Ainu is an indigenous language of northern Japan which is unrelated to Japanese. Previously, it was spoken in both Japan (Hokkaido) and the southern tip of the Sakhalin peninsula in Russia, but numbers have dropped to less than 1,000 in Japan and no known speakers in Russia, making Ainu a language in danger of become extinct. However, there is an Ainu revitalization movement in Japan.
Note: About 150,000 Japanese identify themselves as being of the Ainu ethnic group even if they do not speak Ainu.
Ainu was not widely written, which is one of the reasons it has become endangered. Currently, Ainu can be written in either the the Katakana script (Japan) or the Roman alphabet (western linguists).
Ainu Katakana for Unicode includes a set of Katakana Phonetic Extensions; these are found in many Japanese fonts. The Wikipedia Ainu Language article reports that the characters, which are smaller versions of regular Katakana syllables, are used to write final consonants in Ainu.
A third party font is recommended (see list below). Use the the Character Map (Windows) to insert these characters.
Recent versions of Hiragana Japanese fonts include the correct letters. You can either insert them via the Character Palette or activate the Ainu Keyboard (listed under the Japanese Kotoeri options).
These are the codes which allow browsers and screen readers to process data as the appropriate language. All letters in codes are lower case.
One option is to use Dreamweaver, Microsoft Expression or other Web editor and change the keyboard to the correct script. This will allow you to type content in directly with the appropriate script. However, it is important to verify that the correct encoding is specified in the Web page header.
Another option is to compose the basic text in an international or foreign language text editor or word processor and export the content as an HTML or text file with the appropriate encoding. This file could be opened in another HTML editor such as Dreamweaver or Microsoft Expression, and edited for formatting.
For Web tools such as Blogs at Penn State, Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us, Flicker, and others, users can typically change the keyboard and input text. In most cases, this content will be encoded as Unicode.
Use these codes to input accented letters in HTML. For instance, if you want to type the small katakana ku (ㇰ) as in the Ainu word itak (イタㇰ) you would type イタㇰ.
| Character Name | Character | Entity | Hex Entity |
|---|---|---|---|
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL KU | ㇰ | ㇰ | ㇰ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL SI | ㇱ | ㇱ | ㇱ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL SU | ㇲ | ㇲ | ㇲ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL TO | ㇳ | ㇳ | ㇳ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL NU | ㇴ | ㇴ | ㇴ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL HA | ㇵ | ㇵ | ㇵ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL HI | ㇶ | ㇶ | ㇶ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL HU | ㇷ | ㇷ | ㇷ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL HE | ㇸ | ㇸ | ㇸ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL HO | ㇹ | ㇹ | ㇹ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL MU | ㇺ | ㇺ | ㇺ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL RA | ㇻ | ㇻ | ㇻ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL RI | ㇼ | ㇼ | ㇼ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL RU | ㇽ | ㇽ | ㇽ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL RE | ㇾ | ㇾ | ㇾ |
| KATAKANA LETTER SMALL RO | ㇿ | ㇿ | ㇿ |