The website "Human-friendly Japanese for Disaster Reduction" published by Hirosaki University's sociolinguistics laboratory will be closed on January 17th.

"Easy Japanese" is Japanese that has a simple expression and sentence structure that makes it easy for foreigners to understand. The site has been published by Professor Kazuyuki Sato and seminar students who study dialects and languages with the intention of transmitting information online after the Great Hanshin-Awaji Earthquake that occurred on January 17, 1995.

On the site, in addition to "friendly Japanese" pamphlets, research papers by seminar students, etc., a dictionary summarizing about 7,600 terms of life information required after a disaster has been released. Professor Sato won the Secretary of the Fire Agency Award and the Murao Academic Incentive Award in 2000 for his research on "friendly Japanese".

The site has been closed for a year. "From the very beginning, this site has been aimed at foreigners and Japanese people trying to help foreigners. We thought that we couldn't change our mindset if we keep sending, and at the turning point of the quarter century. I decided to close it," says Sato.

"Since this year, the number of daily accesses has doubled or tripled compared to the usual number," he said. Professor Sato smiles, "I think I could change everyone's consciousness a little."

At present, there are 700 cases of adopting "easy Japanese" nationwide, and it is recommended as one of the means to support multiple languages at the Tokyo Olympics. Prof. Sato says, "Easy Japanese" is the normalization of words. It is a language that allows information to reach as many people as possible without separating foreigners from Japanese."

The site was operated by a seminar student in the sociolinguistics laboratory, and the site was created by the seminar student from the beginning. Prof. Sato said, "In the Great East Japan Earthquake, we continued to send information on "friendly Japanese" on a 24-hour shift basis with the seminar students for 50 days. This site could not be continued without the seminar students." I look back.

"I achieved this because I was with a student at Hirosaki University. I wonder if I could not achieve it for 25 years outside of Hirosaki University."

It will be open until 17:00 on the same day.