| Language Japanese | Locality Vashi |
Japanese is a language spoken by over 120 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic (or Japanese-Ryukyuan) language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been spoken outside. Before and during World War II, when Japan occupied Korea, Taiwan, parts of China, the Philippines, and various Pacific islands,[9] locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese.