The Ainu Now (but not recently...)

It is said that the number of Ainu speakers is considerably greater than what research shows and what is commonly believed by scholars. Codeswitching and code-mixing is part of an Ainu person’s everyday life as it is found that the older community members and shopkeepers communicate through the use of switching between Ainu and Japanese (Noguchi and Fotos, 2001).


Noguchi, Mary Goebel and Fotos, Sandra
        2001    Studies in Japanese Bilingualism: Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. North York, ON: Multilingual Matters.