Japanese is spoken by 120 million natives of the Japanese islands and by an additional 2 million people outside of Japan, primarily in South America and the United States. As Japan emerged as an economic power in the second half of the twentieth century, its language became common on the international business scene. Japan is also the home of one of the world’s oldest continuously existing civilizations. The study of Japanese is thus rewarding not only for its practical benefits, but also for the introduction it offers to a rich cultural and literary tradition still largely unknown to the majority of Westerners.