Japanese language

===Dialects and mutual intelligibility===
{{Main|Japanese dialects}}
[[File:Japanese dialects-en.png|thumb|Map of Japanese dialects and Japonic languages]]

Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of [[Japanese pitch accent|pitch accent]], inflectional [[morphology (linguistics)|morphology]], [[vocabulary]], and particle usage. Some even differ in [[vowel]] and [[consonant]] inventories, although this is less common.

In terms of [[mutual intelligibility]], a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding [[Ryūkyūan languages]] and [[Tōhoku dialects]]) to students from Greater Tokyo were the [[Kiso, Nagano (town)|Kiso]] dialect (in the deep mountains of [[Nagano Prefecture]]), the [[Himi, Toyama|Himi]] dialect (in [[Toyama Prefecture]]), the [[Kagoshima dialect]] and the [[Katsuyama, Okayama|Maniwa]] dialect (in [[Okayama Prefecture]]).<ref name="Dialect Intelligibility 1967" /> The survey was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 [[phoneme]]s, which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all [[Keio University]] students who grew up in the [[Kanto region]].<ref name="Dialect Intelligibility 1967">{{Cite journal |last=Yamagiwa |first=Joseph K. |date=1967 |title=On Dialect Intelligibility in Japan |journal=Anthropological Linguistics |volume=9 |issue=1 |pages=4, 5, 18}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|+ Intelligibility to students from Tokyo and [[Kanto region]] (1967)<ref name="Dialect Intelligibility 1967" />
!Dialect
| [[Kyoto City]] || [[Ōgata, Kōchi]] || [[Tatsuta, Aichi]] || [[Kumamoto City]] || [[Osaka City]] || [[Kanagi, Shimane]] || [[Maniwa, Okayama]]|| [[Kagoshima City]]|| [[Kiso, Nagano (town)|Kiso, Nagano]] || [[Himi, Toyama]] 
|-
! Percentage
| 67.1% || 45.5% || 44.5% || 38.6% || 26.4% || 24.8% || 24.7% || 17.6%|| 13.3% || 4.1% 
|}

There are some [[language island]]s in mountain villages or isolated islands{{clarify|date=March 2024}} such as [[Hachijōjima|Hachijō-jima island]], whose dialects are descended from [[Eastern Old Japanese]]. Dialects of the [[Kansai region]] are spoken or known by many Japanese, and [[Osaka]] dialect in particular is associated with comedy (see [[Kansai dialect]]). Dialects of Tōhoku and North [[Kantō region|Kantō]] are associated with typical farmers.

The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in [[Okinawa Prefecture|Okinawa]] and the [[Amami Islands]] (administratively part of [[Kagoshima Prefecture|Kagoshima]]), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the [[Japonic languages|Japonic]] family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese.

The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time,<ref>See the comments of George Kizaki in {{Cite news |last=Stuky |first=Natalie-Kyoko |date=8 August 2015 |title=Exclusive: From Internment Camp to MacArthur's Aide in Rebuilding Japan |work=The Daily Beast |url=http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/08/from-internment-camp-to-macarthur-s-aide.html |url-status=live |access-date=4 October 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151018091714/http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/08/08/from-internment-camp-to-macarthur-s-aide.html |archive-date=18 October 2015}}</ref> most likely the spoken form of [[Classical Japanese language|Classical Japanese]], a writing style that was prevalent during the [[Heian period]], but began to decline during the late [[Meiji period]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Coulmas |first=Florian |url=https://archive.org/details/languageadaptati0000unse/page/106 |title=Language Adaptation |publisher=Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-521-36255-9 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/languageadaptati0000unse/page/106 106]}}</ref> The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by [[UNESCO]] as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand the languages. [[Okinawan Japanese]] is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the [[Ryukyu Islands]].<ref name="ryukyuan-tongue">{{Cite web |last=Patrick Heinrich |date=25 August 2014 |title=Use them or lose them: There's more at stake than language in reviving Ryukyuan tongues |url=https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/25/voices/use-lose-theres-stake-language-reviving-ryukyuan-tongues/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190107141707/https://www.japantimes.co.jp/community/2014/08/25/voices/use-lose-theres-stake-language-reviving-ryukyuan-tongues/ |archive-date=2019-01-07 |access-date=2019-10-24 |publisher=The Japan Times}}</ref>

Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to [[education]], [[mass media]], and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration.