According to Jirota Mokottunas Kitahara, an associate professor at Hokkaido University’s Center for Ainu and Indigenous Studies, dog has been used to belittle the Ainu people since olden days.

In a Nippon Television news program that aired March 12, a comedian used the word “inu,” which means “dog” and was apparently intended as a pun on Ainu, when a documentary about an Ainu ...