LL-L "Code switching" 2005.02.15 (10) [E]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 15.FEB.2005 (10) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>
Subject: LL-L "Code switching" 2005.02.15 (06) [E]

Hello,

I have some questions here.

First of all, was the interviewer speaking in Japanese, Russian, or
Karafuto-Ainu? One major contributor can be that the interviewer is
causing the code switching unintentionally.

Second of all, how frequently did this woman speak in Aynu Itah
(Hokkaido "Aynu Itak")? If almost everything she says all the time is
in Japanese or in Russian, it may take her some time to be able to
remember and sort out the proper Ainu, and in that way extremely
extensive interviews on a regular basis may have been useful.

Third of all, if the interviewer was speaking in Karafuto-Ainu, were
there any other environmental factors during the interviews polluting
with non-Ainu speech? Since she doesn't use the language a lot in
daily life, it is likely that it has become more difficult for her to
switch back and forth between languages smoothly.

I also have some extra questions I hope you can answer.

1. I know for sure there are currently speakers of Ainu in Hokkaido,
but I have suspicions there may be small numbers in Sakhalin, Kuriles,
southern Kamchatka, and /especially/ the Amur Valley on the mainland
(this is extremely confusing as I have only seen references to Amur
Ainu in Ainu works, but none in ethnographic works dealing with the
peoples of northwest mainland which mention Amur Nivkh). It has also
been seen that there may be some speakers in Aleutian Islands,
although this is unlikely.

2. I have heard that in Hokkaido there is currently a movement to
revive Ainu as a native language among children. I was well aware of
the adult learning revival movement (which in other cases is never
very successful in promoting usage of the language), but I have read
quotes from Ainu people about as long as they can bear children, they
will raise them with Ainu as a native language, and suggestions in
books by Josh Fishman and other endangered languages experts that
there is such a movement. I have tried to contact Ainu activists about
a "kohanga reo"/'punana leo"- style movement, in Japanese, but have
received no response at all.

3. I am extremely interested in the seeming tendency in academic
circles to divorce Ainu from Paleo-Siberian languages for no specific
reasons, especially since these languages are grouped not genetically
but geographically. To me Ainu and Nivkh seem to be more similar to
one another than any other language, in the grammar and to some extent
in vocabulary, and they share overlapping speech areas.

Mark

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From: R. F. Hahn <lowlands-l at lowlands-l.net>
Subject: Code switching

Hi, Mark!

> First of all, was the interviewer speaking in Japanese, Russian, or
> Karafuto-Ainu?

> Second of all, how frequently did this woman speak in Aynu Itah
> (Hokkaido "Aynu Itak")?

Both of them speak predominantly Aynu Itah, sometimes lapse into Japanese.

> Third of all, if the interviewer was speaking in Karafuto-Ainu, were
> there any other environmental factors during the interviews polluting
> with non-Ainu speech?

That I don't know, and it doesn't seem to be explained.  However, the
interviewer tends to speak Japanese whenever she needs to change a tape or
do something else with the recorder.  I don't know if she is Japanese or
Aynu, but she seems to have Japanese as her main language, and the informant
knows Japanese also and uses chunks of it (which in her case are written
with Katakana).

The rest of your questions are all very interesting, most of them out of my
league.  If you get any responses, please post them only if they are of
relevance to the List, at least indirectly (as mine was).  The nitty-gritty
of Ainu and Siberian languages would best be discussed off-list.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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