Hello everyone! Recently i have gotten really interested in Ainu culture, and i would like to learn more about the language/people/mythology/art/folklore. I would like to ask all of you, if you have any books you could recommend me, or even better a language app or blog where i could actually start to learn the language. Every help is greatly appreaciated!
Hi! I'm not an expert on Ainu, but here are some things you might want to consider.
The Ainu language is endangered and language revitalization efforts are currently underway with the Ainu communities. For indigenous communities, language is tied to identity so much more than global or majority languages like English and Japanese because histories of marginalization and assimilation lead to the disuse of both language and culture. So for these communities, language revitalization and language use is directly tied to the preservation of culture and ethnic identity.
I think it's really great that you're interested in Ainu culture! And I don't want to discourage you, but please consider your positionality as someone who does not identify as Ainu and what it means for you to learn an indigenous language.
(I have post-secondary degrees in linguistics, so us researchers are required to think about our positionality when researching languages and helping with revitalization efforts. So if you have any questions, feel free to message!)
I don't know much about the Ainu, as my area of interest is the Okinawan people, but I hope to be of some help. When I look for publication's I can usually find free pdf downloads to study. I did a quick Google search and it seems there are some available on the Ainu, though I don't know how much, I just searched Ainu culture books pdf.
Hi there, I’m sorry that I’m replying extremely late, and that you might have already found all the resources that I’m gonna link here, but still I decided to link some things I found and use to learn the Ainu language (No I am not proficient at all).
Here is a link for the Ainu foundation’s website, where they have free textbook pdfs for multiple Ainu dialects. The guides are only for beginner and intermediate levels I think, but they’re still quite good to have in my opinion. The resource is in Japanese. Also small note, the most commonly used dialect is the Saru dialect. Link - AinuLanguageFoundation
I also found this resource, apparently by a linguist that is studying the Ainu language. This resource is heavily focused on grammar more than anything. This one is in English.Link - AinuItak.org
I have also been looking for a solid Ainu dictionary, specifically one made by the linguist Suzuko Tamura, but I couldn’t find it anywhere online, so this is just a note.
