国立国語研究所要覧 2014/2015

要旨

What NINJAL aspires toLanguage is such an integral part of our lives that we take it for granted and seldom pay conscious attention to it, but it is profoundly disturbing to imagine being told that the Japanese language is going to disappear from our lives one year from today.As a matter of fact, however, languages are dying out all over the world today.According to a UNESCO report, about 2,500 of the world's languages are endangered.In Japan, the Ainu language of Hokkaidō and the languages spoken on Hachijō-jima (Tokyo Prefecture), on the Amami Islands (Kagoshima Prefecture), and on Yaeyama, Yonaguni, Kunigami, Miyako, and Okinawa (all in Okinawa Prefecture) are all on the brink of extinction.It is also likely that some dialects of the Tōhoku region are endangered as a result of the disastrous earthquake in 2011.The danger is not confined to remote parts of the country.Even the variety on which standard Japanese is based (the language of educated speakers in the Yamanote area of Tokyo) is threatened.When a language disappears, culture and communication disappear with it.When we think in these terms, it is easy to see how important language research is.It is no exaggeration to say that the Japanese language is the key to the future development of Japan.