Japanese language, standard language, national language: Rethinking language and nation

Abstract

The paper examines the relationship between language and nation through the historical process by which the modern Japanese language came to exist and proposes a tentative answer as to what this says about the nature of phenomena such as language and nation themselves. The paper suggests that if language is understood as an actually existing natural and definable object, it must indeed be claimed that the Japanese language is no more than a hundred years old.