ABSTRACT
Japan, together with many other countries, fully accepted the nineteenth century idea linking nation, cultural assimilation and linguistic conformity, developing its own vigorous cultural and linguistic assimilation policy. Cultural and linguistic assimilation is assisted by a powerful government-sponsored myth that Japan is ethnically homogeneous: one race and one language. This ideology pervades many aspects of intellectual and cultural life in Japan, influencing both its international relations and its internal affairs. The Korean minority, the focus of this paper, is arguably the largest group in Japan to be influenced by this policy. In particular, we focus on the role of the Korean language in Japanese society and on efforts by Koreans in Japan to maintain its vitality.
