A Comparative Study of Ainu Dialects Based on Old Documents

今年我们主要调查了一份名为《Ezoki》的旧文件。我们的研究结果如下。首先，我们已经明确了18世纪阿伊努语的语音特征，因为在这份材料中，当前的/h/对应于代表/p/的字母，我们可以假设/h/可能来自其他音位。同样，/a/通常对应于代表/o/的字母，这也意味着有一个声音变化。其次，我们已经明确了这样一个事实，即存在着丰富多样的社会语言变体。有证据表明，根据情况，同一指称被许多不同的词所称呼。第三，我们已经证明，这些材料用于破译当代阿伊努人材料中的困难线条。例如，著名的《阿伊努神游书》[阿伊努众神史诗选集》中的一些困难表达只有利用这些材料才能正确地解释。

We have investigated mainly an old document called "Ezoki" this year. The results of our research are as follows. First, we have made clear phonetic characteristics of the Ainu language in the eighteenth century since the current /h/ corresponds to letters representing /p/ in this material, we can assume that /h/ might come from some other phoneme. Similarly, /a/ often corresponds to letters representing /o/ and this also implies that there was a sound change. Second, we have made clear the fact that there were a rich variety of sociolinguistic variations there is evidence that the same referent was called by many different words according to the situation. Third, we have shown that this material serves to decipher difficult lines of contemporary materials of Ainu. For example, a number of difficult expressions in the famous "Ainu sin'yoshu" [an Anthology of Ainu Epics of Gods] could be interpreted correctly only by making use of this material.