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88-597: Yonaguni ( Japanese : 与那国島 , Hepburn : Yonaguni-jima , Yonaguni romanization: Dunan-chima , older Juni-shima , Yaeyama romanization: Yunoon-zïma , Okinawan romanization: Yunaguni-jima ) , one of the Yaeyama Islands , is the westernmost inhabited island of Japan , lying 108 kilometers (58 nmi; 67 mi) from the east coast of Taiwan , between the East China Sea and the Philippine Sea . The island

176-405: A coastal monitoring / early warning station with radar and other sensors on Yonaguni to counter a perceived threat from Chinese forces. The initial planned complement of 150 troops include personnel stationed at a garrison located on the outskirts of Yonaguni town. The station's radar became active on 28 March 2016. Separately, a joint ( GSDF / ASDF ) "mobile aircraft control & warning squadron"

264-596: A tropical rainforest climate ( Köppen climate classification Af ). The average yearly temperature is 23.8 °C (74.8 °F), and the average monthly temperature ranges from 18.4 °C (65.1 °F) in January to 28.8 °C (83.8 °F) in July. September is the wettest month while July is the driest. Yonaguni is known in Japan for the hanazake , a 120- proof rice-based distilled beverage ( awamori ) produced only on

352-624: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down

440-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )

528-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as

616-409: A goddess named Miruku, who brought fertility to the land. She was ousted by a god named Saku after a flower-growing contest for control over the island, in which Saku stole her flower while she slept. Miruku vanished, and the island's primeval prosperity sank into poverty once she left. The islanders thus held rituals in honor of the goddess in the hope that she might one day return. As late as the 1980s,

704-479: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it

792-456: A man steps on the island, no matter how strong he is, the man would be attacked by women coming from all directions, and hardly ever there could be men who could safely withdraw from there". Furthermore, he describes Yonaguni as an island where, although there are almost only women, for reproductive purposes, there are also a few men: as many as around one-tenth of the women. Curiously, there are only female newborns. Serving as reproductive tools for

880-484: A mascot named " Kumamon ", a black bear with red cheeks, who was created to attract tourists to the region after the Kyushu Shinkansen line opened. These sports teams are based in the prefecture: The Kumamoto Prefecture hosted the 2019 World Women's Handball Championship , having previously hosted the 1997 World Men's Handball Championship . Kumamoto Prefecture is the 'sister state/prefecture' of Montana in

968-460: A regular, direct ferry service from Taiwan's Yilan County ( Suao Township ) for both Taiwanese and Japanese tourists. In July 2023, Taiwan's Legislative Speaker , You Si-kun , led a trial ferry service from Suao to Yonaguni. The trip took around two hours each way. It was said that if a regular ferry service was established, it would attract Taiwanese tourists to Yonaguni Island, which has a population of just 1,700, and Japanese visitors to Yilan. It

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1056-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),

1144-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate

1232-490: A striking underwater rock formation off the southernmost point of the island. The formation, known popularly as the Yonaguni Monument , has staircase-like terraces with flat sides and sharp corners. Masaaki Kimura , a professor from Okinawa , believes it is an artificial (or artificially modified) structure; however, the majority of academic society regard the rock formation as a natural geologic structure . Cape Irizaki

1320-468: A year that introduced outsiders to the islands, who brought their knowledge about Yonaguni back to Japan through many ways, such as writing. Out of all these early records about Yonaguni, one of the earliest and most influential writings was An expedition to the Southern Islands ( Nantō tanken ) by Sasamori Gisuke. In Sasamori's research of Yonaguni, the island was notable due to its women: "Women on

1408-675: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of

1496-421: Is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of

1584-453: Is a 1477 Korean document ( Chosen Hyōryūmin no Yaeyama kenbunroku ), an account of several fishermen from the current Jeju Province who drifted there. A legendary female leader, Sanai Isoba  [ jp ] , is said to have been the ruler of Yonaguni at around the end of the fifteenth century. She is described as possessing superhuman powers that allowed her to protect her people from foreign attacks multiple times, including when Yonaguni

1672-716: Is administered as the town of Yonaguni , Yaeyama Gun , Okinawa , and there are three settlements: Sonai, Kubura, and Higawa. There have been discussions to establish direct ferry services with Taiwan in order to bolster tourism. The name Yonaguni is an exonym related to the native name Dunan in Yonaguni , with the regular sound change of *y- to d- and elision of the intervocalic *-g- in Yonaguni. The form yona- likely means "grain, rice", seen in other toponyms such as Yonabaru , hence possibly meaning "grain country". Early human migration from Taiwan to Yonaguni island has long been

1760-445: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,

1848-519: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing

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1936-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number

