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Japonic languages and dialects. Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan ( Japanese: 日琉語族, romanized : Nichiryū gozoku ), sometimes also Japanic, [ 1] is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and ...
Japanese (日本語, Nihongo, [ɲihoŋɡo] ⓘ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 120 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages ...
The classification of the Japonic languages and their external relations is unclear. Linguists traditionally consider the Japonic languages to belong to an independent family; indeed, until the classification of Ryukyuan and eventually Hachijō as separate languages within a Japonic family rather than as dialects of Japanese, Japanese was considered a language isolate.
Language family. A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term family is a metaphor borrowed from biology, with the tree model used in historical linguistics analogous to a family tree, or to phylogenetic trees of taxa used in evolutionary taxonomy.
Hachijō Japanese. A small group of dialects spoken in Hachijō-jima and Aogashima, islands south of Tokyo, as well as the Daitō Islands east of Okinawa. Hachijō dialect is quite divergent and sometimes thought to be a primary branch of Japanese. It retains an abundance of inherited ancient Eastern Japanese features.
Ainu languages. (rarely included) Altaic ( / ælˈteɪ.ɪk /) is a controversial proposed language family [ 2] that would include the Turkic, Mongolic and Tungusic language families and possibly also the Japonic and Koreanic languages. [ 3]: 73 The hypothetical language family has long been rejected by most comparative linguists, although it ...
Korean and Japanese have very different native scripts ( Hangul and kana, respectively), although they both make use of Chinese characters to some extent; Kanji still are a core part of modern Japanese orthography, while Hanja were historically used to write Korean. Today, Hanja are only used in South Korea for limited academic, legal, media ...
Imperial House of Japan. The Imperial House (皇室, Kōshitsu) is the dynasty and imperial family of Japan, consisting of those members of the extended family of the reigning emperor of Japan who undertake official and public duties. Under the present constitution of Japan, the emperor is "the symbol of the State and of the unity of the people".