When you think of the languages of Japan, you probably think of the Japanese language. However, what if I were to tell you that Japanese wasn’t the official language of the nation?
Indeed, whilst Japanese is a language spoken in Japan, the languages of Japan are far more diverse than you might think. Some languages are spoken by millions of people, whilst others are spoken by only a few thousand…
Official Languages of Japan
Surprisingly, there actually no Japanese law stating what the official language of the country is. Despite this, there are two languages that essentially act as the co-official languages…
Japanese
Perhaps not surprisingly, Japanese is treated as the official language of Japan. Indeed, according to several of my Japanese friends, they weren’t even aware that Japanese wasn’t the official language of Japan!
Despite having no official status, the Japanese language as we know it today has been the language of Japan since the Edo period, being the one thing that an incredibly divided Japan could bond over.
Fast forward to today, and Japan is less divided, with the Japanese language still being used in everyday life.
Today, Japanese is the main language of the Japanese government, business, education, healthcare, work and so on. In other words, not speaking Japanese will seriously hamper your quality of life if you live in Japan.
Due to all of this, 97.8% of the Japanese population (roughly 123.2 million people) speak Japanese as a first language. Beyond that, many foreigners also learn Japanese as a second language as a courtesy.
As with any language spoken by over 100 million people, there are several dialects of Japanese spoken in Japan. However, by far the most common is Standard Japanese (the one you’ll probably learn through an online course or classes, so you should be fine).
English
In 1853, US Navy Commodore Matthew C. Perry would arrive in Japan. Signing the Kanagawa Treaty in 1854, it would mark the beginning of US-Japanese trade, which would be done in Dutch – the language of international trade in Japan at the time.
By 1870, trade between the US and Japan outweighed the trade done between Japan and the Dutch. As such, English began to replace Dutch as the language of international trade in Japan.
This status would be reaffirmed after WWII, when the Allies (primarily the US) accepted Japan’s surrender, and stayed there to keep the peace and rebuild. Here, the language the Allies would use in the post-war government would be English.
Following the war, US-Japanese and British-Japanese relations would become particularly close (with Japan eventually having close economic ties to Canada, New Zealand and Australia too), with many Japanese learning English.
Even after the Allies formally left Japan in 1947 (although Allied military bases in Japan would continue to exist), the Japanese government would continue to use English alongside Japanese in government service announcements – which continues to this day!
Despite serving as a quasi-official language, Japan has relatively few English speakers as a percentage of their population – estimated at 8% of the population (roughly 10.1 million people).
Regional Languages of Japan
Beyond Japanese and English, Japan also has a number of indigenous languages that are spoken with varying degrees of fluency by the Japanese populace.
Ainu
Technically Ainu isn’t a language. Rather, it’s actually a collective name for three dialects of a language that died out centuries ago, all of which are spoken by the Ainu people.
As a language isolate, the Ainu language is unlike any other language on the planet. The Ainu people themselves are believed to have migrated from the Kamchatka Peninsular in Eastern Russia, before migrating to the island of Hokkaido.
From here, its believed that the Ainu language and people spread to the nearby Kuril and Sakhalin islands, where distinct dialects (namely Hokkaido, Kuril and Sakhalin) formed, whilst still being mutually intelligible with each other.
Sadly, much like the language they’re descended from, the Ainu dialects as a whole have been dying out for centuries. Previous Japanese governments actively suppressed the language and the Ainu people, almost wiping them out in the process.
Indeed, of the three main dialects (Hokkaido, Kuril and Sakhalin) Hokkaido is the only dialect still spoken. Even then, it only has two native speakers, both of whom are old men anyway…
Luckily, the government have realized this. Not wanting to lose literally an entire language family, the Japanese government have attempted to revive the language, with very little success to date.
Ryukyuan
Whilst Ainu is a language isolate, the rest of the indigenous languages of Japan aren’t. Ryukyuan is the best example – it’s a language that’s likely related to Modern Japanese (though Old Japanese) with the two languages being somewhat similar.
Although not mutually intelligible, when you see the two languages transcribed, there are similarities between the two.
Spoken by the Ryukyuan people of the Ryukyu Islands, it’s believed that it was here where the language originated. Over the centuries, the Ryukyuan people would expand, soon becoming the dominant language on the islands.
However, beginning in 1879 (when the Ryukyu Islands became administered by the Japanese government directly), the Ryukyuan language was suppressed, as was Ryukyuan culture as a whole.
Prior to WWII, the law had basically said that you’d be publicly humiliated for speaking it in public, drastically reducing the number of Ryukyuan speakers in Japan.
