Like other indigenous groups, the Ainu people of Hokkaido and the north-eastern Honshu island of Japan have experienced marginalization. After the Japanese government annexed their territory in 1890, ...

I am an Ainu. However, sometimes when I tell people I was born not in Hokkaidō, but in Tokyo, and was raised in Saitama Prefecture, it brings the conversation to a halt, as if they are thinking, “Oh, ...

The Ainu language has been declared critically endangered by UNESCO, with few people left alive today who speak it. The Ainu are Japan's indigenous population and Japan Times contributor Mara Budgen ...

SAPPORO, JAPAN — For someone who grew up ashamed of her ethnic identity, they are powerful words. “You are beautiful just as you are. Don’t be afraid,” Mina Sakai sings to a young, enthusiastic crowd ...

An online “talking dictionary” first launched in 2009 is attempting to preserve and pass on the Ainu language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of Japan's northeastern island of Hokkaido and ...

In 2009, UNESCO in its “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger” designated the Ainu language as being critically endangered. As the most dire of the five categories — only extinct is worse — used in ...

A film inspired by the story of a young Ainu woman who translated into Japanese an epic poem passed down orally among the indigenous people of Hokkaido will soon have a wide domestic release. The ...

More than a century after colonisation, the Ainu language almost vanished. Now machines are listening to hours of old recordings and learning to give it a new voice. The cassette player would catch ...

A bear-worshipping indigenous minority of northern Japan are to receive official recognition, a move that will end 140 years of enforced assimilation and discrimination. Representatives from Japan's ...

Like other indigenous groups, the Ainu people of Hokkaido and the north-eastern Honshu island of Japan have experienced marginalization. After the Japanese government annexed their territory in 1890, ...