Heterodox
138-501: The Heisei era ( 平成 , Japanese : [heːseː] ) was the period of Japanese history corresponding to the reign of Emperor Emeritus Akihito from 8 January 1989 until his abdication on 30 April 2019. The Heisei era started on 8 January 1989, the day after the death of the Emperor Hirohito , when his son, Akihito, acceded to the throne as the 125th Emperor . In accordance with Japanese customs, Hirohito
276-401: A closed economy , this is because charging zero interest also means having zero return on government securities, or even negative return on short maturities. In an open economy, it creates a carry trade and devalues the currency. A devalued currency produces higher prices for imports without necessarily stimulating exports to a like degree. Deflation is the natural condition of economies when
414-463: A net capital outflow from the economy. It can also occur when there is too much competition and too little market concentration . In the IS–LM model (investment and saving equilibrium – liquidity preference and money supply equilibrium model), deflation is caused by a shift in the supply and demand curve for goods and services. This in turn can be caused by an increase in supply,
552-559: A pure vowel system, phonemic vowel and consonant length, and a lexically significant pitch-accent . Word order is normally subject–object–verb with particles marking the grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is topic–comment . Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no grammatical number or gender , and there are no articles . Verbs are conjugated , primarily for tense and voice , but not person . Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has
690-637: A benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means "[I/we] explained [it] to [him/her/them]". Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action. Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English: The amazed he ran down
828-594: A complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned. The Japanese writing system combines Chinese characters , known as kanji ( 漢字 , ' Han characters') , with two unique syllabaries (or moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: hiragana ( ひらがな or 平仮名 , 'simple characters') and katakana ( カタカナ or 片仮名 , 'partial characters'). Latin script ( rōmaji ローマ字 )
966-671: A decrease in the money supply. Studies of the Great Depression by Ben Bernanke have indicated that, in response to decreased demand, the Federal Reserve of the time decreased the money supply, hence contributing to deflation. Causes include, on the demand side: And on the supply side: Growth deflation is an enduring decrease in the real cost of goods and services as the result of technological progress, accompanied by competitive price cuts, resulting in an increase in aggregate demand. A structural deflation existed from
1104-449: A deflationary spiral. A deflationary spiral is the modern macroeconomic version of the general glut controversy of the 19th century. Another related idea is Irving Fisher 's theory that excess debt can cause a continuing deflation . During severe deflation, targeting an interest rate (the usual method of determining how much currency to create) may be ineffective, because even lowering the short-term interest rate to zero may result in
1242-471: A discount according to distance from the issuing bank and the bank's perceived financial strength. When banks failed their notes were redeemed for bank reserves, which often did not result in payment at par value , and sometimes the notes became worthless. Notes of weak surviving banks traded at steep discounts. During the Great Depression, people who owed money to a bank whose deposits had been frozen would sometimes buy bank books (deposits of other people at
1380-414: A distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighboring languages. Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron ) in rōmaji , a repeated vowel character in hiragana , or a chōonpu succeeding the vowel in katakana . /u/ ( listen )
1518-518: A fall in demand, or both. When prices are falling, consumers have an incentive to delay purchases and consumption until prices fall further, which in turn reduces overall economic activity. When purchases are delayed, productive capacity is idled and investment falls, leading to further reductions in aggregate demand . This is the deflationary spiral. The way to reverse this quickly would be to introduce an economic stimulus . The government could increase productive spending on things like infrastructure or
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#17327657957151656-466: A fall in prices as a supply glut develops. This becomes a deflationary spiral when prices fall below the costs of financing production, or repaying debt levels incurred at the prior price level. Businesses, unable to make enough profit no matter how low they set prices, are then liquidated. Banks get assets that have fallen dramatically in value since their mortgage loan was made, and if they sell those assets, they further glut supply, which only exacerbates
1794-607: A few years earlier, banks requiring payment in gold or silver, the failure of several banks, default by several states on their bonds and British banks cutting back on specie flow to the U.S. This cycle has been traced out on a broad scale during the Great Depression . Partly because of overcapacity and market saturation and partly as a result of the Smoot–Hawley Tariff Act , international trade contracted sharply, severely reducing demand for goods, thereby idling
1932-475: A focus on the former Soviet Union to China . In 2011, the economy of China became the second largest in the world. Japan's economy descended to the world's third largest by nominal GDP . In 2011, a sumo tournament was cancelled for the first time in 65 years over a match fixing scandal. In March 2011, the Tokyo Skytree 634.0 metres (2,080 ft) became the tallest tower in the world. and
2070-437: A given percentage decrease in the monetary base the result is a nearly equal percentage increase in money velocity. This is to be expected because monetary base ( M B ) , velocity of base money ( V B ) , price level ( P ) and real output ( Y ) are related by definition: M B V B = P Y . However, the monetary base is a much narrower definition of money than M2 money supply . Additionally,
2208-419: A glide /j/ and either the first part of a geminate consonant ( っ / ッ , represented as Q) or a moraic nasal in the coda ( ん / ン , represented as N). The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including [ɴ, m, n, ɲ, ŋ, ɰ̃] . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as
2346-458: A great deal of capacity, and setting off a string of bank failures. A similar situation in Japan, beginning with the stock and real estate market collapse in the early 1990s, was arrested by the Japanese government preventing the collapse of most banks and taking over direct control of several in the worst condition. The United States had no national paper money until 1862 ( greenbacks used to fund
