instead of a small number of elite colonizers gov-
erning the new territories, a large number of ordinary civilian settlers cultivated
the wilderness, constructed new roads and buildings, and exploited the natural
resources.
In the multi-ethnic workplace environments of the colonies, Japanese func-
tioned as a lingua franca. Both Japanese and indigenous peoples (together with
indentured labourers from other Japanese colonies, such as Korea, China, Tai-
wan, and the Pacific islands) engaged in various occupations such as farming,
fishing, the mining of coal, phosphate, and bauxite, tuna and pineapple canner-
ies, dried bonito processing, paper and button manufacturing (from shells), and
copra production.
In each region, Japanese towns sprang up where restaurants, cafes, bars, shops,
theatres, commercial and government offices, hospitals, post offices, and banks
lined the main street, while fish markets, factories, blacksmiths, charcoal dealers,
laboratories, brothels, and gambling houses were built in the back streets. Large
residential areas, schools, churches, temples, and shrines were located on the out-
skirts of town centres. Urbanscapes came to resemble Japan. Koror, the capital
of the South Pacific Mandate was variously described as a ‘suburb of Yokohama’
 22
Table 1.1 Number of Japanese settlers in Japanese colonial territories and spheres of influence by year

kazuko matsumoto
Year Sakhalin Kwantung Manchuria South Taiwan2 Korea South Total3
Leased Manchuria Pacific
Territory Railway1 Mandate

1905 10,806 12,792 N/A 3,821 71,040 83,315 N/A (181,774)

1906 18,281 24,572 N/A 13,313 77,925 98,001 N/A (232,092)
1907 24,107 29,773 N/A 17,168 83,329 126,168 N/A (280,545)
1909 23,897 32,102 N/A 31,804 89,696 146,147 N/A (323,646)
1910 28,688 36,668 14,407 25,266 98,048 171,543 N/A (374,620)
1911 34,416 41,214 14,744 25,550 109,786 210,689 N/A (436,399)
1912 39,811 45,317 15,800 27,853 122,793 243,729 N/A (495,303)
1913 42,535 47,354 17,264 29,833 133,937 271,591 N/A (542,514)
1914 54,939 48,990 19,106 32,739 141,835 291,217 — (588,826)
1915 58,449 50,178 16,993 34,396 137,229 303,659 — (600,904)
1916 63,990 52,591 20,218 37,572 142,452 320,938 — (637,761)
1917 71,517 55,519 21,970 42,674 145,232 332,456 649 670,017
1918 77,185 60,024 19,827 50,712 148,831 336,872 1,148 694,599
1919 82,409 65,382 21,816 60,348 153,330 346,619 1,791 731,695
1920 88,747 73,894 24,590 61,576 166,621 347,850 3,403 766,681
1921 101,329 77,038 24,303 64,734 174,682 367,618 — (809,704)
1922 117,782 82,131 23,584 65,684 177,953 386,493 3,161 856,788
1923 136,928 86,300 12,850 76,198 181,847 403,011 5,121 902,255
1924 149,281 86,498 14,098 81,109 183,317 411,595 5,457 931,355

Continued
Table 1.1 Continued

Year Sakhalin Kwantung Manchuria South Taiwan2 Korea South Total3

Leased Manchuria Pacific
Territory Railway1 Mandate

1925 183,742 90,542 13,826 83,620 189,630 424,740 7,330 993,430

1926 197,965 93,187 13,855 86,137 195,769 442,326 8,298 1,037,537
1927 215,443 97,002 13,909 88,197 202,990 454,881 9,831 1,082,253
1928 233,935 101,744 13,364 91,089 211,202 469,043 12,281 1,132,658
1929 244,931 107,364 13,115 95,638 220,730 488,478 16,021 1,186,277
1930 277,279 118,052 13,285 99,411 232,299 501,867 19,636 1,261,829
1931 279,204 119,770 13,201 100,268 243,872 514,666 22,663 1,293,644
1932 286,163 125,935 26,607 116,589 247,569 523,452 28,018 1,354,333
1933 293,168 139,016 55,103 139,973 256,327 543,104 31,900 1,458,591
1934 304,995 149,492 93,349 165,375 262,964 561,384 39,885 1,577,444
1935 313,115 159,749 142,607 190,508 269,698 583,428 51,309 1,710,414
1936 312,926 166,510 182,631 203,234 281,012 608,989 55,948 1,812,250

japanese in the world

1937 318,321 174,587 418,300 299,280 629,512 61,723 1,901,723
1938 329,743 180,689 522,189 308,845 633,320 71,141 2,045,927
1939 345,605 190,107 642,355 323,148 650,104 75,286 2,226,606
1940 382,056 202,827 862,245 346,663 689,790 81,011 2,564,592
1941 386,058 215,267 1,016,805 365,682 717,011 84,245 2,785,068
1942 — 222,652 1,096,947 384,847 752,823 — (2,457,269)
1945 — 229,485 — 397,090 — — (626,575)

