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Language Communities in Japan
Language Communities
in Japan

Edited by
JOHN C . M A H E R

3
 3
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 Contents

List of figures and tables viii

The contributors xi

Introduction: Tradition in motion 1

John C. Maher

I. NAT IONA L L A NG UAG ES

1. Japanese in the world: The diaspora communities 15
Kazuko Matsumoto
2. Japanese in Japan: The national language and regional
varieties 31
Junko Hibiya
3. Language communities of the Northern Ryukyus:
Okinawan, Amami, and Kunigami 43
Patrick Heinrich
4. Language communities of the Southern Ryukyus: Miyako,
Yaeyama, and Yonaguni 51
Sachiyo Fujita-Round
5. Japanese Sign Language: A language of the deaf community 59
Norie Oka
6. Ainu: An urban-rural indigenous language of the North 68
Hidetoshi Shiraishi

II . C OMMUN I T Y L A NG UAGES
7. Korean: Transnational links of language and culture 79
Hye-Gyeong Ohe
8. Chinese: A historic language of cultural influence 91
Jie Shi
9. Portuguese: Diaspora, ethnolinguistic vitality, and cultural
influence 99
Lucila Etsuko Gibo
vi contents

10. Spanish: From Renaissance missionaries to the Nikkeijin

community 109
Daniel Quintero
11. Urdu and Hindi: Languages of transnational history,
business, and culture 121
Rika Yamashita
12. Nepali: Outmigration and the evolving diaspora 129
Tina Shrestha
13. Vietnamese: From refugee community to cultural
transitions 138
Mayumi Adachi
14. Filipino: A nationwide migrant language and culture 147
Sachi Takahata
15. Burmese: Refugees and Little Yangon 156
Kosei Otsuka
16. Turkish, Kurdish, and Uyghur: Linguistic and political
presence from the Meiji period 164
John C. Maher
17. Persian: Migration waves and diversification 169
Hourieh Akbari

III. L ANG UAGE S OF C U LT U RE, POL I TICS , AND

MODE R N I Z AT ION
18. English: International language of work and education 179
Simon Cookson
19. Dutch and German: Mediator languages of science,
politics, and law 191
Florian Coulmas
20. French: Culture, linguistic landscape, and modernization 199
Simon Tuchais
21. Russian: A historic language community and Russian
language education 209
Petr Podalko
22. Esperanto: Internationalism, dialogue, and an evolving
community 217
Kimura Goro Christoph and Gotoo Hitosi
 contents vii

23. Latin and Sanskrit: Hidden Christians, Buddhism, and

religious scholarship 224
John C. Maher

References 234
Index 252
 List of figures and tables

Figures

1.1. Countries where Japanese emigrants settled together with estimated

populations of Japanese and Nikkei-jin 19
1.2. Map of the Japanese Empire (Japan’s first empire on the left; Japan’s second
empire on the right) 20
1.3. Number of Japanese citizens residing outside of Japan as permanent
or long-term residents in 2018 by region 26
1.4. Number of Japanese language learners abroad in 2015 by region 29
2.1. Dialect divisions of Japanese 33
2.2. Use of pronominal forms referring to oneself: overall result % (N=2,107) 39
2.3. Use of pronominal forms referring to oneself: overall result
(Male) % (N=999) 40
2.4. Use of pronominal forms referring to oneself: overall result
(Female) % (N=1,108) 40
2.5. Braille examples 42
4.1. Map of two districts in the Southern Ryukyu, Okinawa prefecture 53
5.1. Users of Japanese, JSL, and Manually Coded Japanese (MCJ) 62
6.1. Map of Sakhalin, Hokkaido, and the Kurils 73
7.1. Change in the number of Korean residents in Japan 81
7.2. Estimated number of Korean travellers to Japan 83
7.3. Estimated number of foreign travellers to Japan 84
7.4. Korean language presence in public transportation in Japan 85
7.5. Shin Okubo Korea town 88
7.6. Change in number of high schools offering foreign language courses in Japan 90
9.1. Portuguese language flyer in Oizumi 103
9.2. Flyer for ‘Festa Junina’ in the Catholic Community of Ota 106
10.1. Japanese secondary education institutions’ language uptake since 1993 118
10.2. Foreign languages studied at national, public, and private universities 120
13.1. The population of Vietnamese residents in Japan 140
13.2. Self-evaluation of two language abilities 143
13.3. Language choice with Vietnamese conversation partner 144
13.4. Language use in each social domain 144
 list of figures and tables ix

13.5. Important language(s) for the future 145

14.1. Filipino population in Japan by major visa category (1998–2017) 149
14.2. Residential distribution of Filipinos in Japan (2017) 151
17.1. Number of Persian native speakers in Japan over 18 years 173
19.1. ‘The Japanese government pays ten guilders to bearer’. Legal tender issued
in Dutch by Japanese occupation of Dutch East Indies, 1940s. 194
20.1. Evolution of the number of schools teaching languages other than English
from 1993 to 2016 208

Tables

1.1. Number of Japanese settlers in Japanese colonial territories and spheres

of influence by year 22
1.2. The top 20 countries for Japanese permanent or long-term residents in 2018 27
1.3. Top ten prefectures for Japanese children who spent more than a year
abroad before returning to Japan in 2017 28
1.4. The top 20 countries in terms of the number of Japanese language learners
abroad in 2015 30
2.1. Common (standard) first-person pronominal forms 39
4.1. Word comparison among the Southern Ryukyuan languages 53
4.2. Tourist phrases in the Southern Ryukyuan languages 56
7.1. Vowels in Korean and Zainichi Chōsen-go 85
9.1. Prefectures with largest Brazilian populations 102
9.2. Cities with largest Brazilian populations 102
9.3. Brazilian schools in Japan run by MEC 107
10.1. Spanish-speaking immigrant population by country of origin
and prefectural residence 112
10.2. Percentages of masses in Spanish by prefecture 117
10.3. Percentages of masses in Spanish by prefecture according to the number
of registered Catholics 117
10.4. Spanish taught in private language schools and cultural centres by region
in Japan 119
13.1. The generations of the immigrants 143
14.1. Number of Catholic churches conducting masses in Filipino by parish 153
18.1. Foreign residents in Japan in 2017 from countries with English as an official
language 184
18.2. Tourists visiting Japan in 2018 from countries with English as an official
language 184
x list of figures and tables

18.3. JET assistant language teachers (ALTs) in 2018 from countries with English
as an official language 189
20.1. Number and percentage of books registered in the NACSIS-Cat catalogue
as of end of 2018 for main languages 202
20.2. Number and percentage of periodicals newly registered in the NACSIS-Cat
catalogue in 2018 for main languages 203
20.3. Number and percentage of books newly registered in the NACSIS-Cat
catalogue in 2018 for main languages 203
20.4. Languages other than English taught in Japanese junior high schools
as of May 2016 206
20.5. Main languages other than English taught in Japanese senior high schools
as of May 2016 207
21.1. Russian language instruction at Japanese universities 213
21.2. Russian language instruction at Japanese high schools 215
 The contributors

