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81-461: Sumitomo Corporation ( Japanese : 住友商事株式会社 , Hepburn : Sumitomo Shōji kabushiki gaisha ) is one of the largest worldwide sōgō shōsha general trading companies, and is a diversified corporation . The company was incorporated in 1919 and is a member company of the Sumitomo Group . It is listed on three Japanese stock exchanges (Tokyo, Nagoya and Fukuoka) and is a constituent of

162-400: A keiretsu business group centered on itself and Sumitomo Bank . Sumitomo's strategy focused on natural resources through 2014, when the company booked hundreds of billions of yen in losses on tight oil (shale oil) and other energy-related investments. The company's president, Kuniharu Nakamura, attributed these losses to both adverse market factors and Sumitomo's relative inexperience in

243-637: 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

324-414: 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 )

405-419: 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

486-488: A global inventory of estimated recoverable tight oil and tight gas resources in shale formations, "Technically Recoverable Shale Oil and Shale Gas Resources: An Assessment of 137 Shale Formations in 41 Countries Outside the United States." The inventory is incomplete due to exclusion of tight oil and gas from sources other than shale such as sandstone or carbonates , formations underlying the large oil fields located in

567-484: 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

648-702: A sales staff of just 32 people. The firm listed its shares on the Osaka, Tokyo and Nagoya Stock Exchanges in 1949. As regulations on large companies were relaxed in the 1950s, Nippon Engineering resumed closer relations with other Sumitomo Group companies through the "White Water Club" ( Hakusui-kai ), a coordinating meeting of company presidents. The company began to grow overseas in the 1950s, starting business in Mumbai in 1950 and in New York City in 1952. It changed its name to Sumitomo Shoji Kaisha, Ltd. in 1952. By

729-408: 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),

810-428: 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

891-879: A single horizontal drill hole, the amount recovered may vary, as may recovery within a field or even between adjacent wells. This makes evaluation of plays and decisions regarding the profitability of wells on a particular lease difficult. Production of oil from tight formations requires at least 15 to 20 percent natural gas in the reservoir pore space to drive the oil toward the borehole; tight reservoirs which contain only oil cannot be economically produced. Formations which formed under marine conditions contain less clay and are more brittle, and thus more suitable for fracking than formations formed in fresh water which may contain more clay. Formations with more quartz and carbonate are more brittle. The natural gas and other volatiles in LTO make it more hazardous to handle, store, and transport. This

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972-680: 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

1053-421: 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 a complex system of honorifics , with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of

1134-448: 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,

1215-527: 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

1296-440: 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

1377-701: 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

1458-466: 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

1539-509: 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

1620-417: 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

1701-736: Is in the Ambatovy nickel mining project in Madagascar , where it had invested approximately $ 2.4 billion as of 2015 in a joint venture with Korea Resources and others. Sumitomo is a 50% investor in SES Water , a UK water supply company, together with Osaka Gas. Sumitomo is a major investor in the Turo car-rental service, and plans to facilitate the service's debut in Japan around 2020. Sumitomo, along with Mitsubishi Heavy Industries , worked with

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1782-755: 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

1863-420: 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

1944-757: Is one of the reasons behind the price drop in late 2014. Outside the United States and Canada, development of shale oil (tight oil) resources may be limited by the lack of available drilling rigs: 2/3 of the world's active drill rigs are in the US and Canada, and rigs elsewhere are less likely to be equipped for horizontal drilling. Drilling intensity may be another constraint, as tight-oil development requires far more completed wells than does conventional oil. Leonardo Maugeri considers this will be "an insurmountable environmental hurdle in Europe". Detailed studies on production behaviour in prolific shale plays were light tight oil

2025-498: 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

2106-461: Is produced have shown that the average monthly initial production of a tight oil well is around 500 barrels/day, which yields an estimated ultimate recovery in the range 150-290 thousand barrels. As a consequence, exploitation of tight oil tends to be drilling intensive with many new wells needed to ramp up and maintain production over time. Following are estimates of technically recoverable volumes of tight oil associated with shale formations, made by

