Where Japanese (as a language) had its beginnings is still uncertain. However, historians agree that Japanese belongs to the Japonic language group. But no conclusive evidence has been found to prove the language’s origin. The most plausible hypothesis points to the probability of Japanese being a part of the Altaic family, which includes Turkish, Tungusic, Mongolian and Korean; the closest relative being Korean. Some other linguists suggest a hybrid theory – Japanese belongs to the Altaic family, but draws from Austronesian languages by heavy lexical borrowing.
When China introduced its writing system about 1500 years ago, the Japanese began to make records of their language through poetry and prose. The language that was in effect during this era was Old Japanese and many of its distinctive features have been washed away over time. For example, the eight vowels from Old Japanese are now reduced to five, and a number of grammatical and morphological elements have been changed as well. It was between the 12th and 16th century A.D. that the transition from Old Japanese to modern Japanese took place.
There are a whole bunch of Japanese dialects in use throughout the four main islands as well as the smaller islands such as Okinawa and others. Often, people speaking one dialect find it hard to understand another. There is a standard dialect though for ease of communication between islands. The language spoken in Tokyo, which is closest to the standard dialect, has the most number of speakers, along with the one spoken in western Japan (in cities such as Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe). With the spread of the standard dialect through television and radio, most people are familiar with both - their native dialect as well as the standard dialect.
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