1
Population figures for the Empire of Manchuria and South Manchuria Railway Zone, incorporated from 1937.
2
According to official statistics, population figures for Taiwan from 1905 until 1931 include Koreans.
3
Total numbers in parentheses indicate that number unknown due to missing data. —indicates data unavailable.

23
24 kazuko matsumoto

(Shuster 1978: 13), a ‘handsome tropical city’ (Kluge 1991: 5), and ‘Little Tokyo’
(Leibowitz 1996: 14).
The Japanese education system was also introduced into the colonial territo-
ries: schools for children of Japanese settlers and schools for indigenous children
(e.g., Chamorro, Chuukese, and Pohnpeian in the Pacific; Ami, Tayal, and Payuan
in Taiwan; Nivkh, Uilta, and Evenki in Sakhalin). The Japanese language was
promoted and indigenous languages were prohibited. This created a large num-
ber of new diglossic societies (Ferguson 1959) where Japanese served as the
official dominant ‘high’ language taught in schools and used in the adminis-
trative domains, while indigenous languages were treated as vernacular ‘low’
languages whose use was limited to interactions among the indigenous people.
This brought about bilingualism among indigenous children. However, as com-
mon to many settlement colonies (see the cases of postcolonial Englishes by
Schneider 2007), the community’s acquisition of a colonial language was not
spread equally. In Sakhalin, Korean children attended Japanese schools together
with Japanese children (Matsumoto and Yoshida 2020). In Palau, ethnically mixed
children (Japanese-Palauans) had more access to Japanese language and cultural
norms at home (Matsumoto 2013a).
In Japanese schools, radically different Japanese dialects acquired from parents
were in daily contact. Different dialects brought from Japan resulted in the emer-
gence of Japanese colonial koiné. In the case of Koror where Japanese and Palauans
resided in the same neighbourhoods and the ratio of Japanese to the Palauan pop-
ulation reached eight to one at the peak, for example, Palauan children acquired
Japanese even before schooling through neighbourhood play with Japanese chil-
dren, who presumably spoke a Japanese koiné (see Matsumoto and Britain 2003,
2020; Matsumoto 2013b, 2019). Other territories were also colonized by dialectally
diverse settlers under different conditions. Thus, distinctive colonial Japanese vari-
eties with different substrate influences from different indigenous languages likely
developed in each area.
After Japan’s defeat in WWII, Japanese settlers were repatriated to Japan
(Japanese orphans were forced to remain in China and Sakhalin after the war).
Repatriation halted the expansion of Japanese speech communities. The number
of very elderly indigenous speakers of Japanese who learnt/acquired Japanese dur-
ing their childhood is now dwindling. However, the Japanese language lingers on
in borrowings in indigenous languages, though the extent to which borrowings
were adopted by and remained in the local languages likely depends on the inten-
sity of contact (Matsumoto and Britain 2020). In Palau, food-related vocabulary
(Matsumoto and Britain 2019) as well as ‘core’ vocabulary—expressions found in
all languages—such as words for feelings and senses (e.g., daijob ‘fine, OK’, daijōbu
in Japanese) and nursery words (e.g., oppai to encourage babies to suckle for breast
milk/suck at a bottle)—have remained Japanese (Matsumoto 2016). Everyday
expressions likely derived from face-to-face interaction with Japanese settlers.
 japanese in the world 25