2187-665: 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 the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language . There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as

2268-402: 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

2349-471: 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

2430-405: 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

2511-563: 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 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

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2592-780: The Department of Transportation of the Philippines for the rehabilitation of the MRT Line 3 in Manila from 2019 to 2021. Sumitomo previously maintained the line from 2000 to 2012, until the line was seen to be deteriorated in the following years due to poor maintenance. Sumitomo is in a joint venture with the Japan Transport Engineering Company (J-TREC) for the production of a total of 51 commuter train sets (408 cars) in two separate contracts for

2673-862: The Eagle Ford Shale in the United States, R'Mah Formation in Syria , Sargelu Formation in the northern Persian Gulf region, Athel Formation in Oman , Bazhenov Formation and Achimov Formation of West Siberia in Russia , Arckaringa Basin in Australia , Chicontepec Formation in Mexico , and the Vaca Muerta oil field in Argentina . In June 2013 the U.S. Energy Information Administration published

2754-696: The International Energy Agency in its Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR) said that the North American oil production surge led by unconventional oils - US light tight oil (LTO) and Canadian oil sands - had produced a global supply shock that would reshape the way oil is transported, stored, refined and marketed. Tight oil formations include the Bakken Shale , the Niobrara Formation , Barnett Shale , and

2835-462: 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

2916-735: The Philippine National Railways North–South Commuter Railway and the production of 30 8-car train sets (240 train cars) for the Metro Manila Subway . Sumitomo is an investor in LRT Line 1 operator Light Rail Manila Corporation , a railway consortium composed of Metro Pacific Investments Corporation , Ayala Corporation , and Macquarie Infrastructure Holdings ( Philippines ) PTE Ltd. since May 2020. Japanese language Japanese ( 日本語 , Nihongo , [ɲihoŋɡo] )

2997-455: 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

3078-622: The TOPIX and Nikkei 225 stock indices . Today, the company is one of the top three sōgō shōsha companies in the world. The Sumitomo Group , of which Sumitomo Corporation is a key member, dates to the 17th century establishment of a book and medicine shop in Kyoto by Masatomo Sumitomo . Sumitomo's brother-in-law Riemon Soga developed a technology to extract silver from copper, and Soga's son (who married Sumitomo's daughter) Tomomochi Sumitomo expanded this smelting business to Osaka. From this start,

3159-738: 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

3240-806: 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

3321-527: 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),

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3402-556: The 1960s Sumitomo officially aimed to be one of the "Big Three" general trading companies, alongside Mitsubishi and Mitsui . In 1970, Sumitomo established a second head office in Tokyo and merged with Sogo Boeki Co., Ltd. Sumitomo adopted its current English name, Sumitomo Corporation, in 1978. The company's transactional volume increased by a factor of ten from 1955 to 1965, and again by a factor of ten from 1965 to 1975. Like its zaibatsu cohorts Mitsubishi and Mitsui, Sumitomo established

3483-687: The Besshi mine, which by that point was nearly unworkable. However, Sumitomo kept the mine and improved its output through adoption of new Western techniques. During the rapid westernization of Japan in ensuing decades, Sumitomo started various new trading, manufacturing and financing businesses, becoming one of the major zaibatsu of early 20th century Japan. Sumitomo Corporation was incorporated in December 1919 as The Osaka North Harbour Co., Ltd. to engage in real estate management, land reclamation, land grading, harbor repair construction and related work in

3564-486: 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,

3645-546: The Middle East and the Caspian region, off shore formations, or about which there is little information. Amounts include only high quality prospects which are likely to be developed. In 2012, at least 4,000 new producing shale oil (tight oil) wells were brought online in the United States. By comparison, the number of new producing oil and gas wells (both conventional and unconventional ) completed in 2012 globally outside

