A study by Lee and Hasegawa from the Waseda University using linguistic, archeologic and genetic evidence, found that the Ainu are significantly linked to the Okhotsk culture of northern Hokkaido.

[3] Oral history records Ainu displacement of a people in central Sakhalin that they called the Tonchi, who, based on toponymic evidence, were Nivkh.

These were elicited from Ainu native speakers who lived either on Sakhalin or in Hokkaido, after they had been deported from Russia to Japan.

A number of narratives from the south-eastern coast of Sakhalin were also elicited by Piłsudski[6] from native speakers living in the Ainu settlements of Ay, Hunup, Takoye, Sieraroko, Ocohpoka, Otasan down to Tunayci, nearby today's Tunay Lake [ru] (Russian: Озеро Тунайча).

In Japan, final /x/ was written as a small katakana h with an echo vowel, and is transliterated as h. Thus アㇵ ah, イㇶ ih, ウㇷ uh, エㇸ eh, オㇹ oh.