During WWII, however, it escalated dramatically, with those caught speaking the language being executed, reducing the numbers even further.
Sadly, due to the past oppressions of the language by the Japanese government, many Ryukyuan speakers are hesitant to answer that they speak Ryukyuan on Japanese government censuses, meaning that we don’t actually know how many Ryukyuan speakers there are.
However, this fact hasn’t stopped many experts from estimating with estimates ranging from between 1,000 speakers to as much as 10,000 speakers.
Hachijō
The general consensus among linguists is that there are two branches of the Japonic language family – the Japanese and Ryukyuan branches. According to some linguists however, there’s actually a third…
This is the Hachijō branch.
Before I continue I must stress that only some linguists view Hachijō as the third branch of the Japonic language family, whilst most view it as a large divergence from the Japanese language instead.
Regardless, Hachijō is one of the few indigenous languages (of any country) that isn’t spoken by an ethnic minority – this, coupled with there being some mutual intelligibility between Japanese and Hachijō is why some consider it to be a member of the Japonic language family.
Instead, it’s actually spoken by ethnic Japanese people.
Having once been one of the most common languages spoken throughout the modern-day Okinawa Prefecture, the Japanese government would persecute Hachijō speakers in the same way they did Ryukyuan ones.
Much like Ryukyuan, Hachijō was almost rendered extinct because of this, although efforts have been made in recent years to revive Hachijō.
According to the most recent Japanese government surveys, there are a little more than 1,000 Hachijō speakers in Japan, all of whom are located in the Daitō and/or Izu Islands in the Okinawa Prefecture.
Immigrant Languages of Japan
Although famed for its centuries of isolationism, Japan would eventually open itself up to foreigners. Opening itself up to foreigners also opened up Japan to their languages too, many of which have stayed until the present day:
Chinese
The history of Japan and the history of China are inextricably linked. For much of East Asian history, Japan has been a Chinese vassal state, whilst the early-to-mid 20th century saw parts of China fall under Japanese rule.
In large part due to this, Chinese has been a fairly common foreign language spoken in Japan.
To begin with, these Chinese speakers were native Japanese, who learned the language for diplomatic or trade reasons. Today, however, most of Japan’s Chinese speakers are Chinese immigrants.
You see, the first Chinese immigrants in Japan were students, who chose Japan over Europe and the US due to the lower tuition fees. Following WWII, however, many more would follow, especially from Taiwan after the end of the Chinese Civil War.
Whilst these Chinese immigrants speak all the various Chinese dialects spoken in China, by far the most common is Mandarin (the official language of China), followed by Cantonese.
In terms of sheer numbers, Chinese is the most spoken immigrant language in Japan, having a total of 1 million native speakers.
However, due to the geographical and (somewhat) linguistic similarities as well as Mandarin’s position as the most spoken language in the world, many young Japanese people are beginning to learn Mandarin alongside English.
Korean
In a similar vein to Chinese, Korean is also a fairly well spoken foreign language in Japan.
Much like (parts of) China, Korea was similarly conquered by Japan in the buildup to WWII. Here, Japanese would be the official language of Korea during this time (although Korean would continue to be the language of the common man during this time too).
During the war, many Koreans would be brought over from Korea to work in Japanese factories for the war effort, giving Japan a large Korean-speaking population. Following the war, however, the Koreans would be sent back to Korea.
Yet, the Korean War and the preceding and subsequent political unrest would see many Koreans flee to Japan. Here, many would become model citizens (although some would later be forcefully repatriated back to Korea in the 1960’s).
Even in spite of two deportations/repatriations in as many decades, Japan’s Korean population is thriving, having expanded greatly over the last few years.
Although much of the Korean population refuse to get a Japanese passport (as under South Korean and Japanese law, you can’t have dual citizenship, so accepting Japanese citizenship means losing their Korean one) many are a mix of Japanese and Korean.
Whilst they speak Korean at home and have Korean names, many also speak Japanese to varying degrees.
Interestingly, most of Japan’s Korean population are from South Korea, there are also many North Koreans too, who live completely separately from the rest of the Japanese Korean population.
All in all, there are roughly 500,000 Korean speakers in Japan, or roughly 0.03% of the Japanese population.
Vietnamese
The first Vietnamese people to arrive in Japan would be Vietnamese students in the late 1900’s and early 1910’s, who chose to study in Japan to escape the oppressions of French rule (as Vietnam was then a part of French Indochina).
Although Japan would occupy Vietnam from September 1940 until August 1945, they wouldn’t bring any Vietnamese back to Japan (as they’d done with the Koreans and Chinese).
