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Narada Dialect
The Narada dialect (Japanese: 奈良田方言 ''narada hogen'') was a Japanese dialect spoken in the village of Narada, Hayakawa, located in Yamanashi Prefecture. Having formerly been isolated for centuries from surrounding areas, the dialect was considered a language island within the Tokai-Tosan dialect group, possessing various traits unique to Narada. History Narada was exceptionally isolated from ancient times; until the Meiji era the nearest settlement was over 2 hours away on foot. Villagers married exclusively amongst themselves, and interactions with outsiders were rare. This environment fostered the persistence of older linguistic traits whilst also spurring the development of locally unique features. After World War II, various prefectural assemblies sought to have academic research conducted into the Narada dialect, with the resultant studies generating nationwide attention. Despite this, development of the nearby town of Hayakawa for electricity generation purpos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Meiji (era)
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912. The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization by Western powers to the new paradigm of a modern, industrialized nation state and emergent great power, influenced by Western scientific, technological, philosophical, political, legal, and aesthetic ideas. As a result of such wholesale adoption of radically different ideas, the changes to Japan were profound, and affected its social structure, internal politics, economy, military, and foreign relations. The period corresponded to the reign of Emperor Meiji. It was preceded by the Keiō era and was succeeded by the Taishō era, upon the accession of Emperor Taishō. The rapid modernization during the Meiji era was not without its opponents, as the rapid changes to society caused many disaffected traditionalists from the former samurai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Old Japanese
is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Japanese was an early member of the Japonic language family. No genetic links to other language families have been proven. Old Japanese was written using man'yōgana, using Chinese characters as syllabograms or (occasionally) logograms. It featured a few phonemic differences from later forms, such as a simpler syllable structure and distinctions between several pairs of syllables that have been pronounced identically since Early Middle Japanese. The phonetic realization of these distinctions is uncertain. Internal reconstruction points to a pre-Old Japanese phase with fewer consonants and vowels. As is typical of Japonic languages, Old Japanese was primarily an agglutinative language with a subject–object–verb word order, adjectives and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Grammar
Japanese is an agglutinative, synthetic, mora-timed language with 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 is topic–comment. Its phrases are exclusively head-final and compound sentences are exclusively left-branching. Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or make 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 the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. In language typology, it has many features different from most European languages. Distinctive aspects of modern Japanese senten ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Pitch Accent
is a feature of the Japanese language that distinguishes words by accenting particular morae in most Japanese dialects. The nature and location of the accent for a given word may vary between dialects. For instance, the word for "now" is in the Tokyo dialect, with the accent on the first mora (or equivalently, with a downstep in pitch between the first and second morae), but in the Kansai dialect it is . A final or is often devoiced to or after a downstep and an unvoiced consonant. Standard Japanese Normative pitch accent, essentially the pitch accent of the Tokyo Yamanote dialect, is considered essential in jobs such as broadcasting. The current standards for pitch accent are presented in special accent dictionaries for native speakers such as the ''Shin Meikai Nihongo Akusento Jiten'' () and the ''NHK Nihongo Hatsuon Akusento Jiten'' (). Newsreaders and other speech professionals are required to follow these standards. Foreign learners of Japanese are often not taugh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aging Of Japan
Japan has the highest proportion of elderly citizens of any country in the world. According to 2014 estimates, about 38% of the Japanese population is above the age of 60, 25.9% are age 65 or above, a figure that increased to 29.1% by 2022. People aged 65 and older in Japan make up a quarter of the total population, and are estimated to reach a third by 2050. The aging of Japanese society, characterized by sub-replacement fertility rates and high life expectancy, is expected to continue. Japan had a post-war baby boom between 1947 and 1949, followed by a prolonged period of low fertility. These trends resulted in the decline of Japan's population beginning in 2011. In 2014, Japan's population was estimated to be 127 million; this figure is expected to shrink to 107 million (16%) by 2040 and to 97 million (24%) by 2050, should the current demographic trend continue. A recent global analysis found that Japan was one of 23 countries which could see a total population decline ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emigration