2484-404: A large number of considerable fires. The epicenter of the quake lay so close to coastal villages and towns that thousands could not flee in time despite the tsunami warning system , and also, Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant and three other nuclear power plants, serious problems occurred with the cooling systems, ultimately leading to the most serious case of radioactive contamination since
2622-484: A listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations. Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it
2760-411: A lower rate but is still positive. Economists generally believe that a sudden deflationary shock is a problem in a modern economy because it increases the real value of debt , especially if the deflation is unexpected. Deflation may also aggravate recessions and lead to a deflationary spiral ( see later section ). Some economists argue that prolonged deflationary periods are related to
2898-412: A real interest rate which is too high to attract credit-worthy borrowers. In the 21st-century, negative interest rates have been tried, but it cannot be too negative, since people might withdraw cash from bank accounts if they have a negative interest rate. Thus the central bank must directly set a target for the quantity of money (called " quantitative easing ") and may use extraordinary methods to increase
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#17327657957153036-753: A region-wide blackout. The first JSDF dispatch to a peacekeeping operation that was not led by the United Nations was approved in April 2019. Two JGSDF officers were despatched to monitor a cease-fire between Israel and Egypt at the Multinational Force and Observers command in the Sinai peninsula from 19 April till 30 November 2019. In the 30 years of the Heisei era, a total of 18 Japanese (including 3 Japanese-born naturalized foreigners) won
3174-408: A sentence need not be stated and pronouns may be omitted if they can be inferred from context. In the example above, hana ga nagai would mean "[their] noses are long", while nagai by itself would mean "[they] are long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: Yatta! ( やった! ) "[I / we / they / etc] did [it]!". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below),
3312-443: A similar effect to currency pegs. Some believe that, in the absence of large amounts of debt, deflation would be a welcome effect because the lowering of prices increases purchasing power . However, while an increase in the purchasing power of one's money benefits some, it amplifies the sting of debt for others: after a period of deflation, the payments to service a debt represent a larger amount of purchasing power than they did when
3450-428: A single adjective can be a complete sentence: Urayamashii! ( 羨ましい! ) "[I'm] jealous [about it]!". While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases, Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate
3588-534: A target for a short-term interest rate – the overnight federal funds rate in the U.S. – and enforcing that target by buying and selling securities in open capital markets. When the short-term interest rate hits zero, the central bank can no longer ease policy by lowering its usual interest-rate target. With interest rates near zero, debt relief becomes an increasingly important tool in managing deflation. In recent times, as loan terms have grown in length and loan financing (or leveraging)
3726-624: Is compressed rather than protruded , or simply unrounded. Some Japanese consonants have several allophones , which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence /ti/ was palatalized and realized phonetically as [tɕi] , approximately chi ( listen ) ; however, now [ti] and [tɕi] are distinct, as evidenced by words like tī [tiː] "Western-style tea" and chii [tɕii] "social status". The "r" of
3864-674: Is a 33% increase over 2015 (19.73 million). In 2017, 3 out of 4 foreign tourists came from South Korea, China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, according to the Japan National Tourism Organization . Japan activated the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade , its first marine unit since World War II, on 7 April 2018. They're trained to counter invaders from occupying Japanese islands . Japan was the world's largest creditor nation since 1990 and for 22 years straight. By 2018, Japan regained
4002-441: Is a decrease in the general price level of goods and services. Deflation occurs when the inflation rate falls below 0% (a negative inflation rate ). Inflation reduces the value of currency over time, but deflation increases it. This allows more goods and services to be bought than before with the same amount of currency. Deflation is distinct from disinflation , a slowdown in the inflation rate; i.e., when inflation declines to
4140-466: Is a form of money). With the rise of monetarist ideas, the focus in fighting deflation was put on expanding demand by lowering interest rates (i.e., reducing the "cost" of money). This view has received criticism in light of the failure of accommodative policies in both Japan and the US to spur demand after stock market shocks in the early 1990s and in 2000–2002, respectively. Austrian economists worry about
4278-448: Is also seen in o-medetō "congratulations", from medetaku ). Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include pan ("bread") and tabako ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese . Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period (which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese,
Heisei era - Misplaced Pages Continue
4416-527: Is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The numeral system uses mostly Arabic numerals , but also traditional Chinese numerals . Proto-Japonic , the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages , is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the Yayoi period ), replacing
4554-440: Is appropriate to use sensei ( 先生 , "teacher"), but inappropriate to use anata . This is because anata is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status. Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun hon ( 本 ) may refer to a single book or several books; hito ( 人 ) can mean "person" or "people", and ki ( 木 ) can be "tree" or "trees". Where number
4692-701: Is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect ). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers. The Ryūkyūan languages, spoken in Okinawa and the Amami Islands (administratively part of Kagoshima ), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider
4830-466: Is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the Arte da Lingoa de Iapam ). Among other sound changes, the sequence /au/ merges to /ɔː/ , in contrast with /oː/ ; /p/ is reintroduced from Chinese; and /we/ merges with /je/ . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending - te begins to reduce onto
4968-579: Is common among many types of investments, the costs of deflation to borrowers has grown larger. Deflation can discourage private investment, because there is reduced expectations on future profits when future prices are lower. Consequently, with reduced private investments, spiraling deflation can cause a collapse in aggregate demand . Without the "hidden risk of inflation", it may become more prudent for institutions to hold on to money, and not to spend or invest it (burying money). They are therefore rewarded by saving and holding money. This "hoarding" behavior
