Japanese language education in Russia

Japanese language education in Russia formally dates back to December 1701 or January 1702, when Dembei, a shipwrecked Japanese merchant, was taken to Moscow and ordered to begin teaching the language as soon as possible.cite journal|last=Lensen|first=George Alexander|title=The Russian Push Toward Japan: Russo-Japanese Relations, 1697-1895|journal=American Slavic and East European Review|volume=Vol. 20|number=No. 2|date=April 1961|pages=pp. 320–321|doi=10.2307/3000924] A 2006 survey by the Japan Foundation found 451 teachers teaching the language to 9,644 students at 143 different institutions; the number of students had grown by 4.8% since the previous year.cite web|url=http://www.jpf.go.jp/j/japan_j/oversea/kunibetsu/2005/russia.html|publisher=Japan Foundation|date=2005|accessdate=2008-01-12|title=2005年海外日本語教育機関調査結果: ロシア (Results of the 2005 survey of overseas Japanese language educational institutions: Russia|language=Japanese] cite web|url=http://www.jpf.go.jp/j/japan_j/oversea/kunibetsu/2006/russia.html|publisher=Japan Foundation|date=2006|accessdate=2008-01-12|title=2006年海外日本語教育機関調査結果: ロシア (Results of the 2006 survey of overseas Japanese language educational institutions: Russia)|language=Japanese] Aside from one Japanese-medium school serving Japanese people in Russia (the Japanese School in Moscow, founded in 1965ja icon cite web|url=http://www.mosnichi.com/ayumi.htm|publisher=Japanese School in Moscow|title=モスクワ日本人 学校の歩み|accessdate=2006-12-01] ), virtually all Japanese language education in Russia throughout history has been aimed at non-native speakers.

History

Tsarist Russia

Russian interest in Japan dated back to the early 17th century, when Dutch cartographer Gerald Mercator's descriptions of Japan were translated into Russian. (The Russian ambassador to China at the time, Nikolai Spafariy, also tried to gather information about Japan.) However, the first real knowledge of the Japanese language would come from Dembei, a shipwrecked native of Japan who had become stranded on the Kamchatka Peninsula. Despite repeated protests and an expressed desire to return to Japan, Dembei was taken to Moscow by Vladimir Atlasov in December 1701 or January 1702 and ordered by Peter the Great to teach Japanese to a small group of young Russian men. It is believed he finally began teaching in 1705.cite news|last=Hirano|first=Ko|publisher=Kyodo News|title=St. Petersburg U. vows to rev up Japan studies|date=2006-11-16|accessdate=2006-12-03|url=http://search.japantimes.co.jp/print/nn20061116f5.html] Japanese education in Russia continued throughout the 18th century, using as teachers Japanese fishermen who, like Denbei, drifted ashore in the Russian Far East and, due to the sakoku policy of the Tokugawa Shogunate, found themselves unable to return to Japan.cite paper|author=Kobayashi, Tadashi|title=Japanese Language Education in Russia|url=http://www.erina.or.jp/En/Opinion/E/Russia/2001/eKobayashi2.htm|date=2001|accessdate=2006|publisher=Economic Research Institute for Northeast Asia] However, Japanese studies were not included in the official programmes of Russian universities until the 1898 establishment of the Department of Japanese Philology at Saint Petersburg University.cite paper|author=Bessonova, Elena|title=Japanese Studies at Moscow State University|publisher=Congresso Internacional de Estudos Japoneses no Brasil|url=http://www.japones-unb.net/eventos/SessaoPaineis.html|accessdate=2006-12-01] Soon afterwards, Serge Elisseeff would become the first Russian to undergo higher education in Japan, graduating from Tokyo Imperial University in 1912; however, he did not return to Russia, but instead remained overseas, taking up a post at the Sorbonne in 1917.

oviet era

Japanese language education suffered a severe setback during the Great Purge, when many Russians with overseas contacts or knowledge of foreign languages were stripped of their jobs, imprisoned, and even executed, on suspicions of espionage. Notable scholars killed during this period include Yevgeny Polivanov, designer of the official system for the Cyrillization of Japanese,cite news|title=Sixth Polivanov Readings open in Smolensk|publisher=Pravda (English Edition)|date=2003-05-20|accessdate=2006-12-03|url=http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2003/05/20/47179.html] and Nikolai Nevskii, who specialised in Okinawan studies. Later, during the Khruschev era, increasing numbers of Russians began again to go to Japan as international students, but few returned to the Soviet Union after completing their studies, and even fewer of those became teachers, due to the low salaries.

