Karafuto Prefecture
The same act applied to the native Ainu on Sakhalin after the Japanese annexion and incorporation of the Karafuto Prefecture. Some historians noted that the Ainu language was still an important lingua franca in Sakhalin. Asahi (2005) reported that the status of the Ainu language was rather high and was also used by early Russian and Japanese administrative officials to communicate with each other and with the indigenous people.