3726-736: 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

3807-402: The Osaka northern harbor region. In 1944, the company merged with Sumitomo Building Co., Ltd. (established August 1923; capital stock 6.5 million yen) to form Sumitomo Building and Real Estate Co., Ltd. Sumitomo was integral to Imperial Japan's war machine during World War II , but the war destroyed most of Sumitomo's industrial infrastructure within Japan. The ensuing Allied occupation led to

3888-488: 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

3969-662: The Sumitomo family expanded its business into copper mining (the Besshi copper mine ), followed by textiles, sugar and medicine trading. The Sumitomo family was close to the Tokugawa shogunate throughout the Edo period . During the 1860s, this relationship became a liability for the firm as the Tokugawa clan warred with rivals in western Japan. Following the Tokugawas' defeat, Sumitomo was almost ruined and under pressure to sell

4050-460: The U.S. at 7.6 million barrels per day. The volume of oil production on tight oil formations in the US depends significantly on the dynamics of the WTI oil price. About six months after the price change, drilling activity changes, and with it the volume of production. These changes and their expectations are so significant that they themselves affect the price of oil and hence the volume of production in

4131-636: The US Energy Information Administration in 2013. Not all oil which is technically recoverable may be economically recoverable at current or anticipated prices. World Total: 335 to 345 billion barrels Australia : A private oil company announced in 2013 that it had discovered tight oil in shale of the Arckaringa Basin , estimated at 3.5 to 223 billion barrels. In September 2018, the U.S. Energy Information Administration projected October tight oil production in

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4212-423: The United States and Canada is less than 4,000. Tight oil shale formations are heterogeneous and vary widely over relatively short distances. Tight oil reservoirs subjected to fracking can be divided into four different groups. Type I has little matrix porosity and permeability – leading to fractures dominating both storage capacity and fluid flow pathways. Type II has low matrix porosity and permeability, but here

4293-543: 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

4374-578: 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

4455-528: The field. As a result of these setbacks, Sumitomo was overtaken by Itochu as Japan's third-largest general trading company. Sumitomo announced in 2015 that it would refocus its business on the automotive and infrastructure industries and other non-resource businesses. Berkshire Hathaway acquired over 5% of the stock in the company, along with four other Japanese trading houses, over the 12-month period ending in August 2020. One of Sumitomo's largest investments

4536-455: 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 , 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

4617-425: The forced breakup of the largest Japanese companies, including Sumitomo, and transfer of Japanese industrial assets as part of reparations. Sumitomo Building transitioned to general trading, looking to handle products from Japan's major manufacturing firms in various industries, and changed its name to Nippon Engineering Co., Ltd. ( Nihon Kensetsu Sangyo Kaisha ), starting a new existence as a general trading firm with

4698-609: 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

4779-430: 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 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,

4860-458: 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

4941-449: 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

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5022-427: 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 ,

5103-423: The matrix provides storage capacity while fractures provide fluid-flow paths. Type III are microporous reservoirs with high matrix porosity but low matrix permeability, thus giving induced fractures dominance in fluid-flow paths. Type IV is macroporous reservoirs with high matrix porosity and permeability, thus the matrix provides both storage capacity and flow paths while fractures only enhance permeability. Even in

5184-425: 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

5265-470: 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

5346-415: 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,

5427-481: 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

5508-459: 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

5589-439: 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 )

5670-817: 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

5751-481: 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

5832-543: 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". Tight oil In May 2013

5913-419: 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 ,

5994-577: 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

6075-480: 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

6156-407: 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

6237-548: 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

6318-813: Was an aggravating factor in the series of fatal explosions after the Lac-Mégantic derailment . Prerequisites for exploitation include being able to obtain rights to drill, easier in the United States and Canada where private owners of subsurface rights are motivated to enter into leases; the availability of expertise and financing, easier in the United States and Canada where there are many independent operators and supporting contractors with critical expertise and suitable drilling rigs; infrastructure to gather and transport oil; and water resources for use in hydraulic fracturing. Analysts expect that $ 150 billion will be spent on further developing North American tight oil fields in 2015. The large increase in tight oil production

6399-539: 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

6480-735: 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,

6561-474: 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 )

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