During the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, the Vietnam escalated immensely, leading to millions of refugees. Sadly, many would die trying to flee the country, but Japan would welcome many of them.
Settling in the Kanagawa and Hyōgo prefectures (where the first resettlement centers were), the Vietnamese population eventually numbering around the 250,000 people mark.
More Vietnamese citizens would arrive in the 1990’s as guest workers, usually coming and working in industrial jobs. Over time, many of these Vietnamese people/refugees have become Japanese citizens and have had children of their own.
Unlike other groups that have learned Japanese, the Vietnamese haven’t done so as much, which has caused them issues in recent years. Despite this, there are currently an estimated 425,000 Vietnamese speakers in Japan!
Filipino
As with many other countries in southeast Asia, the Philippines was once a part of the Japanese Empire. Here, many Filipinos would be forcefully moved to Japan to act as cheap labor, whilst others were Filipino students that came to study in Japanese universities.
Following the war, many of these Filipinos would be deported back to the Philippines after the war.
Despite this, economic hardship in the Philippines caused many Filipino-speaking (the standardized dialect of Tagalog) Filipinos to migrate to the more prosperous Japan, where they worked in the same jobs Filipinos had during the war.
To that end, Filipinos began to form small communities inside towns and cities, which you could easily mistake for a Philippine city like Manila. Much of the money they earned would be sent back to the Philippines to look after their elderly relatives.
Interestingly, there has been a rapid increase in the number of Japanese-Filipino marriages over the last 15 years. In turn, this has led to an increasing number of Japanese-Filipino children who speak both languages fluently!
Due to this, as well as the sheer number of Filipinos in Japan, many young Japanese are beginning to learn Filipino, especially so in those areas with high concentrations of Filipino immigrants.
All in all, current statistics place the current number of Filipino speakers in Japan at around 350,000 people.
Portuguese
In 1543, Portuguese traders António Mota, Francisco Zeimoto and António Peixoto (and possibly Fernão Mendes Pinto) arrived in Japan. Here, they would become the first Europeans to trade directly with Japan.
Over the coming years, Portuguese would soon establish itself as the language of trade with Japan. To that end, many Japanese merchants would begin learning Portuguese so they could communicate with these foreign traders.
Although it would later be replaced by Dutch, Japan has really stopped speaking Portuguese.
You see, by the early 20th century, Japan was experiencing overpopulation. To fix this, the Japanese government passed a law permitting Japanese citizens to move to Brazil (thus giving Brazil a large Japanese-speaking population).
During the 1980’s, many of these Japanese Brazilians would return home. As many of them were the children of Japanese immigrants, some no longer spoke Japanese, instead solely speaking Portuguese (the official language of Brazil).
In turn, this gave Japan a large Portuguese-speaking population (although most could speak at least some Japanese) which has made Portuguese one of the oddest languages of Japan – a foreign language spoken as the native language of ethnic Japanese people!
Beyond Japanese Brazilians, there has also been minor migration to Japan from Portuguese-speaking countries like Portugal, Macau and Mozambique too.
All in all, there is an estimated 215,000 Portuguese speakers in Japan, or roughly 0.01% of the population of Japan!
Spanish
Whilst the Portuguese would be the first modern Europeans to arrive in Japan, the Spanish wouldn’t be far behind their Iberian cousins. However, the Spanish would take a slightly different approach…
Arriving in 1549, Spanish missionary, Francisco Xavier, would hope to convert the populace to Catholicism. Whilst the local Japanese officials didn’t approve of Xavier, many Japanese would soon convert to Catholicism and learn Spanish.
Eventually, Spain would begin trading with Japan, albeit in both Spanish and Portuguese depending on the merchant, before trade was completely done in Portuguese (and later Dutch and English).
By the late 1800’s, despite the number of Japanese Catholics increasing (especially those descended from the Spanish-speaking Xavier converts) the number of Spanish speakers in the country had declined significantly.
However, shortly after WWII, thousands of native Spanish-speaking Peruvians would migrate to the country, once again making Spanish a well-spoken minority language in Japan.
Even though many first generation immigrants have since passed away, their descendants are still bilingual in Spanish and Japanese, with a constant flow of Spanish-speaking immigrants, mainly from Peru and Spain, flowing into Japan each year!
Although there aren’t many native Spanish speakers in Japan, Spanish language classes are available in Japan (even if they aren’t too popular compared to English classes) with many people enrolling in them each year.
To date, there is an estimated 75,000 native Spanish speakers in Japan, or roughly 0.003% of the entire population of the country.
Which are your favorite languages of Japan? Do you speak any (besides English of course)? Tell me in the comments!