More than a century after colonisation, the Ainu language almost vanished. Now machines are listening to hours of old recordings and learning to give it a new voice. The cassette player would catch ...

MORE than most countries, Japan thinks of itself as uniquely homogenous and, in terms of language, culture and origin, ethnographers broadly agree. But the fair-skinned Ainu—supremely hairy of body, ...

An online “talking dictionary” first launched in 2009 is attempting to preserve and pass on the Ainu language spoken by the indigenous inhabitants of Japan's northeastern island of Hokkaido and ...

The Penn Museum, in collaboration with the Penn Libraries, recently launched various Ainu-themed programming, including a documentary screening and an ongoing exhibit on Ainu representation in media.

A bill, which was passed on Friday, for the first time has officially recognized the Ainu of Hokkaido as an “indigenous” people of Japan. The bill alsoincludes measures to make Japan a more inclusive ...

In 2009, UNESCO in its “Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger” designated the Ainu language as being critically endangered. As the most dire of the five categories — only extinct is worse — used in ...

The far north of Japan has been home to the Ainu people for centuries, if not millennia, although they were only recognized by the Japanese government as an indigenous people in 2008. While the Ainu ...

Growing up in Japan, musician Oki Kano never knew he was part of a “vanishing people.” His Japanese mother was divorced and never told Kano that his birth father was an indigenous Ainu man. Kano was ...

Growing up in Japan, musician Oki Kano never knew he was part of a “vanishing people.” His Japanese mother was divorced and never told Kano that his birth father was an indigenous Ainu man. Kano was ...