5106-509: Is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as watashi ( 私 , literally "private") or watakushi (also 私 , hyper-polite form), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ore ( 俺 "oneself", "myself") or boku . Similarly, different words such as anata , kimi , and omae ( お前 , more formally 御前 "the one before me") may refer to
5244-417: Is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a counter word ) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. 人人 , hitobito , usually written with an iteration mark as 人々 ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus Tanaka-san usually means Mx Tanaka . Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through
5382-755: Is less common. In terms of mutual intelligibility , a survey in 1967 found that the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan languages and Tōhoku dialects ) to students from Greater Tokyo were the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture ), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture ), the Kagoshima dialect and the Maniwa dialect (in Okayama Prefecture ). The survey
5520-564: Is not consistent with the usual definition of deflation; a more accurate description for a decrease in the value of a capital asset is economic depreciation . Another term, the accounting conventions of depreciation are standards to determine a decrease in values of capital assets when market values are not readily available or practical. The inflation rate of Greece was negative during three years from 2013 to 2015. The same applies to Bulgaria , Cyprus , Spain , and Slovakia from 2014 to 2016. Greece, Cyprus, Spain, and Slovakia are members of
5658-420: Is often called a topic-prominent language , which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence Zō wa hana ga nagai ( 象は鼻が長い ) literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is zō "elephant", and the subject is hana "nose". Japanese grammar tends toward brevity; the subject or object of
Heisei era - Misplaced Pages Continue
5796-498: Is preserved in words such as matsuge ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern mieru ("to be visible") and kikoeru ("to be audible") retain a mediopassive suffix - yu(ru) ( kikoyu → kikoyuru (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → kikoeru (all verbs with the shimo-nidan conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in Early Modern Japanese )); and
5934-495: Is seen as undesirable by most economists. Friedrich Hayek , a libertarian Austrian-school economist , wrote that: It is agreed that hoarding money, whether in cash or in idle balances, is deflationary in its effects. No one thinks that deflation is in itself desirable. Deflation causes a transfer of wealth from borrowers and holders of illiquid assets to the benefit of savers and of holders of liquid assets and currency, and because confused price signals cause malinvestment in
6072-400: Is the famous liquidity trap . When deflation takes hold, it requires " special arrangements " to lend money at a zero nominal rate of interest (which could still be a very high real rate of interest, due to the negative inflation rate) in order to artificially increase the money supply. Although the values of capital assets are often casually said to deflate when they decline, this usage
6210-409: Is the most populous metropolitan area in the world with an estimated total population of 38,140,000 in 2016. In 2018, Pokémon became the highest-grossing media franchise of all time with an estimated $ 90 billion revenue. Pokémon surpassed the number 2 Hello Kitty ($ 80 billion) and the number 5 Star Wars ($ 65 billion). A record number of 31,191,929 foreign tourists visited Japan in 2018. This
6348-402: Is the version of Japanese discussed in this article. Formerly, standard Japanese in writing ( 文語 , bungo , "literary language") was different from colloquial language ( 口語 , kōgo ) . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. Bungo was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then kōgo gradually extended its influence and
6486-471: Is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the -te iru form indicates a continuous (or progressive) aspect , similar to the suffix ing in English. For others that represent a change of state, the -te iru form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, kite iru means "They have come (and are still here)", but tabete iru means "They are eating". Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have
6624-405: Is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish usted (contracted from vuestra merced , "your ( majestic plural ) grace") or Portuguese você (from vossa mercê ). Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom. The choice of words used as pronouns
6762-584: The 2010 Senkaku boat collision incident caused increased tension between Japan and China. The 2009–2010 Toyota vehicle recalls also took place during this time. The population of Japan peaked at 128 million in 2010. This was Japan's biggest population in history. It declined due to a low birthrate in the following years. In July 2010, The JSDF 's first postwar overseas base was established in Djibouti , Somalia . In December 2010, Japan's 2010 National Defense Program Guidelines changed its defense policy from
6900-573: The Chernobyl disaster (see Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster ), as well as ongoing electric power shortages. Following the earthquake, for the first time, the Emperor addressed the nation in a pre-recorded television broadcast. In August 2011, Naoto Kan resigned, and Yoshihiko Noda became prime minister. Later that year Olympus Corporation admitted major accounting irregularities. (See Tobashi scheme .) Noda pushed for Japan to consider joining
7038-517: The Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands . As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a language isolate . According to Martine Irma Robbeets , Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in
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#17327657957157176-837: The Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had controlled the Japanese government for 38 years. In 1993, the LDP was ousted by a coalition led by Morihiro Hosokawa . However, the coalition collapsed as parties had gathered only to overthrow LDP, and lacked a unified position on almost every social issue. The LDP returned to the government in 1994, when it helped to elect Japan Socialist (later Social Democrat) Tomiichi Murayama as prime minister. The 1990s had an " anime boom" period marked by increased popularity of anime and anime conventions . Several anime media franchises gained global popularity such as Pokémon , Hello Kitty , Sailor Moon , Saint Seiya , Gundam , Fist of
