Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A member of an indigenous people of Japan, now inhabiting parts of Hokkaido, Sakhalin, and the Kuril Islands.
- noun The language of the Ainu.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun See
Aino .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun One of a peculiar race found primarily in Hokkaido, in the northern part of the empire of Japan, the Kurile Islands, and nearby. They are believed to be the native inhabitants of the Japanese islands. The Ainus are stout and short, with hairy bodies. Also called
Aino andhairy Ainu .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective Of or pertaining to the Ainu
ethnic group or their language. - proper noun An
ethnic group on the northernJapanese island ofHokkaido . - proper noun The endangered
language spoken by the Ainu ethnic group, generally considered a languageisolate with no known relation to other languages.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The Ainu hold that it drives away demons (Batchelor, _The Ainu_, p. 22).
Introduction to the History of Religions Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV Crawford Howell Toy 1877
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[472] This distinction is made in a somewhat formal way by the Ainu, a very rude people (Batchelor, _The Ainu_, chap. xxxiii).
Introduction to the History of Religions Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV Crawford Howell Toy 1877
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The Ainu are the hairiest of races, and there is nothing which they consider so beautiful as hair.
Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 Sexual Selection In Man Havelock Ellis 1899
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Side by side with the total absence of all tangible relics may be set the fact that, whereas numerous place-names in the main island of Japan have been identified as Ainu words, none has been traced to any alien tongue such as might be associated with earlier inhabitants.
A History of the Japanese People From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era Dairoku Kikuchi 1886
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Though the idea of Ainu as white seems to have diminished, in part because those sorts of ideas aren't too popular today, and partly because hardly any Ainu remain who do not have substantial ancestry from the Japanese.
Gene Expression 2009
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It is a kind of Ainu mokucho ningyo Ainu wood doll.
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Like Kennewick Man who belonged to the Jomon people, the predecessors of the Ainu, the Ürümqi mummies have been used for politics: the Uyghur have adopted them as symbols in their struggle for independence, the Chinese have tried to suppress them by neglect and red tape in the way of scholars who want to analyze them in more detail.
Athena Andreadis, Ph.D.: The House with Many Doors (or, at the Caucasus, Hang a Right!) Ph.D. Athena Andreadis 2011
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Like Kennewick Man who belonged to the Jomon people, the predecessors of the Ainu, the Ürümqi mummies have been used for politics: the Uyghur have adopted them as symbols in their struggle for independence, the Chinese have tried to suppress them by neglect and red tape in the way of scholars who want to analyze them in more detail.
Athena Andreadis, Ph.D.: The House with Many Doors (or, at the Caucasus, Hang a Right!) Ph.D. Athena Andreadis 2011
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Like Kennewick Man who belonged to the Jomon people, the predecessors of the Ainu, the Ãrümqi mummies have been used for politics: the Uyghur have adopted them as symbols in their struggle for independence, the Chinese have tried to suppress them by neglect and red tape in the way of scholars who want to analyze them in more detail.
Athena Andreadis, Ph.D.: The House with Many Doors (or, at the Caucasus, Hang a Right!) Ph.D. Athena Andreadis 2011
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I think the jury is still out on the Jomon/Yayoi/Ainu genetic legacy on modern Japanese though.
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