Japanese person
The Japanese people (日本人, nihon-jin or nippon-jin) are those who typically speak the Japanese language, were born in Japan, and live their entire lives in Japan with Japanese citizenship and names. Very few are originally from outside Japan. Japanese people usually have black hair and brown eyes.
The question of Japanese national identity is tricky. A number of ethnic Koreans born and living in Japan regard themselves as Koreans and not Japanese, partly because they refuse to take Japanese citizenship. Other minorities have ambivalent feelings. Okinawans may distinguish themselves from people in mainland Japan because they are ethnically closer to Malays. There is a small population of a native race called the Ainu who live in Hokkaido, but they have lost many of their cultural traits.
Origins of the Japanese people
The origin of the Japanese people is a controversial topic. Ethnologists have presented numerous theories: That Japanese are descended from Polynesia, from South Asia or Ancient Israel. However the most accepted theory is that modern Japanese are principally descended from the Yayoi and perhaps the Jōmon people, with later influences from China and Korea.
There is archeological evidence of stone age people living in Japan from 30,000 BC in the paleolithic period. At this time Japan was connected to Asia by land bridges, and nomadic hunter-gatherers crossed. They left flint tools, but no evidence of permanent settlements.
Pottery was first developed by the Jōmon people in the 11th century BC. Their name, which means "straw-rope pattern", comes from the characteristic markings they made in Jōmon pottery. The Jōmon people were Mesolithic hunter-gatherers, though late Jōmon people may have developed a proto-agriculture. The ethnicity of the Jōmon people isn't known for sure, however one theory is that they were South East Asians.
In about 300 BC the Jōmon were displaced by the Yayoi. The Yayoi people were a bronze-age people and they introduced metalworking and rice cultivation to Japan. The Yayoi were probably descendants of people living in what is now the Gobi desert. Displaced by the desertification of their land they spread east. The Yayoi language probably developed into modern Japanese. The Shinto religion also probably developed from Yayoi beliefs.
Japanese people abroad
Jap is a slang term with a strongly negative connotation, a term used and proliferated by the US government during WWII to express hostility.
See also