7314-570: The National Diet enacted the 2015 Japanese military legislation that allows the Japan Self-Defense Forces to collective self-defense of allies in combat for the first time under the 1947 constitution . In October 2015, The Japan Self-Defense Forces ranked as the world's fourth most-powerful military in conventional capabilities in a Credit Suisse report. A United Nations report confirmed that Greater Tokyo
7452-546: The Nobel Prize . The country's economy suffered from prolonged stagnation, and both real wages and price levels experienced a decline during the period. According to IMF estimates , the country's GDP per capita was $ 39,953, the third highest in the world, in 1994. In 2019, the last year of the Heisei era, it was $ 40,548, which ranked 27th. To convert any Gregorian calendar year between 1989 and 2019 to Japanese calendar year in Heisei era, 1988 needs to be subtracted from
7590-699: The Panic of 1873 which triggered the Long Depression that lasted until 1879. These deflationary periods preceded the establishment of the U.S. Federal Reserve System and its active management of monetary matters. Episodes of deflation have been rare and brief since the Federal Reserve was created (a notable exception being the Great Depression ) while U.S. economic progress has been unprecedented. A financial crisis in England in 1818 caused banks to call in loans and curtail new lending, draining specie out of
7728-514: The Philippines , and various Pacific islands, 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. Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil , with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than
7866-517: The Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the Ainu , Austronesian , Koreanic , and the now-discredited Altaic , but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from
8004-568: The Tokyo Stock Market index , Nikkei 225 , reached its record high of 38,957. By 1992, it had fallen to 15,000, signifying the end of Japan's famed " bubble economy ". Subsequently, Japan experienced the " Lost Decade ", which actually consisted of more than ten years of price deflation and largely stagnant GDP as Japan's banks struggled to resolve their bad debts and companies in other sectors struggled to restructure. The Recruit scandal of 1988 had already eroded public confidence in
8142-568: The Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership , but was defeated in an election in 2012, being replaced by Shinzō Abe . In January 2013, Shinzo Abe's government introduced economic reforms in response to the consequences of the Lost Decade and Japan's aging demographic crisis . In the first half of 2014, The Toyota became the biggest automaker in the world selling 5.1 million vehicles in
8280-738: The United States (notably in Hawaii , where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California ), and the Philippines (particularly in Davao Region and the Province of Laguna ). Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the de facto national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard : hyōjungo ( 標準語 ) , meaning "standard Japanese", or kyōtsūgo ( 共通語 ) , "common language", or even "Tokyo dialect" at times. The meanings of
8418-806: The de facto standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect , especially that of Kyoto . However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languages—such as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technology—for example, pasokon (short for "personal computer"), intānetto ("internet"), and kamera ("camera"). Due to
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#17327657957158556-521: The dot-com and housing bubbles ), deflation reduces investment even when there is a real-world demand not being met. In modern economies, deflation is usually associated with economic depression, as occurred in the Great Depression and the Long Depression . Deflation was present during most economic depressions in US history. A deflationary spiral is a situation where decreases in the price level lead to lower production, which in turn leads to lower wages and demand, which leads to further decreases in
8694-448: The standard dialect moved from the Kansai region to the Edo region (modern Tokyo ) in the Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and words from English roots have proliferated. Japanese is an agglutinative , mora -timed language with relatively simple phonotactics ,
8832-527: The 1.2 million of the United States ) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru , Argentina , Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada (especially in Vancouver , where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry),
8970-410: The 1870s until the cycle upswing that started in 1895. The deflation was caused by the decrease in the production and distribution costs of goods. It resulted in competitive price cuts when markets were oversupplied. The mild inflation after 1895 was attributed to the increase in gold supply that had been occurring for decades. There was a sharp rise in prices during World War I, but deflation returned at
9108-465: The 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese . Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of European loanwords . The basis of
9246-631: The Bank of Japan. Until the 1930s, it was commonly believed by economists that deflation would cure itself. As prices decreased, demand would naturally increase, and the economic system would correct itself without outside intervention. This view was challenged in the 1930s during the Great Depression . Keynesian economists argued that the economic system was not self-correcting with respect to deflation and that governments and central banks had to take active measures to boost demand through tax cuts or increases in government spending. Reserve requirements from
9384-524: The Civil War), but these notes were discounted to gold until 1877. There was also a shortage of U.S. minted coins. Foreign coins, such as Mexican silver, were commonly used. At times banknotes were as much as 80% of currency in circulation before the Civil War. In the financial crises of 1818–19 and 1837–1841, many banks failed, leaving their money to be redeemed below par value from reserves. Sometimes
9522-522: The Heisei 16 an earthquake and aftershocks rocked the Hokuriku region in Niigata Prefecture , killing 52 and injuring hundreds. In November 2005, The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) 's robotic spacecraft Hayabusa landed on an asteroid and collected samples in the form of tiny grains of asteroidal material, which were returned to Earth aboard the spacecraft on 13 June 2010. It
9660-486: The Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant . The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced [ ŋ ] , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects. The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant,
9798-516: The LDP. As a result of the election, Tarō Asō resigned as leader of the LDP, and Yukio Hatoyama , president of DPJ became prime minister on 16 September 2009. However, DPJ soon became mired in party financing scandals, particularly involving aides close to Ichirō Ozawa . Naoto Kan was chosen by the DPJ as the next prime minister, but he soon lost a working majority in the House of Councillors election , and
