How was a Japanese 'common/standard language' chosen?


Japan, like most places, is full of dialects/topolects.

Wikipedia (<https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_Japan>) says

> Tokyo dialect considered standard Japanese

The article doesn't get into how it came to be considered the standard though.

How was a Japanese 'common/standard language' chosen?




When the decision was taken to standardize the language (in the modern sense,
as one of the "requirements" for a modern nation-state), Tokyo was the seat of
political power, and had been for some centuries. That is the basic answer,
although of course the devil is in the details (for example, overtly
shitamachi features were generally dispreferred from the standard, even though
if anything they have a stronger claim to be "Tokyo Japanese").

The standard was then spread to/enforced on the rest of Japan (and beyond, in
the colonial context) via the education system and bureaucracy.

