ABSTRACT
Ainu (アイヌイタㇰ Aynu Itak) is a dormant language isolate previously spoken on the northernmost Japanese island of Hokkaidō, as well as southern half of the Russian island of Sakhalin, and in the disputed Kuril Islands. Map 4.1 depicts the historically attested range of the Ainu language in Northeast Asia. See Vovin (2009) for discussion of its suspected range in to the south on the Japanese main island of Honshū based on toponymical evidence.