By contrast, post-war Sakhalin saw an influx of Russian newcomers from re-

gions that were not under Japanese administration. Consequently, few Japanese
borrowings from the Japanese Karafuto era are found in Sakhalin Russian, all used
by Korean Sakhaliners who stayed on Sakhalin (Fajst and Matsumoto 2020).
Cultural reminiscence lingers in the former Japanese territories. In Microne-
sia, removing zori ‘flip-flops’ on entering a home and dipping sashimi in soy
sauce reflect Japanese influence (Hezel and Berg 1980). In Palau, the vernacular
Japanese banking system called mujin(-kō) continues (mujing in Palauan). Similar
cooperative community banks called tanomoshi(-kō) were practised in Peru and
Hawaii.
Palauans cook Japanese New Year specialities such as chosiruko ‘sweet bean
paste’ (Japanese oshiruko), and visit neighbours, saying omedeto (Japanese borrow-
ing, ‘Happy New Year!’). Japanese arare ‘rice crackers’ are the most favoured snack
among Palauans. Particularly striking is the adoption of boks (Japanese bokkusu
‘box’1) for the Japanese (hako-)zen, a small (box) table for ceremonial food, and
beroski or burosiki/huroski (from Japanese furoshiki ‘wrapped cloth’ for special
gifts) to present food to distinguished guests. This typifies the Japanese way of pre-
senting special food in Palauan culture, creating an air of ‘formality’ (Matsumoto
and Britain 2019).
A significant legislative heritage is that one state of Palau recognizes Japanese
as an official language alongside Palauan and English; Article XII General Provi-
sions states, ‘The traditional Palauan language, particularly the dialect spoken by
the people of Angaur State, shall be the language of the State of Angaur. Palauan,
English and Japanese shall be the official languages’ (The State of Angaur, 1982).
It is the only place in which Japanese enjoys legal status as an official language
outside of Japan.

1.3 Contemporary Japanese diaspora communities

The expansion of the Japanese economy and improvement of diplomatic relations

internationally brought about an increasing number of Japanese living overseas as
long-term (e.g., diplomats, business expats, sojourner academics) or even perma-
nent residents (e.g. international couples). For the past three decades, the number
of Japanese citizens living abroad as long-term or permanent residents doubled
(from 340,929 in 1989 to 876,620 in 2018 and from 246,043 in 1989 to 513,750 in
2018, respectively).
Figure 1.3 illustrates the number of Japanese long-term or permanent residents
by region in 2018. The two figures highlight different patterns in the number and

1 The English word ‘box’ is borrowed into Palauan as baks, meaning a normal ‘box’.
26 kazuko matsumoto

Oceania North Latin America and Europe

Asia America Others
the Caribban

2,760, 18,904, 2.2% 15,987,

33,850, 1.8%
0.5% 6.6%
74,182,
14.4% 154,619,
72,899, 14.2% 17.6%
73,994, 369,892,
14.4% , 42.2%

264,436,
256,065, 30.2%
49.8%

52,782,
6.0%
Permanent residents Long-term residents

Fig. 1.3 Number of Japanese citizens residing outside of Japan as permanent or

long-term residents in 2018 by region
Source: Based on data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2019).

proportion of Japanese residents by region between long-term and permanent

residents.
Concerning long-term residents, Asia received the largest number (N=369,892;
42.2%), followed by North America (N=264,436; 30.2%) and Europe (N=154,619;
17.6%). In terms of permanent residents, North America (N=256,065; 49.8%) at-
tracted the greatest number; Europe (N=74,182; 14.4%), Latin America and the
Caribbean (N=73,994; 14.4%), and Oceania (N=72,899; 14.2%) form the next
most popular places of permanent residence for Japanese; Asia (N=33,850; 6.6%)
received a relatively smaller number of Japanese as permanent residents.
Table 1.2 presents the top 20 countries where Japanese citizens live as long-term
or permanent residents starting with the USA (N=446,925), China (N=120,076),
Australia (N=98,436), the Asian countries (e.g., Thailand, South Korea, Singa-
pore), Canada, New Zealand, Europe (UK, Germany, France), and Central and
South American nations (Brazil, Mexico, Argentina).
Within the contemporary Japanese diaspora communities, long-term residents
typically live in affluent urban areas (e.g., Manhattan, New York City, Gubei,
Shanghai, and Makati, Philippines), sending their children to Japanese schools
whose curriculums are based on those of the Japanese Ministry of Education
(hereafter MEXT) in order to prepare for their future return to Japan. Currently,
there are 102 Japanese schools certified by MEXT worldwide, approximately half
of which are run by local Japanese Associations (MEXT 2019).
An important link between long-term Japanese residents and the Japanese
migrant diaspora communities is that some MEXT certified schools offer inter-
national classes for local children with or without Japanese ethnic background.
 japanese in the world 27

Table 1.2 The top 20 countries for Japanese permanent or long-term residents in
2018

Ranking Country and N % Ranking Country and N %

region region

1 USA 446,925 32.1% 12 Malaysia 26,555 1.9%

2 China 120,076 8.6% 13 Taiwan 24,280 1.7%
3 Australia 98,436 7.1% 14 Vietnam 22,125 1.6%
4 Thailand 75,647 5.4% 15 New Zealand 20,822 1.5%
5 Canada 73,571 5.3% 16 Indonesia 19,612 1.4%
6 UK 60,620 4.4% 17 Philippines 16,894 1.2%
7 Brazil 51,307 3.7% 18 Italy 14,600 1.1%
8 Germany 45,416 3.3% 19 Mexico 11,775 0.8%
9 France 44,261 3.2% 20 Argentina 11,561 0.8%
10 South Korea 39,403 2.8% Others 129,860 9.3%
11 Singapore 36,624 2.6% Total 1,390,370 100%

Source: Based on data from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (2019).