2024-684: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider

2112-462: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto

2200-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to

2288-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through

2376-722: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey

2464-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of

2552-518: Is planned to be formed and co-located at the station. In 2024, the Japanese army deployed seven surface-to-surface missile companies, covering Miyako-jima city, Ishigaki city, and Amami Ōshima Island. Additionally, an electronic warfare unit was deployed from Kumamoto Prefecture to Yonaguni "to jam or interfere with hostile forces' signals and radar stations". Given Yonaguni's geographic proximity to Taiwan (only 110 km east of Yilan), there have been discussions to develop tourism in Yonaguni via

2640-489: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and

2728-541: Is the capital and largest city of Kumamoto Prefecture, with other major cities including Yatsushiro , Amakusa , and Tamana . Kumamoto Prefecture is located in the center of Kyūshū on the coast of the Ariake Sea , across from Nagasaki Prefecture , with the mainland separated from the East China Sea by the Amakusa Archipelago. Kumamoto Prefecture is home to Mount Aso , the largest active volcano in Japan and among

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2816-646: Is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 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 and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as

2904-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and

2992-463: Is the westernmost point of Japan and the place to see the final sunset in Japan. Cape Agarizaki is the easternmost cape of Yonaguni. Tourists come here to view the sunrise and to observe scenic views of the ocean at the 100-meter-high (328 ft) cape. Other attractions include the lighthouse and Yonaguni horse . Yonaguni Airport serves Yonaguni island. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )

3080-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have

3168-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns

3256-555: The Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered

3344-522: The Aso Kujū and Unzen-Amakusa National Parks; Kyūshū Chūō Sanchi and Yaba-Hita-Hikosan Quasi-National Parks; and Ashikita Kaigan , Itsuki Gokanoshō , Kinpōzan , Misumi-Ōyano Umibe , Okukuma , Shōtaisan , and Yabe Shūhen Prefectural Natural Parks. Fourteen cities are located in Kumamoto Prefecture: These are the towns and villages in each district : As of 1 June 2019,

3432-500: The Edo period . As suggested by the name, the island of women is an island where there are only women born and living to support each other. Being a trope frequently used in Edo literary works , it not only appears at the end of The Life of an Amorous Man (好色一代男 Kōshoku Ichidai Otoko , 1682), but also dominates the second part of the five-section Strange Tales of the Crescent Moon (椿説弓張月 Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki , 1807–1811). While

3520-455: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in

3608-504: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than

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3696-716: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of

3784-794: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to

3872-574: The kanji for "a ball, a sphere" (球 /ku/ ~ /kjū/) and "to polish, to grind, to brush (one's teeth)" (磨 /ma/) are used for the names of the Kuma River (球磨川) and Kuma District (球磨郡). The Kuma element also appears in the ancient Kumaso . Kumamoto Prefecture is in the center of Kyushu , the southernmost of the four major Japanese islands. It is bordered by the Ariake inland sea and the Amakusa archipelago to

3960-518: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),

4048-482: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,

4136-724: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently

4224-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand

4312-510: The South Sea ( Kainan shōki) , published in 1925. A long essay from the collection is titled and devoted to "Yonaguni Women". He provides a detailed written record of their customs and daily life, and writes about how they are busy farming, cooking, and taking care of children, with two photographs attached, wearing clothes not so much different from the rest of Japan. Yonaguni islanders traditionally believed that their island had once been ruled by

4400-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which

4488-564: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there

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4576-455: The flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics , a pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure

4664-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had

4752-518: The highlight of the Yonaguni harvest festival was a procession involving a person in a Miruku mask reenacting the goddess. A nearly identical myth is widespread in Korea . The island has an area of 28.88 km (11.15 sq mi) and a population of around 1,700. Yonaguni, more specifically Cape Irizaki ( 24°26′58″N 122°56′01″E  /  24.44944°N 122.93361°E  / 24.44944; 122.93361  ( Yonaguni (West) ) ) at

4840-497: The island have white skin, and are attentive and thoughtful. It takes only a few pennies for someone who enjoys accompaniment of beautiful women to have one of them in attendance during his stay provide drinks and serve him all night." The statement was confirmed by a later published collection of essays. A folk culture scholar, Motoyama Keisen, asserts that "Yonaguni is the island of women", and continues to quote and agree with Sasamori's account of Yonaguni women, saying that "Surely this

4928-453: The island. The island is also the only natural habitat of a distinctive horse breed, the Yonaguni horse . Yonaguni's densely forested areas provide a suitable habitat for the Ryukyu atlas moth (A. a. ryukyuensis) . Yonaguni is a destination for divers because of the large numbers of hammerhead sharks that gather in the surrounding waters during winter. In 1986, local divers discovered

5016-430: The language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of the standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853,

