Ainu Study Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
guyome
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby guyome » Wed Mar 15, 2023 9:31 am

It seems that a lot of Ainu has been put online in recent years. Here are some of the most interesting resources I found.

Online corpora
All of these provide the original recordings, transcriptions (katakana/romaji), and Japanese translations. A search function and autoscroll while audio is playing are available.


Audio + text

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guyome
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby guyome » Wed Mar 22, 2023 9:55 pm

A few series of articles containing transcriptions (it doesn't seem the recordings are online):

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brilliantyears
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Posts: 480
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:52 am
Location: Netherlands
Languages: Dutch, English
Active: Japanese (JLPT N2~N1), Russian (B1)
Maintaining: German (?)
Low-key: Ainu, Mandarin (A2?)
Dropped: Arabic, Korean, French, Latin, classical Manchu, Norwegian, SLN
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19020
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby brilliantyears » Thu Mar 23, 2023 7:37 am

This is great, thank you so much for sharing! It's heartening to see more material and sources :)

Are you currently studying Ainu? I'd love to hear your methods. I'm very tempted to pick it up again (and get Japanese as a bonus haha).
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guyome
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby guyome » Thu Mar 23, 2023 8:16 am

I guess I'm kind of studying it :D Last week, I finished working through the 2006 STV lessons at Unilang. I think they do a really good job at giving you the basics in a quick and painless way.

Right now, I'm working through the Shizunai textbook (初級) at https://www.ff-ainu.or.jp/web/potal_sit ... /post.html. My Japanese is veeery basic but the textbooks are well laid out and easy to make sense of based on the bits I know already and some Google translate. I hope the additional vocab and grammar will carry me to the point where I can use native material (if with difficulty). Chances are I'll stop way short of that goal though, but you never know...
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guyome
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby guyome » Sun Mar 26, 2023 8:03 pm

I've created a lexicon containing the words used in the 2006 STV lessons at Unilang. It can be found here. In a few cases the translations provided at Unilang have been emended. Hopefully, I haven't added too many of my own mistakes.
For better or for worse, I used "4th person" for the =an/an= affixes because it seems to me a better choice than "inclusive we" to reflect the various uses of this form.

I compiled this lexicon in order to make it easier for me to write exercises to accompany the lessons but I don't know if I'll manage to do that. Still, the file might be of some use to others.
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brilliantyears
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Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:52 am
Location: Netherlands
Languages: Dutch, English
Active: Japanese (JLPT N2~N1), Russian (B1)
Maintaining: German (?)
Low-key: Ainu, Mandarin (A2?)
Dropped: Arabic, Korean, French, Latin, classical Manchu, Norwegian, SLN
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19020
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby brilliantyears » Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:10 am

That looks great!

That reminds me, way back when I started creating a Memrise course for the 2006 STV course, because the existing one was katakana based ( :roll: ). I never finished it though, and it looks like I removed it at some point because I didn't want to leave an unfinished course up... Found it! https://app.memrise.com/course/1980046/stv-ainu/

By the way, I also added your resources to the Resources post on the first page!
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brilliantyears
Green Belt
Posts: 480
Joined: Mon Aug 17, 2015 11:52 am
Location: Netherlands
Languages: Dutch, English
Active: Japanese (JLPT N2~N1), Russian (B1)
Maintaining: German (?)
Low-key: Ainu, Mandarin (A2?)
Dropped: Arabic, Korean, French, Latin, classical Manchu, Norwegian, SLN
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19020
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby brilliantyears » Mon Mar 27, 2023 9:16 pm

Ok, this is wild. Does anyone remember the Drops app that was briefly* popular a few years ago? Apparently since 2019 they've had an Ainu course: https://languagedrops.com/blog/learn-ainu-with-drops
I just did a session** and the fact they have Ainu is pretty neat. It's not super extensive and I have no idea which dialect it focuses on, but if anyone out there is still using Drops.....

* perhaps it's still popular? I'm no longer in the loop on what's the cool app to use :lol:
** wow, this app has become practically unusable with all its 'premium' nonsense :?
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guyome
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby guyome » Tue Mar 28, 2023 7:05 am

I had never heard of Drops before getting interested in Ainu. But I'm not that much into apps so that may explain it :D

I'm trying my hand at writing short "stories" using only the STV course vocab and structures. It's good because it forces me to check actual usage in online corpora but it sometimes feel like groping in the dark and you don't always get a firm answer. So, I think I'll put this on hold for now, until I have a firmer grasp of basic idioms.

Teeta kotan ta pon menoko an.
Sirpopke wa pon menoko cepkoyki kusu oman rusuy.
Soyene wa pis ta sirepa.
Atuy henne yupke kusu cep poronno koyki.
Emkota rir ek wa pon menoko teyne.
"Ku=teyne wa ku=cisehe en ku=hosipi."
Pon menoko cise en oman wa usew ku.


Long ago, there was a girl in a village.
The weather was hot and the girl wanted to go fishing.
She went out and arrived at the shore.
Because the sea wasn't rough, she caught a lot of fish.
Suddenly, a wave came and the girl was drenched in water.
"I am drenched so I'll go back home."
The girl went home and drank hot water.
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guyome
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Re: Ainu Study Group

Postby guyome » Wed Mar 29, 2023 8:00 pm

Links to some Ainu texts available online.

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