Ainu
people
Ainu, indigenous people of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands who were culturally and physically distinct from their Japanese neighbours until the second part of the 20th century. The Ainu may be descendants of an indigenous population once widely spread over northern Asia; many contemporary Ainu claim some connection to Japan’s prehistoric Jōmon culture. The traditional Ainu language, an isolate with a number of dialects, had been almost completely supplanted by Japanese by the early...
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