5104-453: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system

5192-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of

5280-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,

5368-518: The largest in the world, with its peak 1,592 metres (5,223 ft) above sea level . Historically, the area was called Higo Province ; and the province was renamed Kumamoto during the Meiji Restoration . The creation of prefectures was part of the abolition of the feudal system . The current Japanese orthography for Kumamoto literally means "bear root/origin," or "origin of the bear." However, Man'yōgana -like phonetic transcriptions based on

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5456-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by

5544-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with

5632-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,

5720-498: The population was 1,748,134 inhabitants with a population density of 236 inhabitants per square kilometre (610/sq mi). The prefecture ranks 23rd in Japan. The largest motorcycle production facility in the world is located in Kumamoto. In 2023, Mitsubishi Electric announced plans to spend 100 billion yen on a new semiconductor factory in Kumamoto, with a target start date of April 2026 to begin production. The prefecture has

5808-477: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as

5896-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning

5984-439: The speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )

6072-797: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this

6160-476: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This

6248-510: The subject of scholarly debate. In 2019, a team of Japanese and Taiwanese researchers succeeded in completing the two-day journey from Cape Wushibi in Taitung County to Yonaguni island along the Kuroshio current in a dugout canoe based on technology and materials from 30,000 years ago. Otherwise, the early history of Yonaguni remains vague. The first written record that ever mentions the island

6336-551: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Kumamoto Prefecture Kumamoto

6424-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,

6512-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of

6600-413: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It

6688-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending

6776-464: The west, Fukuoka Prefecture and Ōita Prefecture to the north, Miyazaki Prefecture to the east, and Kagoshima Prefecture to the south. Mount Aso (1,592 m (5,223 ft)), an extensive active volcano, is in the east of Kumamoto Prefecture. This volcano is located at the centre of the Aso caldera . As of 31 March 2019, 21% of the total land area of the prefecture was designated as natural parks :

6864-612: The western tip of the island, is the westernmost point of Japan . The island is situated in the middle of the Yonaguni Depression, a relatively deep gap in the Ryukyu arc , where the warm Kuroshio Current enters the East China Sea from the Philippine Sea . According to Japanese anthropologist Yousuke Kaifu , the island of Yonaguni can be seen with the naked eye from Taroko Mountain in Taiwan under good weather conditions. Yonaguni has

6952-619: The whole second part of the story is about the protagonist Tametomo's time spent on the island of women , which is the westernmost island of Japan according to the tale, the map provided at the beginning of the third section clearly marks the island as 'Yonaguni', assuming the association between the mythical women island and Yonaguni. During the Taisho period , the Yaeyama islands including Yonaguni gradually came to be explored by people traveling from Japan, as there were ships from Osaka to Yonaguni once

7040-476: The women, men are rarely able to live long. Murakami expresses his worries as well at the end, as the women here are all naturally beautiful and potentially they would attract those driven by sexual desire to explore "the hidden paradise". Nevertheless, these introductory essays aiming to bring an exotic taste are less specific than a quite comprehensive travel log by Yanagita Kunio , who was inspired by Sasamori's work and finally did his own research, An Account of

7128-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or

7216-522: Was attacked by Miyako , a nearby island. Rituals are still held once a year to worship this mythical figure. In the 15th century, the island was incorporated into the Ryūkyū Kingdom . By 1879, the island was formally annexed by imperial Japan. Until the early 20th century, Yonaguni was part of the larger Yaeyama Magiri (village after 1907), which included the neighboring Yaeyama Islands . In 1948, it became an independent village. From 1945 to 1972, it

7304-535: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular

7392-416: Was expressed that the friendship between Japan and Taiwan can also be deepened through such ties. However, due to Yonaguni's lack of infrastructure and tourism resources (such as hotels, restaurants, and transportation), challenges remain to promote tourism. As the westernmost inhabited island of Japan, Yonaguni has also been constantly associated with the myth of the island of women ( Nyōgo no Shima ) since

7480-718: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,

7568-465: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )

7656-519: Was occupied by the United States and was then returned to Japan to form a part of Okinawa Prefecture . As a result of increased tensions between Japan, China, and Taiwan over the disputed sovereignty of the Japanese-controlled uninhabited Senkaku/Diaoyu/Tiaoyutai Islands which are located roughly 80 nautical miles north-northeast of Yonaguni Island, Japan began construction in 2014 of

7744-421: Was true in 1893, when the author went on his expedition there." However, a counter-statement is found in a collection of some comical essays by a Taishō novelist and script writer, Murakami Namiroku , in his Collection of Satire Essays ( Hiniku Bunshu ), and gives a more detailed view of the circumstances of Yonaguni women. One of the essays is titled "Yonaguni" and focuses on the same topic, claiming that "once

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