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Heritage Language in Toronto - Japanese[edit source | edit]

Brief History

Early Image of Japanese Fishing Boat

Japanese Fishing Boat been Confiscated by Canadian Officer

The wave of immigration from Japan grew with the fishing industry as they were heavily practiced in their homeland, by 1901, a number of 4,738 Japanese settlers have arrived in Canada seeking for occupations. These settlers worked with a purpose to grant their family extra living incomes,and after several years these settlers were slowly starting companies focusing on fishing, lumbering and goods trading affairs. By the year of 1941, there were 23,149 Japanese in Canada, where a large portion of the whole population is occupied by second and third generations of Japanese. With the outbreak of WWII, the relationship between Japanese speaker (including Canadian born heritage speaker) and the Western society was broke. Following 1943, about 1,650have settled in Ontario mainly Toronto following the “dispersal policy” for Japanese population. Although Toronto holds the name for "city with the most concentration of Japanese immigrants", the settlers tend to have a low residential concentration. However, immigration increased rapidly as government policy changes, but this also imply the usage of language are changing. As shown in Table 1, Statistic Canada has show that by the year of 2001, 89% Japanese could converse in English while only 8% are bilingual which meas only 8% can speak their heritage language or another language. Also shown in Table 1, 55% of Japanese population in Canada says that their mother tongue are English while 43% said it is Japanese All of the statistic shows and implies the usage of Japanese heritage language in general are decreasing rapidly within Canada which could eventually become a serious issue of the Japanese Community in Toronto. It is crucial to maintain the vitality of a language in order to maintain the community itself.

Table 1. Official Language and Mother tongue Usage of Japanese-Canadian in Toronto 2001

Perferable Language Used		Mother Tongue
English	89%	English	55%
Bilingual (Japanese)	8%	Japanese	43%
French	0.5%	Others	2%

Language Vitality

Language vitality is a theoretical framework for the better understanding of the relationship between language, ethnicity and the intergroup relations. The three main categories under Language Vitality include Status, Demography, and Institutional Support.

Status

Sakura bloosom in Toronto Edwards Garden. Sakura are often seen as the symbol of Japan.

Status can be understand as the reputation or importance of a linguistic group within a society. “What kind of role does Japanese plays in the Japanese Canadian’s life, especially in Toronto?” could be a really good question we need to think about. Nowdays, a large number of Japanese Canadian are orient to marrying outside their own ethnic group in the GTA///////. As a result, the interracial marriage creates a new group and a new generation of Japanese with less physical appearance similarity and cultural identification, especially in language with their elder generation/////////. In fact, more and more new generations of Japanese Canadian youths are rooting their experience from the environment they grew up///////. A recent statistic collection done by statistic Canada shows that the number of people held Japanese as their Mother tongues in Toronto is only 6,230, and in that 6,230 population only 2,955 practice Japanese at home.Compare this to the total population of Japanese in Toronto which is 20,000 we can tell that the status of Japanese language are not in favour of growth or development in Toronto. This situation is rapidly increasing and may step by step cause the status of this language and its vitality to fade. On the other hand, the Japanese communities in Canada and Toronto are trying to maintain and enhance the status of Japanese by opening language school and organizing culture festival, a good example is the Japanese language school in Toronto and the annual Matusri Japanese Summer Festival in Toronto.

Demogarphy

Classic Japanese Cuisine

Demography is the population, characteristic and distribution of a linguistic group in a given area. Since Japanese immigration wave started early in the 1900s, the demography of Japanese language are wide spread, however in recent years, Japanese are not as well known and popular as other growing community language such as Cantonese or Mandarin in Toronto. Recent Statistic shows that Mandarin speakers in Toronto is almost 10 times more than Japanese. The density of Japanese usage is also very low, compare to Armenia Language, Japanese have about the same amount of Mother tongue speaker around 6,200, but the population of Armenia is much lower than Japanese. This implies that many second and third generation Japanese are choosing to use English prior to their heritage language. This low density and usage of Japanese will slowly push the language into a danger zone, and should be a warning sign to its vitality.

The demography of Japanese and Japanese people can be well observed, most run some small and delicious Japanese restaurant, they have same custom and culture decorations, and all speak some Japanese. However, since their population are widely distributed, it can be hard for the Japanese community center to try and gather people into small cultural and language session.

Institutional Support

St. Andrew Japanese Anglican Church located in Downtown Toronto

Institutional Support are supports provide by the community to better maintain the viability of a linguistic group. There are many community center and language school for Japanese located in Toronto such as The Japan Society Canada,Japanese UReach.Toronto, Nisshu Gakuin Japanese.Language School, Toronto Japanese School and many supplementary Japanese school. Although It is obvious that the Macro factors such as demographic, cultural and societies contribute significantly in the maintenance of Japanese Heritage language. But for the second and third generations where these macro factors are not in favour, in order to maintain their heritage language, the micro factors plays a critical role. Those factors can be interactions among people, family members and attendance to institution for supports. These micro factors are especially helpful in maintaining and developing young students knowledge in their heritage language and cultural back ground/////////. Many Japanese institution such as the Toronto Japanese school offers heritage language class and the Japanese Canadian Cultural Center offers cultural activities to better unionise new generations of Japanese-Canadaian.

Second-Generations

Attendance of Japanese Language School is nesseccary in order to maintain second-generation’s heritage language and literacy device. On top of that, weekend school or any kind of language school provides further help on the development of Japanese based on the foundation made at home. Although It is notable by the parent that the influence made by the school has greatly promoted the linguistic development of their children, parental role is still one of the most important factor affecting second-generation learners. In a study conducted by Miwa Tonami, it stated that if parents view the developmental of heritage language as helpful and positive, it is more likely the child will decide to keep learning and develop their heritage language. Also, the consistent usage of Japanese at home will help the second-generation to better lay their foundation for further study of the language. In a recent statistic analysis done by Statistic Canada, it shows that Japanese is not even ranked in the top 15 of Home language usage in Toronto, and only 15% of the Japanese population in Toronto use Japanese to communicate at home. Despite its’ population density this implies that second or third generations tend to use English instead of Japanese to communicate with their family members.

Japanese Canadian Cultural Center

Third-Generations

The attendance of institutional language support in third-generation decrease dramatically compare to the second generation. Most third-generation Japanese will speak English at all time due to the influence of macro factors, but they still face major challenge when it comes to ethnicity issue. One of the major issue faced by the third-generation of Japanese heritage speaker is the conflict between their ethnic identity and the language they speak. Since cultural background and linguistic knowledge can be viewed both as separate and interconnected, this brings difficulties to the third generation of identifying themselves in multiple cultural and language setting. A study conducted by Okuno Aoi shows that whether third-generation identify themselves as Japanese, Canadian or Japanese-Canadian is highly dependent on people’s characteristic but almost all third-generation Japanese use English at all time as their communication tools, but there are also exceptions. It is noticeable by the society that Japanese community are not targeting third-generation for learning their heritage language and culture background, instead they focused more on the second-generations who still have direct connection with the language, as their parents can speak Japanese. This should be a message to the Japanese Community center and school in Toronto, where many Japanese-Canadian should be and can be learning more about their heritage language and cultural background.