Mayumi Adachi is Assistant Professor at the Research Institute for Languages and Cultures
of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies. She is also Lecturer of Vietnamese
language at Showa Women’s University, Tokyo. She studied linguistics at International
Christian University. Her master’s degree from the University of Tokyo (UT) was on the
acquisition of Japanese as a second language by Vietnamese children. Her PhD from UT
dealt with Vietnamese pragmatics. She is the author of a monograph on demonstratives,
sentence-final particles, and interjections (Benseisha, 2021). Her current research interests
are sociolinguistics and Vietnamese immigrant communities in Japan.
Hourieh Akbari is a lecturer at Shirayuri Women’s University and a researcher at Chiba
University, Japan. She holds a master’s degree in Japanese language education from Tehran
University, Iran. Her PhD is from the School of Humanities and Social Science of Chiba
University. Her research interests are ritual communication and contact situations. In par-
ticular, she is investigating the problem of second language use by native Persian speakers
living in Japan.
Simon Cookson is Associate Professor in the College of Business Management at J. F. Ober-
lin University, Tokyo, Japan. He has an MEng. in aerospace systems engineering from the
University of Southampton and an MSc in teaching English to speakers of other languages
from Aston University and a PhD from International Christian University on communi-
cation breakdown in aviation contexts. His research interests include applied linguistics,
sociolinguistics, intercultural communication, and English for special purposes. He has
published numerous articles on aviation English and has co-authored several books, includ-
ing Ready for Departure, a textbook which prepares commercial pilots for the International
Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) English proficiency test in Japan.
Florian Coulmas is Senior Professor for Japanese Society and Sociolinguistics at the Uni-
versity of Duisburg-Essen. He was the Director of the German Institute for Japanese Studies
in Tokyo from 2004 to 2014. He regularly writes for the Japan Times and The Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung. He is the author of numerous works on sociolinguistics with an empha-
sis on language regimes in Japan and on writing systems. He is editor of the International
Review of the Sociology of Language. In 2016, he was awarded the Meyer-Struckmann-Prize
for Research in Arts and Social Sciences.
Sachiyo Fujita-Round is Visiting Associate Professor at International Christian University,
Tokyo. She studied sociolinguistics at the universities of Lancaster and Hitotsubashi. Her
PhD from the International Christian University dealt with bilingualism and ethnography
of a JSL (Japanese as a second language) Korean child. Since 2012, she has been engaged
xii the contributors

in fieldwork in the Miyako Islands. Her latest paper is entitled ‘Bilingualism and bilin-
gual education in Japan’ in the Routledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (edited by
P. Heinrich and Y. Ohara, 2019).
Lucila Etsuko Gibo is Associate Professor in the Department of Luso-Brazilian Studies at
Sophia University. She has a BA from the University of San Paolo, an MA, and a PhD in
linguistics from the University of the Ryukyus. Her research interests include grammar and
contact linguistics between Ryukyuan and Japanese as well as the Okinawan heritage lan-
guage and community in Brazil. She is a chapter contributor to several books including the
Português do Brasil para estrangeiros: polı́ticas, formação, descrição, ‘Uma análise do PLE
de aprendizes japoneses sob a perspectiva da teoria do contato linguı́stico’ (2018), and the
Dicionário Okinawano-Português (2016).
Gotoo Hitosi is Emeritus professor linguistics at Tohoku University. He specializes in
Romance linguistics, corpus linguistics, Esperanto studies, and the history of linguistics.
Patrick Heinrich is Professor of Japanese Linguistics at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice,
where he is also Director of the PhD programme on Asian and North African Studies. He
has taught at universities in Germany, Japan, Italy, Sweden, Finland, France, and Austria. He
is co-editor of the Handbook of the Ryukyuan Languages (de Gruyter, 2015) and of the Rout-
ledge Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (Routledge, 2019). He has been the founding
general secretary of the Ryukyuan Heritage Language Society.
Junko Hibiya obtained her PhD in linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania. She was a
professor of linguistics at International Christian University specializing in sociolinguistics
(language variation) and was appointed president of the university in 2012. She is a member
of the Central Council for Education, and a member of the Science Council of Japan.
Kimura Goro Christoph is a professor in the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia Univer-
sity. He specializes in sociolinguistics, especially the revival and revitalization of minority
languages, interlingual communication, and the social functions of second and foreign
languages.
John C. Maher is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at International Christian University,
Tokyo, specializing in sociolinguistics. He has held positions at the University of Edinburgh,
St Antony’s College, Oxford, and De La Salle University, Manila. His many publications
in both English and Japanese include Introducing Chomsky (Multilingual Matters, 1995),
Multilingualism: A Very Short Introduction (OUP, 2017), and Metroethnicity, Naming and
Mocknolect: New Horizons in Japanese Sociolinguistics (John Benjamins, 2021). He is a
founding member of the Japan Association of the Sociolinguistic Sciences.
Kazuko Matsumoto is Professor of Sociolinguistics at the University of Tokyo. Employing
the variationist sociolinguistic paradigm, she has investigated dialect contact and new di-
alect formation (e.g., Palauan Japanese as an obsoleting colonial koiné in postcolonial Palau
in the Pacific; Brazilian Portuguese as a newly emerging immigrant koiné in Japan; and Ko-
rean dialect contact and koinéization in Tokyo and Sakhalin, Russia). Her interests also
include contact linguistics, such as contact-induced borrowing in Palauan and Sakhalin
Russian, particularly food-related loanwords. She also studies the nativization of Palauan
English, and comparative analyses of matching features across Micronesian Englishes.
 the contributors xiii

Petr Podalko graduated from Novosibirsk State University in 1987 with an integrated MA
in history and Japanese language. He moved to Japan to conduct research on the cultural
history of Russian emigration to the Orient and became the first Russian native to obtain
both MA and PhD degrees in Japan, writing his thesis in Japanese (Osaka University). In
2004, he became a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo, where he teaches
courses on history, comparative studies, language, and cultural studies. He is a member
of research teams and research societies in Russia and Japan.
Daniel Quintero teaches Spanish at International Christian University, Tokyo. He holds
degrees in Spanish, communication, and linguistics from the Universidad de Málaga and
the Universidad Antonio de Nebrija. His PhD from Kobe City University of Foreign Stud-
ies dealt with multilingualism, family trilingualism, and the Spanish-speaking community
in Japan. His research interests are sociolinguistics, language teaching methodology, and
intercultural communication.
Hye-Gyeong Ohe has been teaching Korean language and culture and has served as a pro-
gramme coordinator of world languages at International Christian University, Tokyo. She
has also investigated how to improve intercultural communicative competence in higher
education in the context of East Asia. Her academic work includes technology-enhanced
approaches to the development of intercultural sensitivity in a collaborative language pro-
gramme, ethnic education for Zainichi Koreans in the public schools as well as in Korean
schools in Japan, and discourse analysis employing a complex sociolinguistic framework.
Norie Oka teaches English to deaf students at Meisei Gakuen School for the Deaf in Tokyo.
She holds a BA in linguistics from the University of Tokyo, and an MPhil from the Uni-
versity of Cambridge. She received a PhD from Hitotsubashi University for her thesis titled
‘Japanese Sign Language: How a minority language without written forms survives a mod-
ern era’. She has published books on the structure of JSL, and her paper (co-authored) in
English from 2016 is ‘A Preliminary Study on Teaching Written Japanese to Deaf Chil-
dren’. Her research interests are bilingual deaf education, second language acquisition, and
language policy.
Kosei Otsuka teaches Burmese at Osaka University. He holds degrees in language and area
studies as well as literature from the Tokyo University of Foreign Studies and Tokyo Uni-
versity. His doctoral work at Tokyo University unpacked the grammar of a Kuki-Chin
language, Tiddim Chin. His research interests include descriptive linguistics and method-
ologies for language teaching. This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers
JP17H04523, JP18H03599, JP17K13442.
Jie Shi is Professor of English at the University of Electro-Communications (UEC), Tokyo,
and has been working as an educator and researcher in sociolinguistics, bilingualism and
multilingualism, cognitive education, English for Academic Purposes and English for Spe-
cific Purposes, and translation studies. She is the director of the ESP (English for Specific
Purposes) programme and the head of the Research Station for Innovative and Global
Tertiary English Education at UEC.
Hidetoshi Shiraishi teaches linguistics at Sapporo Gakuin University. He holds degrees in
Ainu phonology from the International Christian University and Chiba University. His
xiv the contributors

PhD from the University of Groningen dealt with the phonology of Nivkh, an indigenous
language in Northeast Asia. His research interests are the phonology of Nivkh and Ainu.
Tina Shrestha is Assistant Professor in the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study (WIAS)
at Waseda University. She received her PhD in anthropology from Cornell University. She
is fluent in English and Nepali and has conducted fieldwork in Nepal and the Nepali di-
aspora in the United States and Malaysia. Her publications have appeared in Anthropology
of Work Review (2019), Pacific Affairs (2018), Studies in Nepali History and Society (2015,
2018, 2019), and Refugee Resettlement in the United States: Language, Pedagogy and Politics
(UK: Multilingual Matters, 2016). She is working on her monograph Surviving the Sanctuary
City: Ordinary suffering and asylum-seeking work among Nepali New Yorkers. Her current
research is on Nepali student-migration and diasporic cultural formation in Japan (awarded
JSPS Grant-in-Aid for Early-Career Scientists, 2019–2021).
Sachi Takahata is Professor in the School of International Relations, University of Shizuoka,
Japan. She completed her PhD in sociology at Osaka City University. Fluent in both English
and Filipino (Tagalog), she has conducted fieldwork on Filipino migrants in Japan since
the early 1990s. She has also investigated migration and settlement of other communities,
including ethnic Koreans and Brazilians. Aside from academic works, she has been active
as a court interpreter since 1993.
Simon Tuchais teaches French at the Faculty of Foreign Studies, Sophia University,
Tokyo. He holds degrees in French and Japanese from Université Paris IV Sorbonne,
INALCO (Paris), a master’s degree in Japanese linguistics from Tokyo University, and a PhD
in language sciences from École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) (Paris). His
PhD thesis was a contrastive linguistic study of expression of personal opinions in French
and Japanese. His current field of interest includes French and Japanese corpus linguistics,
especially applied to the study of discourse markers.
Rika Yamashita (PhD, University of Tokyo) is Associate Professor in English and linguis-
tics at the College of Economics, Kanto Gakuin University in Yokohama, Japan. Rika has
a monograph on the sociolinguistic study of Japanese-Urdu bilingual pupils (in Japanese,
Hituzi Syobo, 2016), and an award-winning paper on Pakistani pupils’ codeswitching in
Japanese Journal of Language in Society (2014). As a sociolinguist and linguistic anthropol-
ogist, Rika is interested in bi/multilingual practices and ideologies. Apart from works in
Japanese, Rika has chapter contributions in Urban Sociolinguistics (with Patrick Heinrich,
Routledge, 2017) and the Handbook of Japanese Sociolinguistics (Routledge, 2019).
 Introduction
Tradition in motion
John C. Maher

Re-imagining past in the present

Language helps us know who we are. It is both social institution and epistemology.
Society is a set of complex realities inhabited by people with complex lives. It is
the place we live in. We want to make sense of it. Languages do this for us. They
are word-worlds that speak to the human condition, but they are experienced as
‘societal history’ (Weber’s Gesellschaftsgeschichte).
Languages are visible when we choose to see them. When we find them, they
can be a doorway to understanding the shared life of society. This social space
comprises a layering of individuals and groups, cultures, and languages. Whilst
the telos of multilingual society is well defined (Maher 2017), how it is conceived
in individual states, comprising many language communities, remains unresolved.
We know from the ‘invented tradition’ of nations (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983)
how small regional languages, as nationalism itself proposes, ‘help invent nations
where they do not exist’ (Gellner 1964: 164).
Linguists routinely examine the languages of states and communities because
they constitute complex communication amongst persons. Languages spread out
through multiple pathways of speech. They constantly change. They live, die, and
reinvent themselves. Language resists hypostasis—the tendency to essentialize—
even as it seeks normativity to stabilize itself into fixed, universal patterns.
Language is the measure of our relations with other persons. It is a barometer
of how we treat our neighbours near and far. It makes us human. Social theory
from John Locke to contemporary political philosophy and liberal individualism,
as Peter Ives (2019) has pointed out, has long employed a different description of
language that is both simplistic and distorted. Prêt-à-porter, it goes something like
this, ‘language is a vehicle of communication’. Such an instrumentalist description
is far from the notion that language is what makes us persons.

John C. Maher, Introduction. In: Language Communities in Japan.

Edited by John C. Maher, Oxford University Press.
© John C. Maher (2022). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198856610.003.0001
2 john c. maher

The sensitive reality of language as a maker of personal relation and identity is

the reason why it is employed effectively as a mechanism of power and authority.
As Antonio Gramsci, a speaker of the minority language Sard, in Italian Turin,
noted,

every time the question of language surfaces, in one way or another,

it means that a series of other problems are coming to the fore: the
formation and enlargement of the governing class, the need to es-
tablish more intimate and secure relationship between the governing
groups and the national-popular mass, in other words to reorganize
the cultural hegemony.
(1985: 183–184)

The legitimation of one (dominant) language over another—linguistic ‘hege-

mony’ in Gramsci and Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘linguistic capital’—involves authority
and consent. How, then, are languages reproduced in social life: work, religion,
government, schools, festivals, and neighbourhoods? This book addresses this
question.
Speakers of languages have a right to their own history and culture. The past has
a right to be acknowledged in the present. The ultimate aim of language commu-
nities is not to return to a golden past where interactions were minimal and where
differences could be controlled. Rather, the purpose is, as the Yiddish scholar and
sociolinguist Joshua Fishman wrote, ‘to achieve greater self-regulation over the
processes of sociocultural change which globalization fosters and to counterbal-
ance it with their own language-and-culture institutions, processes and outcomes’
(2001: 6). Language, yours and mine, is the means through which we situate our
lives in communities. But not all languages are equal. For some speakers it is a
source of security and privilege, and for others it is devoiced insecurity typically
leading to deracination from their communities (see Shani 2015 on the relation
between identity and security in a globalizing world).
The very diversity or ‘differentiation’ of social objects, like languages—what so-
ciolinguists term ‘variation’ and ‘diffusion’—is unstoppable. As neo-functionalist
sociologists narrate, such social objects spread ‘from community membership that
reaches beyond ethnicity to territorial and political criteria [to the] general con-
tours of world history’ (Alexander 1988: 49). This book on the languages of Japan
is, therefore, a description of diversity and ‘differentiation’. It is a recognition of
the linguistic past in the present; many languages have forged the Japan of to-
day. In addition to the indigenous Ainu and the Ryukyuan languages as well as
Japanese Sign Language, there is the historic presence of Chinese and Korean. In
the modern period, Dutch, French, and German have been crucial in culture and
technology, Sanskrit and Latin studied in religious domains, and new language
 introduction 3

communities have emerged in the 20th/21st century. Languages come and go.
Language in society is language in motion.

A grey bell

A grey bell hangs in a city park in western Japan. The dome-shaped bell is
embossed with the map of a borderless world. Its surface bears a multilingual in-
scription. The first is Greek with the aphorism γνῶθι σεαυτóν gnōthi seauton ‘know
thyself ’ by the philosopher Socrates (4th century bce). A Japanese version of this
ancient wisdom reads, 汝自身を知れ nanji jishin o shire. The third inscription is
a quotation written in Sanskrit, rendered in Japanese as, 大無量寿経 daimuryō
jukyō—‘great everlasting life’, taken from one of the Indian Mahayana sutras. The
Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra—the ‘Infinite Life Sutra’—is an influential Sanskrit scrip-
ture in Japanese Buddhism, especially in the ‘Pure Land’ sects, Jōdo-shū and Jōdo
Shinshū.
The trilingual bell hangs in Hiroshima, the first city in the world to be nu-
clear bombed. There is symbolism in this ‘Peace Bell’ forged by the bronze artist
Masahiko Katori (1964). The bell was made in the same year as the 1964 Tokyo
Olympics were held, a turning point for Japan as it attempted to reintegrate a
still war-traumatized nation into global society. In 2021, the Olympic games re-
turned to Japan—a country that is now more multicultural than at any time in its
history—and in the closing days, the multilingual Peace Bell sounded on A-Bomb
day, 6 August.
Great languages of the world, like Sanskrit, Greek, and Japanese, are a sure
guide to knowing who we are and what we need to become. Greek symbolizes
a European culture that has deeply influenced Japanese society. In the 16th cen-
tury, the influx of European culture and languages changed Japan in language and
the arts, science and technology, food and architecture, and philosophy and ed-
ucation. Jesuit presses in Nagasaki published in Japanese, Latin, and Portuguese,
followed by the Dutch trading post of Dejima that functioned as a conduit for
Dutch and German culture during sakoku, the ‘lock up’ of the country from 1633
to 1853 (see the chapter by Florian Coulmas). Meanwhile, in the 20th century,
English achieved a unique prominence in the commercial, cultural, and educa-
tional life of the nation—as described in the chapter by Simon Cookson. Japanese
is one of the vibrant languages of the world spoken by 128 million people in Japan
and found in diaspora throughout the world from Hawaii to Frankurt and from
Southern California to Brazil. Sanskrit was the classical language brought from the
Asian continent. In the 9th century, monks from across Asia assembled in Yamato
(Japan) to pursue Buddhist studies; language teaching in Nara began from 750.
Although Sanskrit is written in the (endangered) Indic sacred alphabet Siddham
(J. shittan), the script is nevertheless studied in monasteries in Japan and extant
4 john c. maher