Emigration is the act of leaving a resident country or place of residence with the intent to settle elsewhere (to permanently leave a country). Conversely, immigration describes the movement of people into one country from another (to permanently move to a country). A migrant ''emigrates'' from their old country, and ''immigrates'' to their new country. Thus, both emigration and immigration describe migration, but from different countries' perspectives. Demographers examine push and pull factors for people to be pushed out of one place and attracted to another. There can be a desire to escape negative circumstances such as shortages of land or jobs, or unfair treatment. People can be pulled to the opportunities available elsewhere. Fleeing from oppressive conditions, being a refugee and seeking asylum to get refugee status in a foreign country, may lead to permanent emigration. Forced displacement refers to groups that are forced to abandon their native country, such as by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis powers. World War II was a total war that directly involved more than 100 million personnel from more than 30 countries. The major participants in the war threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. Aircraft played a major role in the conflict, enabling the strategic bombing of population centres and deploying the only two nuclear weapons ever used in war. World War II was by far the deadliest conflict in human history; it resulted in 70 to 85 million fatalities, mostly among civilians. Tens of millions died due to genocides (including the Holocaust), starvation, ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Endogamy
Endogamy is the practice of marrying within a specific social group, religious denomination, caste, or ethnic group, rejecting those from others as unsuitable for marriage or other close personal relationships. Endogamy is common in many cultures and ethnic groups. Several religious and ethnic religious groups are traditionally more endogamous, although sometimes with the added dimension of requiring marital religious conversion. This permits an exogamous marriage, as the convert, by accepting the partner's religion, becomes accepted within the endogamous rules. Endogamy, as distinct from consanguinity, may result in transmission of genetic disorders, the so-called founder effect, within the relatively closed community. Adherence Endogamy can serve as a form of self-segregation; a community can use it to resist integrating and completely merging with surrounding populations. Minorities can use it to stay ethnically homogeneous over a long time as distinct communities withi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Tōkai–Tōsan Dialect
The Tōkai–Tōsan dialect (東海東山方言 ''Tōkai–Tōsan hōgen'') is a group of the transitional Japanese dialects spoken in the southern and eastern Chūbu region. The dialects spoken in the northwest Chubu region are classified as the Hokuriku dialect of Western Japanese. The Tokai–Tosan dialect has three sub-groups: Gifu–Aichi, Echigo, and Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka. These are transitional between Western and Eastern Japanese; which branch of the family they fall in depends on which isoglosses are taken as definitive. (See Japanese dialects#Eastern and Western Japanese, Eastern and Western Japanese for details.) Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka The Nagano–Yamanashi–Shizuoka a.k.a. Na-Ya-Shi dialects are spoken in Nagano Prefecture, Yamanashi Prefecture and Shizuoka Prefecture. It is characterized by a presumptive suffix ''-zura'' or ''-ra''. * Nagano a.k.a. Shinshū dialect (Nagano Prefecture) ** Okushinano dialect (Sakae, Nagano, Sakae, the northernmost villa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eastern Japanese
The dialects of the Japanese language fall into two primary clades, Eastern (including Tokyo) and Western (including Kyoto), with the dialects of Kyushu and Hachijō Island often distinguished as additional branches, the latter perhaps the most divergent of all. The Ryukyuan languages of Okinawa Prefecture and the southern islands of Kagoshima Prefecture form a separate branch of the Japonic family, and are not Japanese dialects, although they are sometimes referred to as such. History Regional variants of Japanese have been confirmed since the Old Japanese era. The ''Man'yōshū'', the oldest existing collection of Japanese poetry, includes poems written in dialects of the capital (Nara) and eastern Japan, but other dialects were not recorded. The recorded features of eastern dialects were rarely inherited by modern dialects, except for a few language islands such as Hachijo Island. In the Early Middle Japanese era, there were only vague records such as "rural dialects are cr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Island
A language island (a calque of German ''Sprachinsel''; also language enclave, language pocket) is an enclave of a language that is surrounded by one or more different languages. The term was introduced in 1847. Peter Auer, Frans Hinskens, Paul Kerswill. Dialect change: convergence and divergence in European languages. p. 221. "The term 'Sprachinsel' was used for the first time in 1847 to designate a Slavonic community surrounded by a German-speaking population close to Konigsberg, East Prussia cf. Mattheier 1996. 812" Examples of language islands: * Alghero * Arbëresh * Betawi * Brussels * Chipilo and Chipilo Venetian dialect * Faetar * Gorani * Griko & Grecanico * Lusatia * Monégasque * Palenquero * Pennsylvania German * Saterland * Szeklerland * Swabian Turkey * Upper Harz Gallery File:BelgieGemeenschappenkaart.svg, The predominantly French-speaking enclave of Brussels surrounded by Dutch-speaking area File:Romania harta etnica 2011.PNG, Language islands in Romania Fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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