9936-642: The North Star , Dragon Ball , Yu-Gi-Oh and Evangelion . In 1995, there was a large 6.8 earthquake in Kobe , Hyōgo and sarin gas terrorist attacks were carried out on the Tokyo Metro by the doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo . Failure of the Japanese government to react to these events promptly led to the formation of non-government organisations which have been playing an increasingly important role in Japanese politics since. On 11 December 1997,
10074-736: The Old Japanese sections are written in Man'yōgana , which uses kanji for their phonetic as well as semantic values. Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct morae . Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of kanji for each of the morae now pronounced き (ki), ひ (hi), み (mi), け (ke), へ (he), め (me), こ (ko), そ (so), と (to), の (no), も (mo), よ (yo) and ろ (ro). (The Kojiki has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo 1 and mo 2 apparently
10212-488: The Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time, most likely the spoken form of Classical Japanese , a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period , but began to decline during the late Meiji period . The Ryūkyūan languages are classified by UNESCO as 'endangered', as young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand
10350-595: The U.S. The Bank of the United States also reduced its lending. Prices for cotton and tobacco fell. The price of agricultural commodities also was pressured by a return of normal harvests following 1816, the year without a summer , that caused large scale famine and high agricultural prices. There were several causes of the deflation of the severe depression of 1839–1843, which included an oversupply of agricultural commodities (importantly cotton) as new cropland came into production following large federal land sales
10488-543: The addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as -tachi , but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as Tanaka-san-tachi may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as hitobito "people" and wareware "we/us", while the word tomodachi "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form. Verbs are conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which
10626-426: The asking price for their goods. When this happens, consumers pay less for those goods, and consequently, deflation has occurred, since purchasing power has increased. Rising productivity and reduced transportation cost created structural deflation during the accelerated productivity era from 1870 to 1900, but there was mild inflation for about a decade before the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. There
10764-432: The bank) at a discount and use them to pay off their debt at par value. Deflation occurred periodically in the U.S. during the 19th century (the most important exception was during the Civil War). This deflation was at times caused by technological progress that created significant economic growth, but at other times it was triggered by financial crises – notably the Panic of 1837 which caused deflation through 1844, and
10902-634: The biggest overseas troop deployment since World War II without the sanction of the UN. The mission lasted until February 2009. The 2002 FIFA World Cup was the first FIFA World Cup to be held in Asia , the first to be held outside of the Americas or Europe, as well as the first to be jointly-hosted by more than one nation. This world championship for men's national football teams was jointly hosted by Japan and South-Korea to improve relations. On 23 October 2004,
11040-524: The central bank could start expanding the money supply . Deflation is also related to risk aversion , where investors and buyers will start hoarding money because its value is now increasing over time. This can produce a liquidity trap or it may lead to shortages that entice investments yielding more jobs and commodity production. A central bank cannot, normally, charge negative interest for money, and even charging zero interest often produces less stimulative effect than slightly higher rates of interest. In
11178-427: The central bank were high compared to recent times. So were it not for redemption of currency for gold (in accordance with the gold standard), the central bank could have effectively increased money supply by simply reducing the reserve requirements and through open market operations (e.g., buying treasury bonds for cash) to offset the reduction of money supply in the private sectors due to the collapse of credit (credit
11316-467: The central bank. Debt deflation is a complicated phenomenon associated with the end of long-term credit cycles. It was proposed as a theory by Irving Fisher (1933) to explain the deflation of the Great Depression . From a monetarist perspective, deflation is caused primarily by a reduction in the velocity of money or the amount of money supply per person. A historical analysis of money velocity and monetary base shows an inverse correlation: for
11454-476: The date set for Akihito's abdication. The Era of Naruhito's reign began the next day. 1989 marked the culmination of one of the most rapid economic growth spurts in Japanese history. With a dramatically strengthened yen after the 1985 Plaza Accord , the Bank of Japan kept interest rates low, sparking an investment boom that drove Tokyo property values up 60 percent within that year. Shortly before New Year's Day,
11592-419: The debt was first incurred. Consequently, deflation can be thought of as an effective increase in a loan's interest rate. If, as during the Great Depression in the United States, deflation averages 10% per year, even an interest-free loan is unattractive as it must be repaid with money worth 10% more each year. Under normal conditions, most central banks, such as the Federal Reserve, implement policy by setting
11730-575: The deflation only lowered the cost of goods that benefited from recent improved methods of manufacturing and transportation. Goods produced by craftsmen did not decrease in price, nor did many services, and the cost of labor actually increased. Also, deflation did not occur in countries that did not have modern manufacturing, transportation and communications. By the end of the 19th century, deflation ended and turned to mild inflation. William Stanley Jevons predicted rising gold supply would cause inflation decades before it actually did. Irving Fisher blamed
11868-401: The discount depended on the financial strength of the bank. In recent years changes in the money supply have historically taken a long time to show up in the price level, with a rule of thumb lag of at least 18 months. More recently Alan Greenspan cited the time lag as taking between 12 and 13 quarters. Bonds, equities and commodities have been suggested as reservoirs for buffering changes in
12006-578: The effect of changing Japanese into a mora-timed language. Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period and the Muromachi period , respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries; and thus there