today throughout the linguistic/religious landscape (see the chapter by John Maher
on Latin and Sanskrit).
Languages change, but their history and value make up the present. In the book
The Languages of Ireland (2003), Michael Cronin and Cormac O Cuilleanain write,
‘For as far back as we can go the island of Ireland has been a host to a variety of
different languages and cultures. Every area of language life and cultural expression
has been informed by this contact with diverse language groups’ (9).
Among the languages and cultures in the volume are Ancient Greek and Latin,
Irish, English, French, German, Ulster Scots, and Irish Sign Language. The book
on Japan presented here adopts a similar stance. People alter their customs and
values over time. They pass them on, together with languages. These connections
can be easily forgotten. People lose interest in traditional practices or they become
difficult to maintain. Migrants, especially, adapt their former ways of doing things
to their new situation. The symbolic meanings attached to features of language and
culture like greetings and dress, food, and family customs may become obscured
and disappear. New ways and social norms supplant them. Language is tradition
in motion.

Minding the gaps

Japan lies geographically on the periphery of the Eurasian continent but lin-
guistically in an axis of language contact and language change in the region.
Japan is a dynamic interplay of territory and community, language and dialect,
people and history. Community languages in Japan have hybrid configurations.
Some are bound to ethnicity—like Ainu. Some are coterminous with territory—
like Ryukyuan, or active in social networking and education—like Japanese Deaf
Sign, or historically linked to urban neighbourhoods like Chinatown and Korea-
town. Some languages are located in migrant-newcomer industrial towns, such as
Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish.
Language is a social kaleidoscope that forms endless shapes and colours: stan-
dard and community languages, indigenous languages, dialects, and styles of
speech. It can take the form of a big common language like Standard Japanese that
unifies citizens, creating a means for nationwide dialogue. It can take the shape
of the historic, regional dialects of Hakata, Kyoto, and Sendai, reflecting differ-
ent histories and traditions. Language is shaped differently in the speech style of
children in a junior high school in urban Osaka or the conversation of old people
doing morning calisthenics in a park in Wakkanai, northern Hokkaido. Language
looks different in the specialist register used in a hospital in downtown Tokyo
and a fishing boat off the coast of Nagasaki. Recognizing diversity is a call to re-
structure attitudes, our doxa of unquestioned views about language in society. The
diversity of languages in various speech communities challenges our conception of
 introduction 5

society. It is also a call to revise the operation of social institutions, like school and
the workplace, so that language and language disadvantage may be more clearly
understood.
In many 21st century nations of the world, there still exists the disjuncture
between popular nostalgia/desire for static traditions and cultural homogeneity
bolstered by robust anti-immigration law, and on the other hand, serious ac-
commodation by local cities and towns to manage and understand their ‘ethnic
spaces’, minority populations, and language diversity. The meta-problem of how
to describe language diversity in society is also a problem of social history. It is a
question of how we picture ‘our past’, ‘our history’, and ‘our national identity’.
This book provides new avenues for reflection on multilingual and multicul-
tural living in Japan. It is both descriptive and illustrative as well as presenting a
sociolinguistics of ideas. It straddles the divide that Heinrich (2019) illuminates
between the laissez-faire and socially uncritical gengo seikatsu (‘language life’), the
traditional study of language in Japan, and a more socially engaged sociolinguis-
tics that is inclusive and questioning. The book narrates the various languages and
communities found in urban and rural life, throughout the Japanese archipelago
today, as well as in the cultural history of Japan. It describes the current situation
of the languages of Japan: mainstream and minority languages, indigenous lan-
guages, and new migrant languages. This book provides a perspective on Japan as
a historic, multilingual region that is undergoing globalization of the economy,
tourism, labour, and migration.

Conceptualization and structure

The Japanese archipelago consists of approximately 1,000 islands. A variety of lan-

guages and dialects are used by a population of 127,000,000 who mostly live in
the densely populated coastal areas along four main islands of Honshu, Kyushu,
Hokkaido, and Shikoku. Cultural and linguistic diversity is part of the heritage of
the Japanese-speaking populations. This book, therefore, captures the situation of
language and cultures of contemporary Japan. A mainstream language—such as
Japanese described in this book from a global as well as multiple perspective—is
itself not a hard-shelled, well-defined entity (see the chapters on global Japanese by
Kazuko Matsumoto and intranational Japanese by Junko Hibiya). Everyday spo-
ken Ainu has declined, but its symbolic cultural role in the Ainu communities is
robust and there are numerous Ainu language classes. Historic languages such as
Chinese and Korean have been spoken and written in Japan for several hundred
years. They have been revitalized by increased migration. The number of new-
comer languages, such as Nepalese and Vietnamese, is increasing as Japan opens
the door to systematic immigration. Language planning which in Europe is termed
‘lesser-known languages’ is taking a new direction. For instance, the profile and
6 john c. maher

general awareness of Japanese Sign Language (JSL) have increased dramatically

and there is pressure for Japan to adopt JSL as an ‘official language’.
The book is divided into three parts that reflect how the languages of Japan might
be conceptualized. This is not a definitive method of categorization, rather one
version; to this editor it seems persuasive.

PART I: National Languages

PART II: Community Languages
PART III: Languages of Culture, Politics, and Modernization

The first part deals with Japanese as the majority language of Japan together with
its dialects, some of which, like Hachijoan, can be considered as distinct languages.
Japanese is also geographically extraterritorial—beyond the Japanese archipelago.
It can be found in South America and the Pacific. The second part deals with
other important but not mainstream mother tongues: the Ryukyuan languages,
Ainu, and JSL. These are a widely recognized as independent languages and an
intangible heritage. The second part begins with the traditional historic language
communities that have been in Japan since ancient times. They can be found in
the present day both in living urban communities and in historic place names
throughout the nation. This section also documents the modern community lan-
guages from Brazilian Portuguese and Spanish to Persian and Urdu. Part III goes
further back in time to examine the languages of culture and modernization—
those languages that have ‘made’ Japanese culture the variegated object that it is
today. The status of English as a global language of communication—sometimes
called English as a lingua franca—has increased in Japan to the extent that it
now can be said—together with an increasingly high-profile JSL—to possess semi-
official status. Lesser-known languages such as Esperanto have also contributed
to Japan’s cultural development. As Japanese society changes its perceptions
about multiculturalism, these new perspectives have implications for educators
and policy makers, language teachers and learners, and political and cultural
commentators.
The chapters of this book adhere to a common structure. Following Alladina
and Edwards (1991), a geolinguistic approach allows us ‘to identify broad trends
which draw together different speech communities since patterns of migration as
well as the sociolinguistic situation, tend to be broadly similar within a given geo-
linguistic area’ (14). The author describes the language situation in the country
of origin including standard language and varieties, the written language and lit-
eracy. This is followed by a brief history of the language community, the history
of arrival and settlement, migration ‘waves’ and the location of the community.
Patterns of language use are described including the linguistic behaviour of speak-
ers in the community, code-switching, intergenerational transmission and shift,
changes in pronunciation, language in the family and bilingualism. Finally, the
 introduction 7

author describes culture, language, and education, languages of church, mosque,

temple, secular organizations, the social life of the community, religious or secular
festivals, weddings and funerals, internet presence, language reproduction, ethnic
schools, and so forth.

