By providing insights into the wide range of language communities that emerged in Japan since the late Edo period, this edited volume provides an important counter discourse to the nihonjinron ‘theories of Japanese people’, which the editor describes as ‘ersatz nationalism’ that has long propagated the image of an ethnolinguistically homogenous population despite Japan's verifiable (and increasingly acknowledged) diversity.
In Part 1 of this volume, ‘National languages of Japan’ are discussed. What is outstanding about this section is that Japanese sign language, as well as indigenous languages of the Southern and Northern Ryūkyūs and Ainu are included. While language ideologies attached to concepts such as kokugo ‘national language’, or men's/women's language are only briefly mentioned by Junko Hibiya (chapter 2), the authors deconstruct notions of a monolithic Japanese language and people by focusing on variation in linguistic practice and sociohistorical development of speaker communities. The role educational policy plays in the preservation of indigenous and endangered languages and their cultural heritage is further emphasised by Patrick Heinrich (chapter 3), by Sachiyo Fujita-Round (chapter 4) and by Norie Oka (chapter 5).
The second part of this edited volume, ‘Community languages’, explores the languages of a variety of sociocultural and ethnic minority groups in Japan. This includes Korean, Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, Urdu and Hindi, Nepali, Vietnamese, and Filipino. Languages that have not received much scholarly attention, such as Burmese, Turkish, Kurdish, Uyghur, and Persian, have also been included. Each chapter provides rich descriptions of how these communities were established in Japan by tracing migration flows to and from Japan, and the sociolinguistic connections that were thereby created. Most chapters focus on how language proficiency is acquired and maintained through education and practice in contemporary Japan. Kosei Otsuka (chapter 15) observes that Burmese print publications connected speakers in Japan, when print and online media from Myanmar was strictly censored until 2012. Hourieh Akbari (chapter 17) examines a sociolinguistic variation of Japanese used by a small community of Persian speakers, who have settled in Japan since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Part 3, ‘Languages of culture, politics and modernization’, discusses the role Dutch, German, French, and Russian played among others in enabling the exchange of knowledge in the fields of science, technology, law, but also art, fashion, and literature during the period of rapid industrialization after the black ships (i.e. US trading vessels) arrived in Japan. Simon Cookson (chapter 18) further investigates how the importance of these languages waned due to the rising influence of English as a transnational lingua franca. The Esperanto community is explored as a ‘nongovernmental movement’ without support from Japanese educational institutions by Goro Christoph Kimura and Gooto Hitosi (chapter 22). John C. Maher further elaborates on Latin and Sanskrit in religious practice in Buddhist and Catholic communities in Japan in chapter 23.
By covering a wide variety of language communities, their sociohistorical development, and by responding to issues of public educational policy, this book is sure to serve as an excellent tool for teachers and students of sociolinguistics in Japan.
