Ebook: A Basic Vocabulary of the Samani Dialect of Ainu

Hokkaido University, 2002. — 37 p.The purpose of this paper is to present a basic vocabulary of the Samani Dialect of Ainu. Our data might be of some interest to students of the Ainu language for the following reasons: first, there have been no first-hand data of the Samani dialect other than Chiri and Hattori (1960), in spite of the fact that its great importance in the Ainu dialectology has often been pointed out (Chiri and Hattori 1960: 61-62 and Asai 1972: 100). It would therefore be both necessary and important to check Chiri and Hattori's data by those obtained from other informants of the same dialect.2 Second, while Chiri and Hattori's data are quite useful and reliable, they unfortunately include no example phrases or sentences. This lack of information has prevented us from grasping the basic linguistic characteristics of the Samani dialect, especially in grammar. In order to show the characteristics of this dialect in more detail, we will try to give examples to as many items as possible below, although we know very well that the amount is not so sufficient.