Multilingualism in normative structures and transcultural flows

Japan is a hub of language diversity. The Ryukyus (see chapters by Patrick Hein-
rich and Sachiyo Fujita-Round) were thriving regions of transcultural flows for
hundreds of years, but the whole of Japan is today a place of multilingual and mul-
ticultural activity. Multilingual societies come and go. Chinatowns set up in towns
and cities in Japan subsequently disappeared—like Kanda Chinatown in central
Tokyo or the Chinatown of ancient times in Fukuoka where the only trace is its
place name: Tōjinmachi (lit. ‘Chinese-people-town’).

Everyday multilingualism: Past and present

For a big linguistic picture of Japan, we must look to multiple levels of activity.
There are conventional tourist languages in speech and signage stations, streets,
shops, and transport (typically English, Chinese, and Korean). There are ethnic
towns and neighbourhoods like Shin-Okubo in Tokyo (see the chapters by Hye-
Gyeong Ohe and Jie Shi). In addition to international and ethnic schools, English
is found everywhere in education and business, and dense populations of migrant
communities in housing complexes. There is a vibrant multicultural literature:
Japanese writings by ethnic Koreans such as Min Jin Lee’s novel Pachinko, Yang
Sogil’s In Shinjuku, or the tanka poetry of Lee Jungja (Nagune Taryong: The Eter-
nal Traveler; see Lie 2018). By contrast, JSL is a language and culture that possesses
no ‘towns’ but has instead its own social network of conventions and film festivals,
theatre, and sport. It is also noticeable in the media—in television courses and sign
translation, as described in the chapter by Norie Oka.
This book describes the social reality in a Japan that is multilingual and mul-
ticultural away from the cultural iconography of monolingualism. In the last
40 years, there has been a growing body of literature on migrants and migrant
languages in Japan. The chapters here connect an aspiration: tolerance for lan-
guage diversity. This has implications for peace and coexistence. If the 20th
century was bathed in the most powerful ideology of the planet—nationalism—
the 21st century may not look much better. Societies are still troubled by na-
tional and ethnic and religious identities. Likewise, linguistic and cultural plural-
ism within the body politic is still not fully comprehended, taught, learned, or
accepted.
8 john c. maher

Telling the story

Language communities have tales to tell: stories of in- and out-migration, popu-
lation displacement and dispersal, territorial annexation, war, the formation of
a diaspora, trans-generational change, language decline and extinction as well
as language revitalization. To the present day, the space called ‘Japan’ has been
endowed with linguistic, cultural, and ethnic diversity across an archipelago of
almost 7,000 islands stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the
Philippine Sea in the south. Indeed, the ancient inhabitants of the Japanese
archipelago—Jomon and Yayoi populations in particular—have been described as
descendants of ancient Eurasian continental peoples. A historical understanding is
important since Japan’s cultural diversity is not a postmodern phenomenon. Both
Sanskrit and German in their respective domains of religion and science as well as
Vietnamese and Nepali (see the chapters by Mayumi Adachi and Tina Shrestha) in
newly formed urban neighbourhoods are bona fide examples of multilingualism.
The narratives of communities—large and small—are important because they
confront a nation’s dominant self-image, often the baleful heritage of former em-
pires that may rapidly overpower the voices of smaller communities that possess
their own languages and dialects.

Continuity and hypostasis

A book about language and cultural diversity is not a declaration of compassion.

It is a challenge to society’s complicity in the marginalization of citizens, not least
children in school whose mother tongues are set aside, and who are regarded as
linguistically disadvantaged. What mother tongues? This book describes lesser-
known languages, smaller languages, and minority languages. There is a reason for
this. Societies tend towards hypostasis: the essentializing of both a majority and a
minority—the term itself reifies. Essentialisms mask how our language life is lay-
ered. The everyday heteroglossia of an individual in society consists of idiolect and
regional dialect, family-lect, work register, mixed language and code-switching,
and writing and reading.
The discourse of essentialism has its highs and lows. Gayatri Spivak first attacked
the discourse of essentialism, and then later espoused its ‘strategic use’ as a weapon
in the struggle against colonial and neocolonial oppression.

Representation and the politics of being human

The presentation of cultural and linguistic difference in society is an alternative

political representation. This book deals with languages and cultures in Japan.
 introduction 9

Structured narratives are not an exercise in ‘cultural gaze’. The speech commu-
nities described here are not a cultural ‘collection’ (see Morton below); neither is
this book’s approach concerned with social variation and enculturation per se (i.e.
a cultural anthropology). The starting point for this book is to describe the every-
day multilingualism of people who associate with particular speech communities.
The use of multiple languages is a fact of life in Japan.
The anthropologist Miyuki Morita (2007) in her study of the colonial displays
of the Ainu alludes to the problem of the objectivity of Exposition presenters, their
intentions: comparing past displays of the Ainu with current displays in museums
and events. Such displays ‘juxtaposed objects to rank and heighten difference and
to produce new cognitive entities’ (ibid: 142). The new National Ainu Museum
(Kokuritsu Ainu Minzoku Hakubutsukan) in Shiraoi, Hokkaido, which opened in
2020, likewise presents numerous challenges as its mission attempts, ‘to promote
a proper understanding and awareness of Ainu history and culture in Japan and
elsewhere out of respect for the dignity of the indigenous Ainu people whilst con-
tributing to the creation and development of new aspects of Ainu culture’ (2019).
Hidetoshi Shiraishi describes the historical background of these challenges in the
chapter on Ainu. In this book, authors have made reference to the problem of how
‘other’ languages and cultures invited stereotype or symbolize cultural desire (e.g.
the cultural chic of Brazilian bossa nova in Japan’s cafe culture mentioned in the
chapter by Lucila Etsuko Gibo).

Tabunka multiculturalism

There are now over two million foreign residents in Japan, many married to
Japanese citizens. The stunning appearance of multiethnic sportsmen has reignited
discussion about ‘being Japanese’. In field and track athletics, basketball, judo,
rugby, tennis, and football, multiethnic athletes are breaking the conventional
mould of what constitutes national representation. Intermarriage, immigration,
and the increase in the foreign student population are socializing factors that call
for a different set of terms for what are new circumstances. Thus, tabunka kyōsei
(multiculturalism or ‘multicultural co-existence’) comprises a national discourse
about a new identity for Japan—an identity that might be appropriate for a peaceful
and mostly successful society.
There is justifiable desire to make a nation a tangible whole. It is the place
we live in. We want to make sense of it. The categories of understanding by
which we approach a ‘national language regime’ represent the important ques-
tion (Coulmas and Heinrich 2005). Classification tells the story. What sustained
the seemingly endless search for identity and the hegemony of homogeneity? Such
belief must cling to an essentialized and misleading dichotomy of ‘the West’ and
‘Japan’ (Sugimoto 2003). It extrapolates from a visible ethnic homogeneity—that
10 john c. maher

people ‘look the same’. It ignores the cultural and linguistic variation across the
Japanese archipelago that historians and sociologists recognize as a feature of both
ancient and modern/pre-war Japan (Morris-Suzuki 2001; Oguma 2002, 2005). It
ignores the transnational origins and transcultural flows that underpin Japan’s
language, art, cuisine, music, religion, and cultural practices. In Befu’s (2001) com-
pelling analysis, Nihonjinron has served as a form of belief, an ersatz nationalism, a
‘secular religion’ that fills an existential emptiness in the wake of the national catas-
trophe of wartime nationalism and military defeat. The terminology of political
economy has increasingly swung from ideas of Nihonjinron, kokusaika (‘interna-
tionalization’), and globalization towards the discourse of tabunka kyōsei ‘mutual
co-existence’, which points towards a greater consciousness of Japan as an inclusive
and ‘diverse’ society.
Language and cultural diversity is a visible characteristic of 21st century Japan,
in urban as well as rural areas: a multilingual and multicultural diversity threaded
through history (Morton 2000). The Japanese archipelago has always been ‘diverse’:
rich in languages and cultures resulting from the presence of indigenous ethnic
peoples, transnational flows, in-migration from the nearby Eurasian continent as
well as from South America.

