Japonic languages

Japonic
Japanese–Ryukyuan, Japanic
Geographic distribution	Japan, possibly formerly on the Korean Peninsula
Linguistic classification	One of the world's primary language families
Proto-language	Proto-Japonic
Subdivisions	Japanese Ryukyuan Hachijō Peninsular? †
Language codes
ISO 639-5	jpx
Glottolog	japo1237
Japonic languages and dialects

Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan (Japanese: 日琉語族, romanized: Nichiryū gozoku), sometimes also Japanic,^[1] is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and significant progress has been made in reconstructing the proto-language, Proto-Japonic.^[2] The reconstruction implies a split between all dialects of Japanese and all Ryukyuan varieties, probably before the 7th century. The Hachijō language, spoken on the Izu Islands, is also included, but its position within the family is unclear.

Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to the Japanese archipelago from the Korean peninsula with the Yayoi culture during the 1st millennium BC. There is some fragmentary evidence suggesting that Japonic languages may still have been spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula (see Peninsular Japonic) in the early centuries AD.

Possible genetic relationships with many other language families have been proposed, most systematically with Koreanic, but no genetic relationship has been conclusively demonstrated.