Review of Shimoji, M. (ed.) (2022). An Introduction to Japonic Languages. Grammatical Sketches of Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan Languages. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 341 pp.

The book An Introduction to Japonic Languages. Grammatical Sketches of Japanese Dialects and Ryukyuan Languages, edited by Michinori Shimoji, Associate Professor in Linguistics at Kyushu University, aims to do justice to the complexity and diversity of the linguistic scenario of the Japanese archipelago by offering scholars of linguistic typology an insight into some contemporary Japonic language varieties, i.e. languages derived from Proto-Japonic. Whereas studies of historical linguistics frequently – and justifiably – refer to ancient languages and reconstructed forms, the term Japonic is applied here to contemporary local varieties that share many traits with standard Japanese, yet present their own interesting characteristics from the point of view of typological linguistics. Indeed, the book is mainly addressed to scholars of linguistic typology, who up until now have mainly used samples from standard Japanese as the only point of reference for the Japonic languages. It is therefore a valuable resource for linguists who do not have access to secondary sources written in Japanese but need reliable and up-to-date data on the characteristics of the languages spoken in the Japanese archipelago.