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The 'Hayato' (Japanese: 隼人) were a people of ancient Japan, believed to have lived in the south of Kyūshū until at least the Nara period. It has been suggested that the Hayato people were closely related to Malay/Polynesian people. The Kumaso seem to be their distant cousin as well. The Kagoshima dialect of Japanese might show influences of the Hayato language. It is widely believed that the majority of the Hayato people migrated to modern day Shimizu, a town in Shizuoka prefecture.
It is believed that they spoke an Austronesian language closely related to the Malayan languages of the Malay Archipelago.