Due to the colonization policy employed by the Japanese government, the number of Hokkaido Ainu speakers decreased through the 20th century, and it is now moribund.

A very low number of elderly people still speak the language fluently, though attempts are being made to revive it.

[9] The Japanese government made a decision to recognize Ainu as an indigenous language in June 2008.

[10][4] The Japanese government approved and passed a bill officially recognising the indigeneity of the Ainu people in 2019.

[11][12] On 12 July 2020, the Japanese government opened the National Ainu Museum in Shiraoi, Hokkaido.

Its director, Masahiro Nomoto, says that "One of our main objectives is to preserve and revive the language, as this is one of the most threatened elements of Ainu culture".

A glottal stop [ʔ] is often inserted at the beginning of words, before an accented vowel, but is non-phonemic.

Ainu has a canonical word order of subject, object, verb,[17] and uses postpositions rather than prepositions.

Applicatives may be used in Ainu to place nouns in dative, instrumental, comitative, locative, allative, or ablative roles.

Ainu has a system of verbal affixes (shown below) which mark agreement for person and case.

'[20]金田一KindaichiKindaichi殿tonochiefニㇱパnispasirクヌカㇻ。ku-nukar.1SG-see (Ishikari) 金田一 殿 ニㇱパ クヌカㇻ。Kindaichi tono nispa ku-nukar.Kindaichi chief sir 1SG-see'I met Mr.

As few fonts yet support these extensions, workarounds exist for many of the characters, such as using a smaller font with the regular katakana ク ku to produce ク to represent the separate small katakana glyph ㇰ ku used as in アイヌイタㇰ (Ainu itak).

A number of previously proposed characters have not been added to Unicode as they can be represented as a sequence of two existing codepoints.

The Ainu have a rich oral tradition of hero-sagas called yukar, which retain a number of grammatical and lexical archaisms.

[25] Ainu literature includes nonfiction, such as their history and "hunting adventures," and fiction such as stories about spiritual avatars, magic,[26] myths, and heroes.

[25] The oral literature of the Ainu languages has been studied mainly by Japanese and European researchers;[27] thus, Ainu literature has been transcribed using writing systems such as Japanese katakana (commonly used for foreign-language text) and the Latin alphabet, and documented in the languages of the researchers themselves.

[29] In addition, Piłsudski made audio recordings from 1902 to 1903, which is believed to be the first attempt to do so in the history of Ainu oral literature study.

[4] Ainu oral literature has been documented both in hopes of safeguarding it for future generations, as well as using it as a teaching tool for language learners.

[5] In spite of these efforts, as of 2011[update] the Ainu language was not yet taught as a subject in any secondary school in Japan.

[37] This act had aims to promote, disseminate, and advocate on behalf of Ainu cultural traditions.

[6] The main issue with this act however, was that not a single Ainu person was included in the "Expert" meetings prior to the law's passage, and as a result of this there was no mention of language education and how it should be carried out.

The course put extensive efforts in promoting the language, creating 4 text books in each season throughout the year.

[41] In addition, the Ainu language has been seen in public domains such as the outlet shopping complex's name, Rera, which means 'wind', in the Minami Chitose area and the name Pewre, meaning 'young', at a shopping centre in the Chitose area.

The effort is a collaborative and cooperative program for individuals wishing to learn about Ainu languages.

[43] On 15 February 2019, Japan approved a bill to recognize the Ainu language for the first time[44][45] and enacted the law on April 19, 2019.

[46] Outside of Japan, there have also been efforts to revive the Ainu culture and language in other countries, including Australia[47] and Russia.