Language in national surveys

Language diversity is often missing from the pages of books on Japan, even those
that describe cultural minorities, such as John Lie’s Multiethnic Japan. Linguists
themselves have traditionally selected only particular languages for description.
Shibatani (1991) in The Languages of Japan identified three languages of Japan
because three languages only are held to be ‘indigenous’ to Japan. The term ‘in-
digenous’ might have been extended to include JSL. Maher and Yashiro (2005)
identified five languages and two ‘non-ethnic specific’ topics—‘returnees’ and
‘bilingual families’. There was no entry on JSL. What languages ‘belong’ to a na-
tion? How are they selected? Categorization is meaningful because it signals how
we view national language diversity.
A different approach to the study of language minorities is informed exploration
of sociolinguistic diversity in cities with its superdiverse fluidities. Dirk Smakman
and Patrick Heinrich in Urban Sociolinguistics (2018) investigate ‘the city as a lin-
guistic process and experience’, whilst the more country-specific Routledge Hand-
book of Japanese Sociolinguistics (2019) by Patrick Heinrich and Yumiko Ohara
includes numerous studies of Japan’s multilingual ecology, issues of language plan-
ning, and language varieties. They start with the by now widely accepted canon,
‘While it was once believed that Japan was a linguistically homogenous country,
research over the past two decades has shown Japan to be multilingual and socio-
linguistically diversifying country’ (Introduction). Multilingualism in Japan is part
 introduction 11

of the thesis of that book, specifically that people communicate in increasingly

diverse languages. Likewise, the range of communicative practices in changing
towns and cities is the topic of the illuminating study Metrolingualism—Language
in the City (Pennycook and Otsuji 2015) of the perpetual exchange of languages in
Sydney and Tokyo as people go about their daily lives—buying and selling, eating
and drinking, talking and joking, and getting things done. Peter Backhaus’ unique
Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo
(2007) analysed thousands of multilingual signs (official/non-official) in Tokyo.
Japanese cities are places of language contact containing millions of messages—
spoken and written—transmitted every day. Such studies continue to challenge the
contested notion of a national monolingualism, illuminating a changing language
regime in Japanese towards multilingualism.
This book captures the situation of contemporary Japan as well as its historic
background from the perspective of language and cultures of various communi-
ties. Languages in Japan are layered in local interactions as people go about their
daily lives. Languages are at work and play in a street, shop, or downtown market.
They are Japan’s indigenous languages, historic minority languages, and languages
of cultural impact. As ‘globalization’ in numerous forms affects Japan’s traditional
practice in fields such as labour, economy, inbound tourism, and education, this
book provides an ongoing perspective on Japan as a multicultural and multilingual
region of the world.

Note on names

The traditional Hepburn system is employed in most Japanese names. Some con-
tributors have written their names otherwise. The order of contributor names is
given name followed by family name; the authors of Chapter 22 are family name
then given name. Acknowledging cultural diversity the editor respects the right of
contributors to write and order their names as they prefer.
 PART I

NATIONAL LANGUAGES
 1
Japanese in the world
The diaspora communities
Kazuko Matsumoto

The traditional Palauan language, particularly the dialect spoken by the

people of Angaur State, shall be the language of the State of Angaur.
Palauan, English and Japanese shall be the official languages.
(Article XII, General Provisions, Constitution of the State of
Angaur (1982), The Republic of Palau)

1.1 Japanese diaspora communities

For the past four centuries, Japanese samurai, traders, indentured labourers,
war brides and picture brides, colonial settlers, global business expats, and aca-
demic sojourners have gone abroad. Japanese culture, language, and dialects have
travelled with them evolving in newly formed diaspora communities. Such transi-
tions involve cultural inheritance and adaptation, and the formation of both new
educational and social organizations as well as new contact varieties.
Japanese diaspora communities may be classified into several types based on
the chronology and nature of their establishment: (a) nihon machi (Japan town)
communities; (b) Nikkei (Japanese migrants and their descendants who share a
similar historical experience, whether ethnically homogenous Japanese or ethni-
cally mixed) communities; (c) colonial communities in former Japanese overseas
possessions; (d) contemporary communities of long-term and permanent res-
idents; (e) Japanese language learners overseas. Diaspora Japanese spans the
historical to the present day, with a geographical range that includes Asia-Pacific,
North, Central, and South Americas, and Europe.

Kazuko Matsumoto, Japanese in the world. In: Language Communities in Japan.

Edited by John C. Maher, Oxford University Press.
© Kazuko Matsumoto (2022). DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198856610.003.0002
Another random document with
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forceps of the mosquito-bill pattern. The wound should be large
enough to overcorrect the fault, as the ear springs out more or less
when healed.
Sutures are now introduced. When necessary one or two catgut
sutures are taken through the concha, not going through the anterior
skin, however, and the deeper tissue back of the ear and tied. These
hold the cartilage in place.

Fig. 139.—Author’s method.

Fig. 140.—Cartilage to be Removed. (Author’s method.)

For the coaptation of the skin the continuous suture is to be

preferred, but when the cartilage suture is employed it will be found
impracticable, owing to the close position of the ear to the head. In
that event interrupted sutures must be placed, as shown in the
Monks operation, and tied after the cartilage has been fixed as
described.
Where it is deemed necessary to fix the cartilage in this way, the
author advises to remove an elongated elliptical piece of the concha,
as shown in Fig. 140.
This is neatly done by outlining the section with the scalpel, and
excising it with the aid of a fine pair of scissors, half rounded; the
operator holding the index finger of the left hand in the depression of
the concha anteriorly as a guide to avoid injuring the skin.
After the elliptical exsection a linear incision with the scissors may
be made both superiorly and inferiorly to further mobilize the springy
shell of the ear, which will then be found to fall easily into place.
The bleeding in the latter method is more severe, since the
posterior auricular arteries and the auricular branch of the occipital
have to be severed, yet ligation is rarely necessary.
The interrupted suture may now be applied, varying the site of
puncture as below or above its fellow puncture, as made necessary
by the droop of the ear, with the object of shifting it into a normal
position; or in other words, by raising or lowering it upon tightening
the sutures.
The continuous suture is to be preferred, however, when the
cartilage has been removed as described, since the ear has now
become quite mobile and is easily placed in position.
When the removal of these sutures, which should be of Nos. 5 or 6
twisted silk, is considered, one can comprehend the advisability of
this form of wound closure.
The ear will now appear to lie quite close to the head, compared
with the original position, as shown in Figs. 141 and 142.
The patient is now turned so as to present the other ear, a pad of
gauze and absorbent cotton being placed under the ear operated on
for comfort’s sake.
The second ear is operated as was the first, the operator having
taken note of the form and size of the incision of the ear just finished.
Both ears sutured, the wounds are cleansed thoroughly, though
gently, with fifty-per-cent peroxid of hydrogen and dried and dusted
over with aristol powder.
 Fig. 141. Fig. 142.
Correction of Malposed Auricles. (Author’s case.)

A pad of gauze is placed over each ear and a bandage applied

around the head to protect the wounds and retain the ears, care
being taken not to tighten too tightly, as this occasions great pain
and possible pressure erosion of the skin.
The dressing should be changed on the second day, as there is
usually some soiling of the dressings at the lower angles of the
wounds. They are again powdered, using the pulverflator preferably,
and rebandaged.
The ears will be found to lie very close to the head at this time, if
the operation has been properly done. Anteriorly in the skin of the
concha and corresponding to the line of cartilage exsection will be
found a crease more or less discolored, according to the severity of
injury occasioned by the operation.
This should give the surgeon no concern, as the fold will
accommodate itself in a few days. There may be a persistence of the
fold for some time, however, which, if desirable, can be corrected by
a small secondary operation at a later date. The author has never
experienced the need of such, however.
 The patient at this time usually bemoans the position of his ears,
and should be assured beforehand what was expected, and that the
condition is only temporary.
The dressings after this can be repeated every second or third
day, as may be required, although these wounds heal surprisingly
well.
Moist dressings are to be avoided at all times, they soften the
edges of the wound and prevent primary union.

Fig. 143. Fig. 144.

Posterior View of Replaced Auricles.

The sutures are removed on the ninth or tenth day, whereafter the
patient may be allowed to go without the head bandage, but is
strictly instructed to replace it at night with a band of muslin three
inches wide, snugly pinned around the head to prevent the ears from
being injured or torn away from their new attachment by sudden
movements during sleep. This bandage should be worn at night for
at least a month.
When only a part of the ear is overprominent the operation
undertaken should in the main be according to the methods just
described, the incisions being changed in extent accordingly.
 In the illustrations above, Figs. 143 and 144, are shown the
posterior view of the ears before and after operation. At no time
should the ears be placed too closely to the head, as is often
peculiarly requested by the patient, as it gives an unnatural
appearance and predisposes toward the collection of filth in the
sulcuses that is hard to remove. The distance from the head to the
outer rim of the ear should be about half an inch at its widest part.
 CHAPTER XI
CHEILOPLASTY
(Surgery of the Lips)

This branch of plastic surgery has to do

with the correction of deformities of the lips.
These deformities usually involve one lip
only, and are dependent upon direct
traumatism, operative interference in the
extirpation of malignant growths, particularly
carcinomata, the correction of cicatricial
disfigurement following tubercular or syphilitic
ulceration or congenital faults, commonly met
with in harelip.
Operations for the latter condition have
usually been considered under a separate
heading, but since the restorative procedures
involve methods purely plastic they are
included under this their proper classification.
Owing to the great number of blood
vessels in the lips, it is advisable to resort to
the bloodless method, where the defect to be
Fig. 145. corrected involves more than the superficial
Burchardt structure. This is accomplished:
Compression Forceps.
1. By compressing the coronary arteries at
both angles of the mouth by digital pressure,
suitable clamps or compression forceps. The fenestrated oval
forceps, illustrated in Fig. 145, and designed by Burchardt, or the
harelip clamp of Beinl, Fig. 146, will be found to meet the purpose
well, the latter having a sliding lock by which the pressure upon the
tissue can be regulated to a nicety.
 Fig. 146.—Beinl Harelip Clamp.

2. By clamping off the site of operation with specially made

cutisector forceps. Its smooth parallel jaws should be curved
outward, so that the diseased area can be fully excluded by their
concavities.
3. By employing the indirect ligature of Langenbuch. This is
accomplished by including the site of operation with several strong
silk threads firmly tied in loops upon the skin surface, each loop
including a given amount of tissue, the next encroaching upon it up
to the center of this area, and so on until the entire site is rendered
anemic. The advantage of this method is that with the anemia a
certain amount of anesthesia is produced at the same time; a fact to
be remembered when the patient is to be operated under local
anesthesia, the anemia enhancing the efficacy of the latter.

HARELIP
A congenital defect of the upper lip caused by the lack of proper
union of the maxillary, globular, and frontonasal processes in
embryo. Treves states that from the buccal aspect of the maxillary
process of either side the palatal processes arise, passing inward to
combine with each other to form the soft palate and all of the hard
palate, except the intermaxillary portion, and that from this same
source are formed the cheeks, the outer or lateral parts of the upper
lip, and the superior maxillary bones, while the external nose, the
ethmoid, the vomer, the median portion of the upper lip, and the
intermaxillary or os incisivum are derived from the frontonasal
process.
The fact that these centers of development are concerned in the
formation of the parts involving harelip accounts for the position of
the cleft in the lip as being unilateral or bilateral, and rarely if ever
median or intermaxillary.

Classification of Harelip Deformities

Six varieties of harelip deformity are recognized by Rose, but

herein only five classes of these will be considered, one of which, the
first, is so rare that its occurrence is practically denied.
For all purposes in surgery of the face, in which cosmetic effects
are sought, the author considers the following classification to
answer fully:

1. Median or intermaxillary cleft.

2. Single and double cleft.
3. Facial cleft.
4. Buccal cleft.
5. Mandibular cleft.
 Fig. 147.—Median Cleft. (Engle’s case.)

Fig. 148.—Median Cleft with Rhinophymia.

(Trendelenburg’s case.)

1. Median or Intermaxillary Cleft.—As has been said, the first

variety of this form of lip deformity is very rarely met with. It consists
of a cleft in the median third of the upper lip, more rarely associated
with the absence of the intermaxillary bone and total cleft of the hard
and soft palate. In fact, the entire median section may be absent with
or without absence of the intermaxillary and vomer bones (Engle)
(see Fig. 147). Commonly, however, the cleft involves only a part of
the filtrum of the lip, although Witzel speaks of a case in which the lip
assumed the form of a dog’s nose, the cleft extending upward,
completely dividing the nares from one another, or the entire nose
may be divided in its median line.
When the cleft involves the hard parts—that is, the intermaxillary
bone and the hard palate—it is said to be total.
2. Single and Double Cleft.—The second variety in the above
classification is by far the most common, and is often, therefore,
termed ordinary. In this there exists either a unilateral or bilateral
cleft of the lip of varying degree, depending upon the involvement of
the tissue affected. It is not unusual to find fissures in these cases
extending through the alveolar arch and the hard and soft palate.
This fissure or cleft is always found on one side of the median line,
while in the soft palate it is median.
Most unilateral clefts of the lip will be found to be in the left outer
third. They are more common in the male child.

Fig. 149. Fig. 150. Fig. 151.

Types of Unilateral Cleft.

The degrees of deformity of the soft parts in the unilateral variety

are shown in Figs. 149 to 151, respectively, representing the first,
second, and third degrees of the cleft deformity, according to the
involvement of the lip tissue. In first degree are included small
notches in the prolabium only or extending upward somewhat above
its margin, but not involving the entire lip. In the second degree both
the vermilion border and the lip are divided, while in the third degree
the cleft extends into the nose with an absence of part of the lip
structure itself.
Since the deformity in the division under discussion is so
commonly met with it will be considered fully under its operative
correction.
3. Facial Cleft.—The third class of deformity includes either
unilateral or bilateral fissure of the face.
In the unilateral variety the cleft usually begins at the outer section
of the upper lip, involving, as a rule, only the soft parts, extending
upward and irregularly around the alæ of the nose to the inner
canthus of the eye, or going even beyond the orbit and over the
forehead as far as the hair line. An illustration of such a case is
shown in Fig. 152.
The bilateral form of this facial defect is rarely met with. A case
reported by von Guersant is shown in Fig. 153.
 Fig. 152.—Unilateral Facial Cleft.
(Hasselmann.)

Fig. 153.—Bilateral Facial Cleft. (von

Guersant.)

4. Buccal Cleft.—In the fourth variety the deformity involves the

cheeks, the fissures extending from the angles of the mouth
outward, causing an enlargement of this natural opening, and hence
this defect is better known as macrostoma.
It may affect one or both cheeks. The latter is elucidated in Fig.
154.

