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?
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history dialects
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.
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From these articles on Wikipedia:

>
> <https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E8%AA%9E#.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC>
>
>
> <https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%96%B9%E8%A8%80#.E6.97.A5.E6.9C.AC.E3.81.AE.E6.96.B9.E8.A8.80.E6.94.BF.E7.AD.96>

It seems that after the Meiji Restoration when power was shifted from Kyoto to
Edo/Tokyo, the new government started making policy changes in education and
the military to unify national speech.

The article mentions a desire to avoid confusion in the military as men were
being drafted from various regions with differing dialects as one motivation.

Since the government was seated in Tokyo, it makes sense that the "standard
dialect" promoted by the national government would be similar to the native
dialect of that area.

* * *

Post-WW2 there has been no "official" dialect defined or designated by the
government.

**However** , speech similar to what is common around Tokyo has become
_tacitly_ recognized as "standard" by native speakers accross the country
largely due to the inherited influence of Meiji-era, Tokyo-centric culture and
the development of mass-media like newspapers, television and radio news
outlets and publishers of educational material many of which have their own
standards.

The 文部科学省 has guidelines for some of this, but it's all related to writing as
far as I've seen. There are audio materials used in education, which I'm sure
some group of people is approving or rejecting, but I'm not very clear on
that.

A good example of this might be NHK's 高校講座 (High School Courses). These are
government-supported, publicly broadcast programs that can be used in High
School education. I would assume that the speech used in these programs is
moderated by the same people who moderate the rest of NHK's broadcasts, but
who _those_ people are influenced by is a good question as well.
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There wasn't standard Japanese(標準語) before Meiji era. Japanese government
wanted to make standard Japanese to make Japan modern nation at Meiji era and
they educated nations about standard Japanese modeled on 山の手言葉 as nations
language in compulsory education.

山の手言葉 is mainly spoken by educated and middle-class people in the center of
Tokyo.

There aren't any government organizations which decide standard language at
the present day, so there isn't formally standard language but standard
language(標準語) means usually the language spoken in Tokyo.

Sources <https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A8%99%E6%BA%96%E8%AA%9E>
<http://japanese.hix05.com/Language_2/lang209.hyoujungo.html>
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