12144-615: The end of the Shōwa era , and heralded the new era name "Heisei" for the new Emperor, and explained its meaning. According to Obuchi, the name "Heisei" was taken from two Chinese history and philosophy books , namely Records of the Grand Historian ( 史記 ) and the Book of Documents ( 書経 ). In the Records of the Grand Historian , a sentence appears in a section honoring the wise rule of
12282-512: The financial center in the Northeast to the commodity producing regions of the (mid)-West and South. In a procyclical manner, prices of commodities rose when capital was flowing in, that is, when banks were willing to lend, and fell in the depression years of 1818 and 1839 when banks called in loans. Also, there was no national paper currency at the time and there was a scarcity of coins. Most money circulated as banknotes, which typically sold at
12420-400: The form of underinvestment. In this sense, its effects are the opposite of inflation, the effect of which is to transfer wealth from currency holders and lenders (savers) and to borrowers, including governments, and cause overinvestment. Whereas inflation encourages short term consumption and can similarly overstimulate investment in projects that may not be worthwhile in real terms (for example,
12558-609: The genitive particle ga remains in intentionally archaic speech. Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the Heian period , from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the literary standard of Classical Japanese , which remained in common use until the early 20th century. During this time, Japanese underwent numerous phonological developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of Chinese loanwords . These included phonemic length distinction for both consonants and vowels , palatal consonants (e.g. kya ) and labial consonant clusters (e.g. kwa ), and closed syllables . This had
12696-410: The inflationary impact of monetary policies on asset prices. Sustained low real rates can cause higher asset prices and excessive debt accumulation. Therefore, lowering rates may prove to be only a temporary palliative, aggravating an eventual debt deflation crisis. When the central bank has lowered nominal interest rates to zero, it can no longer further stimulate demand by lowering interest rates. This
12834-468: The internal economy, there is no pressing need for individuals to acquire official currency except to pay for imported goods. If a country pegs its currency to one of another country that features a higher productivity growth or a more favourable unit cost development, it must – to maintain its competitiveness – either become equally more productive or lower its factor prices (e.g., wages). Cutting factor prices fosters deflation. Monetary unions have
12972-699: The international treaty called the Kyoto Protocol to regulate greenhouse gas emissions was adopted by 192 parties in Kyoto , Japan. During this era, Japan reemerged as a military power. In 1991, Japan made a financial contribution of $ 10 billion and sent military hardware for the Gulf War . However, Article 9 of the Constitution prevented a participation in the actual war, leading Iran to criticize Japan for just pledging money and did not appreciate
13110-458: The languages of the original Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern Ainu language . Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from Old Japanese , or comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and Japanese dialects . The Chinese writing system
13248-449: The languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryūkyūan languages, and is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands . Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education , mass media , and an increase in mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration. Japanese is a member of
13386-427: The large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between [tɕi] and [ti] , and [dʑi] and [di] , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords. Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II , through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea , as well as partial occupation of China ,
13524-686: The leading position as the predominant source of saving and investments. Japan owned net global assets of ¥328 trillion, Germany (¥262 trillion), China (¥205 trillion). In September 2018, Naomi Osaka became the first Japanese woman to contest a Grand Slam singles final and the first Japanese Grand Slam singles champion. Naomi Osaka was the winner of the 2018 US Open Women's Singles. In 2018, extraordinarily heavy rainfall in Western Japan led to many deaths in Hiroshima and Okayama. Also, an earthquake struck Hokkaido , killing 41 and causing
13662-494: The legendary Chinese Emperor Shun , reading " 内平外成 " ( Kanbun : 内平かに外成る , Uchi tairaka ni soto naru , "flat inside and outside"). In the Book of Documents , the sentence " 地平天成 " ( Kanbun : 地 平 かに天 成 る , Chi tairaka ni ten naru , "the earth is perfect") appears. By combining both meanings, Heisei is intended to mean "peace everywhere". The Heisei era went into effect immediately upon the day after Emperor Akihito's succession to
13800-483: The money supply. In modern credit-based economies, deflation may be caused by the central bank initiating higher interest rates (i.e., to "control" inflation), thereby possibly popping an asset bubble . In a credit-based economy, a slow-down or fall in lending leads to less money in circulation, with a further sharp fall in money supply as confidence reduces and velocity weakens, with a consequent sharp fall-off in demand for employment or goods. The fall in demand causes
13938-535: The notes became worthless, and the notes of weak surviving banks were heavily discounted. The Jackson administration opened branch mints, which over time increased the supply of coins. Following the 1848 finding of gold in the Sierra Nevada , enough gold came to market to devalue gold relative to silver. To equalize the value of the two metals in coinage, the US mint slightly reduced the silver content of new coinage in 1853. When structural deflation appeared in
14076-425: The only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions. The basic sentence structure is topic–comment . For example, Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu ( こちらは田中さんです ). kochira ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by
14214-470: The out-group gives a benefit to the in-group, and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, oshiete moratta ( 教えてもらった ) (literally, "explaining got" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means "[he/she/they] explained [it] to [me/us]". Similarly, oshiete ageta ( 教えてあげた ) (literally, "explaining gave" with
14352-415: The particle wa . The verb desu is a copula , commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, Tanaka-san desu is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages,
14490-399: The price level. Since reductions in general price level are called deflation, a deflationary spiral occurs when reductions in price lead to a vicious circle , where a problem exacerbates its own cause. In science, this effect is also known as a positive feedback loop. Another economic example of this situation in economics is the bank run . The Great Depression was regarded by some as
