The Land of the Rising Sun is the unofficial name of an island nation in the Pacific Ocean located east of the Sea of Japan. In fact, Japanese is called the official language of Japan, but none of the languages has an official status of this kind in the country.
Some statistics and facts
- The number of fluent Japanese speakers in the world is about 140 million people, and it is native only to 125 million, and the rest were simply not afraid of difficulties and learned it.
- Most Japanese speakers live in the Land of the Rising Sun, as well as in California, Hawaii and Brazil.
- As a foreign language, Japanese is popular in schools in China, where over a million people study it, in Indonesia, Korea and Australia.
- The language of Japan has a state status in the Angaur state of Palau along with English and Palau. True, the state has only about three hundred inhabitants.
- In recent years, the heightened interest in Japanese and the growth in the number of learners of it have been fueled by the popularity of the anime genre in a wide variety of walks of life.
For teaching Japanese to foreigners abroad, the term "nihongo" is used as its name. In Japan itself, the language of the country is called "kokugo".
History and modernity
Researchers disagreed sharply about the history of the emergence of Japanese opinions. While some consider it isolated, others believe that the current official language of Japan was formed along with other languages of the Altai family, which also includes Korean and some others. The vocabulary of Japanese is close not only to the Altaic, but also to the Austronesian languages, and also received an undoubted infusion from the Chinese.
Ancient oral Japanese originated at least in the 8th century, and scientists attribute the beginning of the modern period of its development to the 17th century.
Due to the influence of Western culture, many loanwords from the English language have appeared in Japanese. Thus, a significant gap arose between the older and younger generations.
Tourist notes
With the development of foreign tourism, Russian travelers more and more often find themselves in the Land of the Rising Sun. It is not yet necessary to count on the fact that the Japanese can know Russian, but a large number of its citizens from 15 to 35 years old already speak English in Japan.
In large hotels and restaurants, information may be duplicated in English, and in travel companies professional guides with knowledge of European languages work.
