"Two Centuries of Language and Cultural Contact on the Ogasawara (Bonin) Islands," by Dr. Daniel Long, Professor of Japanese Linguistics, Tokyo Metropolian University

Abstract

In 1830 the hitherto uninhabited islands known today as the Bonins were settled by men and women speaking European, Polynesian and Micronesian languages. They communicated in a pidginized English which quickly became a creoloid. In the 1870s the islands became part of Japan and hundreds of Japanese settlers added to the cultural and linguistic variety on the islands. The original inhabitants became Japanese citizens and their children attended bilingual schools. In this talk I will discuss these almost two centuries of cultural and linguistic contact, drawing comparison based on my recent fieldwork with immigrant communities in modern-day mainland Japan.