14628-481: The proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian languages , especially Austronesian . None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support. Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as
14766-459: The same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle -ka is added. For example, ii desu ( いいです ) "It is OK" becomes ii desu-ka ( いいですか。 ) "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle -no ( の ) is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: Dōshite konai-no? "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning
14904-641: The second tallest structure in the world after the Burj Khalifa . On 11 March 2011 at 2:46 p.m., Japan was hit by the Tōhoku earthquake of a magnitude scale of 9.0 , the strongest recorded earthquake in its history , affecting places in the three regions of Tohoku , Chubu and Kanto in the northeast of Honshu , including the Tokyo area. A tsunami with waves of up to 10 meters (32.5 feet) flooded inland areas several kilometers from shore, causing
15042-500: The situation. To slow or halt the deflationary spiral, banks will often withhold collecting on non-performing loans ( as in Japan , and most recently America and Spain). This is often no more than a stop-gap measure, because they must then restrict credit, since they do not have money to lend, which further reduces demand, and so on. In the early economic history of the United States, cycles of inflation and deflation correlated with capital flows between regions, with money being loaned from
15180-483: The six months ending 30 June 2014, an increase of 3.8% on the same period the previous year. Volkswagen AG recorded sales of 5.07 million vehicles. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe sought to end deflation , but Japan entered recession again in 2014 largely due to a rise in sales tax to 8%. Abe called an election in December, and promised to delay further sales tax hikes to 2018. He won the election. On 18 September 2015,
15318-817: The state as at the time the constitution was written, many of the elders participating in the process had been educated in Japanese during the South Seas Mandate over the island shown by the 1958 census of the Trust Territory of the Pacific that found that 89% of Palauans born between 1914 and 1933 could speak and read Japanese, but as of the 2005 Palau census there were no residents of Angaur that spoke Japanese at home. Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent , inflectional morphology , vocabulary , and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel and consonant inventories, although this
15456-481: The street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun) But one can grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese: 驚いた彼は道を走っていった。 Transliteration: Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta. (grammatically correct) This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as kimi "you" ( 君 "lord"), anata "you" ( あなた "that side, yonder"), and boku "I" ( 僕 "servant"). This
15594-434: The supply and demand for goods and the supply and demand for money, specifically the supply of money going down and the supply of goods going up. Historic episodes of deflation have often been associated with the supply of goods going up (due to increased productivity) without an increase in the supply of money, or (as with the Great Depression and possibly Japan in the early 1990s) the demand for goods going down combined with
15732-507: The supply of money is fixed, or does not grow as quickly as population and the economy. When this happens, the available amount of hard currency per person falls, in effect making money more scarce, and consequently, the purchasing power of each unit of currency increases. Deflation also occurs when improvements in production efficiency lower the overall price of goods. Competition in the marketplace often prompts those producers to apply at least some portion of these cost savings into reducing
15870-512: The supply of money, e.g. purchasing financial assets of a type not usually used by the central bank as reserves (such as mortgage-backed securities ). Before he was Chairman of the United States Federal Reserve , Ben Bernanke claimed in 2002, "sufficient injections of money will ultimately always reverse a deflation", although Japan's deflationary spiral was not broken by the amount of quantitative easing provided by
16008-467: The throne on 1 May midnight local time. On 7 January 1989, at 07:55 AM JST , the Grand Steward of Japan's Imperial Household Agency , Shōichi Fujimori, announced Emperor Hirohito's death at 6:33 AM JST , and revealed details about his cancer for the first time. Shortly after the death of the Emperor, Keizō Obuchi , then Chief Cabinet Secretary and later Prime Minister of Japan , announced
16146-609: The throne on 7 January 1989. In August 2016, Emperor Akihito gave a televised address to the nation, in which he expressed concern that his age would one day stop him from fulfilling his official duties. This was an implication of his wish to retire. The Japanese Diet passed a law in June 2017 to allow the throne to pass to Akihito's son, Naruhito . After meeting with members of the Imperial House Council, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe announced that 30 April 2019 would be
16284-558: The topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: Kore wa? "(What about) this?"; O-namae wa? ( お名前は？ ) "(What's your) name?". Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, Pan o taberu ( パンを食べる。 ) "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes Pan o tabenai ( パンを食べない。 ) "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are i -adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. Pan o tabenakatta ( パンを食べなかった。 ) "I did not eat bread". Deflation In economics , deflation
16422-419: The two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic consonant. Japanese also includes a pitch accent , which is not represented in moraic writing; for example [haꜜ.ɕi] ("chopsticks") and [ha.ɕiꜜ] ("bridge") are both spelled はし ( hashi ) , and are only differentiated by the tone contour. Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb . Unlike many Indo-European languages ,
16560-577: The two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. Bungo still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II are still written in bungo , although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). Kōgo is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although bungo grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect. The 1982 state constitution of Angaur , Palau , names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of
16698-480: The two terms (''hyōjungo'' and ''kyōtsūgo'') are almost the same. Hyōjungo or kyōtsūgo is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the Meiji Restoration ( 明治維新 , meiji ishin , 1868) from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote ). Hyōjungo is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It
