At a Glance
Japanese language: References & Edit History
More Articles On This Topic
Additional Reading
Two widely used college textbooks are Osamu Mizutani and Nobuko Mizutani, An Introduction to Modern Japanese (1977); and Eleanor Harz Jorden and Mari Noda, Japanese, the Spoken Language, 3 vol. (1987–90). Roy Andrew Miller, The Japanese Language (1967, reprinted 1980), provides a general introduction with emphasis on historical development, and his Japanese and the Other Altaic Languages (1971), documents the hypothesis relating Japanese to the Altaic family. G.B. Sansom, An Historical Grammar of Japanese (1928, reissued 1995), is an excellent introduction to Old Japanese, detailing the development of the writing systems. A historical survey of the literary language can be found in Yaeko Sato Habein, The History of the Japanese Written Language (1984). Samuel E. Martin, A Reference Grammar of Japanese (1975, reprinted with corrections, 1988), is a comprehensive description of Modern Japanese, with numerous examples taken from published materials, while his The Japanese Language Through Time (1987), traces the historical developments of major grammatical structures. Susumu Kuno, The Structure of the Japanese Language (1973), is a particularly useful introduction, emphasizing particles and topic construction. James D. McCawley, The Phonological Component of a Grammar of Japanese (1968), technically treats Japanese phonology and includes a useful survey of Japanese-dialect accentual systems. A recent comprehensive survey encompassing all the major fields of Japanese linguistics is Masayoshi Shibatani, The Languages of Japan (1990).
Article Contributors
Primary Contributors
- Masayoshi Shibatani
-
The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors.
Other Contributors
- Manuel Gil
Other Encyclopedia Britannica Contributors
Article History
| Type | Description | Contributor | Date |
|---|---|---|---|
| Modified title of Web site: Omniglot - Japanese. | Apr 13, 2026 | ||
| Add new Web site: CORE - The Lexical Influence of English on Japanese Language (PDF). | Dec 13, 2025 | ||
| Updated media. | Dec 11, 2025 | ||
| Corrected display issue. | Sep 09, 2025 | ||
| Reorganized article. | Sep 03, 2025 | ||
| Updated section on related languages. | Jul 14, 2025 | ||
| Add new Web site: Web Japan - Japanese Language. | Oct 29, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: International Journal of Creative Research Thoughts - Japanese Language: A short introduction. | Aug 24, 2024 | ||
| Corrected /tiʃketto/ to /tʃiketto/. | Mar 15, 2024 | ||
| Add new Web site: Columbia University - Asia for Educators - The Japanese Language. | Aug 06, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: BYU Department of Linguistics - An Overview of the History of the Japanese Language. | Jun 28, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: Asia Society - Education - The Japanese Language. | May 17, 2023 | ||
| Corrected display issue. | Mar 28, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: Encyclopedia of Japan - Japanese language. | Jan 05, 2023 | ||
| Add new Web site: Massachusetts Institute of Technology - The Japanese Language. | Aug 18, 2022 | ||
| Media added. | Sep 28, 2017 | ||
| Added a definition of "language isolate." | Jun 30, 2015 | ||
| Noted that Japanese is a language isolate and that the Altaic hypothesis is not widely accepted. |
|
Jan 16, 2015 | |
| Article revised and updated. | Sep 11, 2012 | ||
| Added new Web site: Japan 2001 Waka - Japanese Language. | Feb 08, 2007 | ||
| Added new Web site: Kanji Alive. | Jun 15, 2006 | ||
| Article added to new online database. | Jul 26, 1999 |
View Changes:
Article History
Revised:
By: