Mashiho Chiri (1909–1961)

Mashiho Chiri was an Ainu linguist and ethnologist whose scholarship placed Ainu-language knowledge at the centre of academic research. He worked on vocabulary, oral tradition, material culture and place names, drawing on both rigorous linguistic analysis and knowledge inherited within Ainu communities.

His classified Ainu dictionaries and studies of Ainu toponymy remain foundational reference works. Chiri’s career is especially significant because he did not approach Ainu solely as an outside observer: he helped establish a scholarly language through which Ainu concepts, classifications and historical memory could be documented on their own terms.