The Status of Japanese Language in the Sakhalin Island in Russia

摘要

Sakhalin Island, located between Hokkaido in Japan and mainland Russia, has received a variety of people with various ethnic backgrounds. This island has been also oc-cupied by two countries: Russia and Japan. This history eventually made the linguistic situation of this island unique. Many language speakers with genetically different linguistic backgrounds lived together in this island: Orok, Nivkh, Ainu, Evenki, Tatal, Chinese, Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, and Japanese. Sakhalin Island,therefore, has been a multicultural as well as multilingual society.