After the Soviet breakup

In the Russian census of 2002, 24,787 people claimed knowledge of the Japanese language, making it the 65th-most known language (behind Vietnamese and ahead of Andian).ru icon cite web|url=http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/TOM_04_03.xls|accessdate=2006-12-01|title=Население по национальности и владению русским языком по субъектам Российской Федерации|format=Microsoft Excel|publisher=Федеральная служба государственной статистики] With only 835 people claiming Japanese ethnicity (nationality) in that census,">ru icon cite web|url=http://www.perepis2002.ru/ct/doc/TOM_04_06.xls|title=Владение языками (кроме русского) населением отдельных национальностей по республикам, автономной области и автономным округам Российской Федерации|format=Microsoft Excel|accessdate=2006-12-01|publisher=Федеральная служба государственной статистики] Japanese is thus one of only two East Asian languages in Russia for which the population of speakers outnumbers the population of the ethnic group to which the language belongs. The other such language is Chinese, which has 59,235 speakers in Russia and is the 44th-most known language, but only 34,577 members of the nationality.

Most students chose Japanese for economic rather than cultural reasons. Study of the language is noted as being most popular in the Russian Far East, especially among Sakhalin Koreans.cite news|last=Baek|first=Il-hyun|title=Scattered Koreans turn homeward|date=2005-09-14|publisher=Joongang Daily|accessdate=2006-11-27|url=http://joongangdaily.joins.com/200509/14/200509142129404979900091009101.html] Also, despite the dispute between Russia and Japan over the Kuril islands, increasing numbers of Russian people in the southernmost islands, such as Shikotan and Kunashiri, are studying Japanese for purposes of daily communication with Japanese, with whom they come into frequent contact.cite news|url=http://home.kyodo.co.jp/modules/fstStory/index.php?storyid=275471|title=Territorial dispute still unsolved 50 years after normalization|date=|publisher=Kyodo News|date=2006-10-07|accessdate=2006-12-03]

Linguistic studies of Russophone learners of Japanese

Russophone learners of Japanese make both phonological and grammatical errors when speaking the language, due to cross-linguistic interference from Russian.cite paper|author=Shirai, Yasuhiro|publisher=Cornell University|date=2000|title=The Aspect Hypothesis: A Universal of SLA or L1 Transfer?] ja icon cite journal|title=第二言語の摩擦音知覚における後続母音の影響－ロシア人日本語学習者における母語の干渉 (Effect of Following Vowel on Perception of Second Language Fricatives - Native language interference in Russian learners of Japanese)|last=Funatsu|first=Seiya|coauthors=Shigeru Kiritani|publisher=Phonetic Society of Japan|volume=Vol. 4|number=No. 2|date=2000]

tandardised testing

The Japanese Language Proficiency Test has been offered in Russia since 1998, at first only in Moscow, but since 2001, in Vladivostok as well. Since the test's introduction, the number of examinees has risen by an average of 21% per year.cite web|title=The 2000 Japanese-Language Proficiency Test Number of Examinees by Sites|publisher=The Japan Foundation|date=2002-02-14|accessdate=2006-12-03|url=http://web.archive.org/web/20030407202559/http://www.iijnet.or.jp/jpf/jlpt/contents/2001not-e.html] In 2006, the list of test sites was further expanded to include Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, and Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk; the number of examinees also showed record growth, more than doubling as compared to the previous year.cite web|title=Japanese Language Proficiency Test 2006: Summary of the Results|url=http://www.jees.or.jp/jlpt/pdf/result_2006_pri.pdf|publisher=Japan Educational Exchanges and Services, The Japan Foundation|date=2006|accessdate=2007-08-22] However, JETRO's Business Japanese Test was not offered in Russia or any other former Soviet Union member state as of 2006.cite web|url=http://www.jetro.go.jp/en/bjt/data/jlrt/pdf/res13report_en.pdf|format=PDF |title=13th JLRT (2006): A Summary Report|publisher=Japan External Trade Organization|date=2006|accessdate=2006-12-01]

ee also

*Cyrillization of Japanese
*Languages of Russia
*List of languages of Russia
*Nikolai Rezanov, first Russian ambassador to Japan and author of an early Russian-Japanese lexicon
*Russians in Japan
*Chinese as a foreign language

References

Further reading

*cite book|last=Tsutsumi|first=Masanori|title=ロシア・ソビエトにおける日本語研究 (Studies of the Japanese Language in Russia and USSR)|date=December 1992|publisher=Tokai University Press|location=Japan|language=Japanese|id=4486012062

External links

*ja icon [http://www.mosnichi.com Japanese School in Moscow]
*ja icon ru icon [http://www.jrex.or.jp Japan-Russia Youth Exchange]