Fig. 154.—Buccal Fissure with

Macrostoma.

On the other hand there may exist a congenital contraction of the

mouth termed microstoma. This defect is rarely seen, and is due to a
too free union of the maxillary and mandibular processes. When
observed it is usually associated with improper development of the
inferior maxillary bones.
5. Mandibular Cleft.—In the fifth class the cleft is to be found in
the median line of the lower lip. This fissure, though extremely rare,
may involve only the soft tissue or extend to the inferior maxillary
(Thorndike) and even to the tongue (Wölfler).
From what has been said of the five varieties just mentioned it can
be plainly seen that the defects of the second class are the most
common. Since the correction of such involves methods of an
extensive technique that can be followed more or less in the
restoration of any of the above, this particular subdivision will be
considered fully, but only to the extent of defects of the soft parts,
leaving the osteoplastic and periosteoplastic operations to be studied
elsewhere.
The defects that have to do with facial and buccal clefts will be
more specifically mentioned later on under Melo- and Stomatoplasty.

The Operative Correction of Harelip

The correction of a harelip should be undertaken as early as the

first two weeks after birth in the healthy child. If, however, the infant
is considered too delicate to undergo so early an ordeal, the
operation should be deferred until the third or even the fifth month. At
any rate the operation should be undertaken as early as deemed
advisable, since the closure of the cleft has a desirable effect upon
the ofttime overprominent intermaxillary bone, helps to approximate
its lateral borders, overcomes the later depression deformity of the
upper lip, aids its natural development, and permits of the child
suckling the breast—an important factor in the proper nourishment,
since the defect allows only of feeding with the spoon, the child
being unable to grasp the nipple of the breast in this state.
Furthermore, the act of phonation is practically entirely perfected by
an early operation, and rarely if ever overcome when faulty
phonation has been established.

Unilateral Labial Cleft

The restoration of an unilateral cleft is to be performed without the

use of an anesthetic. The child’s arms are fastened to its sides with
several turns of a wide roller bandage. It is then seated upon the lap
of the assistant, who holds its head in position, compressing the
coronary arteries with his fingers at the outer sections of the upper
lip at the same time. If this is impractical, proper forceps can be
employed, as already mentioned. It is rarely necessary to employ the
direct-ligature method heretofore referred to in this class of
operations. More or less bleeding always accompanies the
operation, the child usually swallowing what enters the mouth if not
sponged up repeatedly.
To facilitate matters the child can be anesthetized, chloroform
being used. In this case the patient is to be placed on its side, the
head being fixed in a dependent position (Rose).
This gives freer drainage of the bleeding surfaces, the blood being
sponged up with gauze sponges as required, while the vessels that
are cut can be tied off with catgut ligatures as fast as they are
divided.
The anesthetic can be given upon a small sponge held before the
nostrils. Infants should not be anesthetized, yet in older children it is
almost always necessary.
A simple freshening of the edges of the defect with the bistoury,
followed by suture, does not give a desired cosmetic effect, hence it
is advisable to resort to methods intended to restore the lip as far as
possible to its normal state.
Nélaton Method.—The simplest operation for a cleft of moderate
extent not involving the nare is that of Nélaton. He divides the lip
above the angle parallel with the defect with a bistoury, cutting
upward, including the upper angle which allows the prolabium
surmounted by a thin strip of skin to droop downward in a point.
The lower angle of the wound is then drawn downward and united
lengthwise with silkworm gut sutures, giving to the prolabium a
protrusion or tip, which eventually retracts and causing the lip to
assume a natural aspect.
The method is shown in Figs. 155-157.
 Fig. 155. Fig. 156. Fig. 157.
Nélaton Method.

Fillebrown Method.—Fillebrown has devised a method where the

vermilion border of the lip is entirely preserved, as in the preceding
operation. His method can only be employed where the cleft is not
extensive. He commences his incision at the red border at the outer
left line, cutting upward and inward toward the median line a short
distance (see Fig. 158), then downward to the red border of the lip,
then upward and outward to the right of the median line,
corresponding to the incision just made to the left of the median line.
The upper angle of the cleft is now drawn down by its red border and
the wound sutured, as shown in Fig. 159. This operation does not
project a small triangle of the white skin into the vermilion border and
gives excellent results.

Fig. 158. Fig. 159.

 Fillebrown Method.

Von Langenbeck, Wolff, and Sedillot Methods.—The methods

of von Langenbeck, Wolff, and Sedillot are somewhat similar to that
of Nélaton. An incision is made slightly above the prolabium,
following the angle of distortion and reaching outward to either side
of the median line almost to the angle of the mouth. The raw edges
corresponding to the defect are brought together by suture and a
section of the prolabium is removed to overcome its
overprominence, but not enough to entirely flatten the vermilion
border (see Figs. 160-161). The latter is sutured horizontally to such
part of the angular defect as has not been utilized in the median line,
and also vertically as far down as its free border, as shown in Fig.
162.

Fig. 160. Fig. 161. Fig. 162.

Von Langenbeck-Wolff-Sedillot Method.

Malgaigne Method.—The method of Malgaigne differs in

technique in that he utilizes a semicircular incision, which is made to
include the upper angle of the defect. Both ends of this incision are
continued horizontally outward to a required extent (see Fig. 163).
The freed prolabial flaps are drawn downward, as in Fig. 164, and
sutured vertically, as shown in Fig. 165. Two retention sutures are
shown in the latter figure to overcome the tension of the lips post
operatio.
 The semicircular incision should be preferred when the defect will
permit it, since the unequal lengths of the two lip halves may thereby
be more uniformly approximated, while the prolabium in being
crowded downward overcomes the notchlike scar so common with
the vertical-incision method.

Fig. 163. Fig. 164. Fig. 165.

Malgaigne Method.

Gräfe Method.—This method, as shown in Fig. 166, is, therefore,

to be preferred when the defect is one of the first or second degree.
The first suture is to be placed at the margin of the vermilion
border and the skin, so that the unequal sides are placed in normal
apposition. The parts are sutured according to the method shown in
Fig. 167.

Fig. 166. Fig. 167.

Gräfe Method.
 Mirault-Bruns Method.—An excellent method of this class is that
of Mirault-Bruns. Their operation is indicated in defects of extensive
degree, and usually gives excellent results. As in the former method
a semicircular incision is made to include the superior angle, and two
other incisions are made somewhat as shown in Fig. 168. The
wound made thereby is shown in Fig. 169. The inferior triangular flap
of one side is utilized to restore the prolabium, the whole being
sutured, as shown in Fig. 170, care being taken to make this flap of
sufficient size to give stability and volume to the lower margin of the
lip.

Fig. 168. Fig. 169. Fig. 170.

Mirault Method.

Giralde Method.—This method is intended for defects of the third

degree. A vertical incision frees the vermilion border on one side,
while an angular cut on the opposite side (see Fig. 171) allows of the
bringing together the lip flaps above it. The wound is made to appear
somewhat as in Fig. 172, and is sutured, as depicted in Fig. 173.
 Fig. 171. Fig. 172. Fig. 173.
Giralde Method.

König Method.—König advocates two vertical incisions which

dispose of the cicatrized borders of the defect. A slanting incision is
added at both sides to free the prolabium (see Fig. 174), giving a
wound when drawn in position, as shown in Fig. 175. In suturing the
wound the vermilion border flaps are turned downward as much as
possible to restore the contour of the prolabium. The sutures are
placed as shown in Fig. 176.

Fig. 174. Fig. 175. Fig. 176.

König Method.

Maas Method.—Maas has deviated from the above method

somewhat, as is shown in Fig. 177, by making one of the prolabial
flaps much larger than the other. His operation is applicable to
defects of maximum extent. The lip wounds are thereby made to
appear as in Fig. 178, and the sutures are applied as in Fig. 179,
with an advantage of leaving a smaller sutured wound to heal by
primary union.