For example, three Nikkei schools in Mexico have been integrated into a new
international school Liceo Mexicano Japonés. Two language streams, Japanese
and Spanish, provide opportunities for children of Japanese immigrants, chil-
dren of Japanese diplomats and expatriates, and children of the local community
(in this case Mexican children) to interact on a daily basis. Nikkei graduates
maintain a relatively higher level of Japanese ability than graduates from local
Mexican schools do. Education in the immersive Japanese language environ-
ment of the Liceo ensures acquisition of Japanese as a heritage language for
pupils in the Japanese diaspora communities in Mexico City (Matsumoto and
Tokumasu 2014).
Elsewhere, Japanese children attend local schools (especially in English-
speaking countries) or international schools weekdays, and supplementary
Japanese school called hoshūkō on Saturdays. When these children return to Japan
they often face cultural and language difficulties, while their fluency in English
gives them an edge as kikokushijo ‘returnees’. The number of Japanese children
who spent more than a year abroad before returning to Japan doubled from 5,900
in 1977 to 11,801 in 2018 (MEXT 2019). Returnees have come to be widely recog-
nized as ‘a new, privileged class’ (Goodman 2012) to the extent that the contrary
term junjapa, which refers to ‘Japanese who have never lived abroad’, has been
coined.
Returnee children concentrate in the Greater Tokyo Area (Tokyo, Kanagawa,
Chiba, Saitama, and Ibaraki together account for 56.1%), large cities in the Kan-
sai region (Osaka, Kyoto, and Hyogo account for 13%), and in prefectures with
automobile factories (Aichi and Shizuoka account for 12.7%). See Table 1.3.
28 kazuko matsumoto

Table 1.3 Top ten prefectures for Japanese children who spent more than a year
abroad before returning to Japan in 2017

Ranking Prefecture N % Ranking Prefecture N %

1 Tokyo 3,255 27.7% 7 Kyoto 497 4.2%

2 Kanagawa 1,578 13.4% 8 Hyogo 405 3.5%
3 Aichi 1,130 9.6% 9 Shizuoka 362 3.1%
4 Chiba 824 7.0% 10 Ibaraki 342 2.9%
5 Osaka 623 5.3% Others 2,126 18.10%
6 Saitama 601 5.1% Total 11,743 100%

Source: Based on data from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology
(MEXT) (2018).
Note: Figures exclude 105 returnees attending secondary schools with six-year curriculum in junior
and senior high. Information on the location of the schools by prefecture is unavailable.

In contrast, Japanese permanent residents tend to integrate themselves into the

mainstream life of the host country, often either married to a citizen of the host
country or finding the local lifestyle more attractive than their own. There has been
an exodus from Japan to countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand; the
air of freedom in both the private sphere and the workplace attracts new waves of
young Japanese who have left Japan by choice rather than necessity.
‘Japan towns’ or ‘Japan centres’ are located in cities with significant ‘Japanese’
populations including long-term and permanent residents and Nikkei (e.g., near
the Opéra Garnier in Paris, the Oberkassel district of Düsseldorf, and Leberdade in
São Paulo). They offer familiar cultural spaces for the purchase of Japanese culinary
ingredients and seasonal decorations or dining in Japanese restaurants.