16836-407: The underlying technological progress in an economy, because as productivity increases ( TFP ), the cost of goods decreases. Deflation usually happens when supply is high (when excess production occurs), when demand is low (when consumption decreases), or when the money supply decreases (sometimes in response to a contraction created from careless investment or a credit crunch ) or because of
16974-431: The velocity of the monetary base is interest-rate sensitive, the highest velocity being at the highest interest rates. In the early history of the United States, there was no national currency and an insufficient supply of coinage. Banknotes were the majority of the money in circulation. During financial crises, many banks failed and their notes became worthless. Also, banknotes were discounted relative to gold and silver,
17112-407: The verb (e.g. yonde for earlier yomite ), the -k- in the final mora of adjectives drops out ( shiroi for earlier shiroki ); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. hayaku > hayau > hayɔɔ , where modern Japanese just has hayaku , though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting o-hayō gozaimasu "good morning"; this ending
17250-539: The war's end. By contrast, under a fiat monetary system, there was high productivity growth from the end of World War II until the 1960s, but no deflation. Historically not all episodes of deflation correspond with periods of poor economic growth. Productivity and deflation are discussed in a 1940 study by the Brookings Institution that gives productivity by major US industries from 1919 to 1939, along with real and nominal wages. Persistent deflation
17388-642: The way Japan co-operated in the Gulf War. However, after the war, between 26 April and October 1991 six JMSDF minesweeper vessels were sent and removed 34 sea mines in the Persian Gulf to improve the safety of ships. Following the Iraq War , in 2003, Prime Minister Junichirō Koizumi 's Cabinet approved a plan to send about 1,000 soldiers of the Japan Self-Defense Forces to help in Iraq's reconstruction ,
17526-548: The world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu , Korean , Chinese , Tibeto-Burman , Uralic , Altaic (or Ural-Altaic ), Austroasiatic , Austronesian and Dravidian . At the fringe, some linguists have even suggested a link to Indo-European languages , including Greek , or to Sumerian . Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or
17664-508: The worldwide inflation of the pre-WWI years on rising gold supply. In economies with an unstable currency, barter and other alternate currency arrangements such as dollarization are common, and therefore when the 'official' money becomes scarce (or unusually unreliable), commerce can still continue (e.g., most recently in Zimbabwe ). Since in such economies the central government is often unable, even if it were willing, to adequately control
17802-511: The year in question. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] ) is the principal language of the Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people . It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan , the only country where it is the national language , and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes
17940-478: The years following 1870, a common explanation given by various government inquiry committees was a scarcity of gold and silver, although they usually mentioned the changes in industry and trade we now call productivity. However, David A. Wells (1890) notes that the U.S. money supply during the period 1879-1889 actually rose 60%, the increase being in gold and silver, which rose against the percentage of national bank and legal tender notes. Furthermore, Wells argued that
18078-524: Was posthumously renamed "Emperor Shōwa" on 31 January 1989. Thus, 1989 corresponds to Shōwa 64 up until 7 January and Heisei 1 ( 平成元年 , Heisei gannen , gannen means "first year") from 8 January. The Heisei era ended on 30 April 2019 (Heisei 31), with the abdication of Akihito from the Chrysanthemum Throne . It was succeeded by the Reiwa era as then-crown prince Naruhito ascended
18216-539: Was based on 12- to 20-second-long recordings of 135 to 244 phonemes , which 42 students listened to and translated word-for-word. The listeners were all Keio University students who grew up in the Kanto region . There are some language islands in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island , whose dialects are descended from Eastern Old Japanese . Dialects of the Kansai region are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka dialect in particular
18354-400: Was clearly understood as being the result of the enormous gains in productivity of the period. By the late 1920s, most goods were over supplied, which contributed to high unemployment during the Great Depression. Bank credit deflation is a decrease in the bank credit supply due to bank failures or increased perceived risk of defaults by private entities or a contraction of the money supply by
18492-735: Was imported to Japan from Baekje around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in Classical Chinese , although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the kanbun method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the Kojiki , dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, kanbun , and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period,
18630-405: Was inflation during World War I , but deflation returned again after the war and during the 1930s depression. Most nations abandoned the gold standard in the 1930s so that there is less reason to expect deflation, aside from the collapse of speculative asset classes, under a fiat monetary system with low productivity growth. In mainstream economics , deflation may be caused by a combination of
18768-474: Was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of morae shrank to 67 in Early Middle Japanese , though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for /je/ , which merges with /e/ before the end of the period. Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle tsu (superseded by modern no )
18906-513: Was selected by his party. In 2008, Greater Tokyo has the largest metropolitan economy in the world with a total GDP (nominal) of approximately $ 2 trillion (¥165 trillion). Greater Tokyo also has the largest metropolitan population in the world with an estimated 35 million. In August 2009, for the first time, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) won 308 seats in the lower house election , which ended 50 years of political domination by
19044-517: Was the first spacecraft in history designed to deliberately land on an asteroid and then take off again. The Hayabusa mission was the first to return an asteroid sample to Earth for analysis. After an election defeat, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe resigned suddenly, and in Autumn 2007 Yasuo Fukuda became prime minister. Fukuda in turn resigned in September 2008 citing political failings, and Tarō Asō
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