1.4 Learners of Japanese as a foreign language abroad

A global survey of Japanese language education in 137 countries, via 16,179 in-
stitutions (Japan Foundation 2017), indicates in which region/country Japanese
language learning is most common. In the past 36 years, the number of learners
of Japanese has grown 28.7 fold (127,167 learners in 1979 to 3,655,024 learners in
2015) peaking (N=3,985,669) in 2012. The Japan Foundation (2017) explains the
decrease in the number of Japanese language learners from 2012 to 2015 as be-
ing because the survey excluded learners through Internet educational sites, now
a common option. Thus, it is estimated that the number of learners of Japanese
overseas exceeds the figures indicated.
Figure 1.4 illustrates the number and proportion of Japanese language learners
by region in 2015. It shows that Japanese language education is strikingly popu-
lar in East Asia (N=1,763, 420; 48.2%) and Southeast Asia (N=1,094,437; 29.9%),
 japanese in the world 29

South Asia, South America,

40,795, 1.1% 38,152, 1.0%
West Europe,
83,559, 2.3% Others, 51,714,
1.4%

North America,
190,599, 5.2%

East Asia,
Oceania, 392,348, 1,763,420, 48.2%
10.7%

Southeast Asia,
1,094,437, 29.9%

Fig. 1.4 Number of Japanese language learners abroad in 2015 by

region
Source: The Japan Foundation (2017).

both of which together amounts to nearly 80% of Japanese language learners.

Oceania (N=392,348, 10.7%), North America (N=190,599; 5.2%), and Western
Europe (N=83,559; 2.3%) have the smaller number of learners of Japanese, which
in total amounts to nearly 20% of Japanese learners.
Table 1.4 presents the top 20 countries for Japanese language learners in 2015. It
shows that 12 countries out of 20 are in Asia, including the top three countries,
namely China (N=953,283; 26.1%), Indonesia (N=745,125; 20.4%), and South
Korea (N=556,237; 15.2%). Other countries include Australia, the USA, New
Zealand, Brazil, France, the UK, Canada, and Germany.
The Japan Foundation (2017) also examined the number of Japanese language
learners per 100,000 of local populations. The ratio of Japanese language learners
in each country was Australia (1,491 learners), followed by South Korea (1,106),
the Republic of Palau (1,005), Taiwan (941), Guam (911), New Caledonia (770),
New Zealand (661), and North Mariana (626). Except for South Korea and Taiwan,
the highest rates of Japanese language learners are found in Oceania.
Countries that have Japanese migrant communities (e.g., the USA, Brazil,
Canada) or that have experienced Japanese colonization (e.g., China, South Korea,
Taiwan, Palau, North Mariana) tend to have a large number of Japanese language
learners. In the migrant diaspora communities, the Japanese schools established
by the Japanese Associations taught children of Japanese migrants all subjects in
Japanese. Increasingly, such children attend local schools, and Japanese schools
have become Japanese language schools. In Paraguay, the Escuela de la Lengua
30 kazuko matsumoto

Table 1.4 The top 20 countries in terms of the number of Japanese language learners
abroad in 2015

Ranking Country and N % Ranking Country and N %

region region

1 China 953,283 26.1% 12 India 24,011 0.7%

2 Indonesia 745,125 20.4% 13 Brazil 22,993 0.6%
3 Republic 556,237 15.2% 14 Hong Kong 22,613 0.6%
of Korea
4 Australia 357,348 9.8% 15 France 20,875 0.6%
5 Taiwan 220,045 6.0% 16 UK 20,093 0.5%
6 Thailand 173,817 4.8% 17 Canada 19,601 0.5%
7 USA 170,998 4.7% 18 Germany 13,256 0.4%
8 Vietnam 64,863 1.8% 19 Myanmar 11,301 0.3%
9 Philippines 50,038 1.4% 20 Singapore 10,798 0.3%
10 Malaysia 33,224 0.9% Others 134,580 3.7%
11 New Zealand 29,925 0.8% Total 3,655,024 100%

Source: The Japan Foundation (2017).

Japonesa de Yguazú (the Iguazu Japanese Language School) offers two courses:
one for children with Japanese roots—‘Japanese as a heritage language’—and an-
other for non-Japanese children to learn Japanese as a foreign language. Thus, to a
varying degree, Japanese diaspora communities maintain links with Japan.
Motivations for learning Japanese seem to be influenced by political, economic,
and cultural factors also. Japan’s recent Economic Partnership Agreements with
the Philippines, Indonesia, and Vietnam indicate an increasing opportunity of
employment both with local Japanese corporations and in Japan. The latter has
encouraged nurses and care workers to learn Japanese, as these occupations are in
great demand in Japan due to its ageing society. Other incentives include tourism
from Japan (e.g., Guam, New Caledonia) and personal interests in Japanese pop-
ular culture like anime and manga. Japanese is also taught as the major foreign
language in local educational institutions (e.g., Oceania). Learners of Japanese
with different first languages, around the world, enrich the Japanese language with
their linguistic and cultural diversity.
The diaspora Japanese communities around the world are a valuable reservoir
of resources for sociolinguistic theoretical and empirical enquiry.
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