There are many synonyms in Japanese because the

Japanese language is the principal language of the Japonic languages, Japonic language family spoken by the Japanese people. It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese dia ...

draws from several different

language Language is a structured system of communication that consists of grammar and vocabulary. It is the primary means by which humans convey meaning, both in spoken and signed language, signed forms, and may also be conveyed through writing syste ...

s for

loanwords A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...

, notably Chinese and English, as well as its own native words. In Japanese,

synonym A synonym is a word, morpheme, or phrase that means precisely or nearly the same as another word, morpheme, or phrase in a given language. For example, in the English language, the words ''begin'', ''start'', ''commence'', and ''initiate'' are a ...

s are called ''dōgigo'' (

kanji are logographic Chinese characters, adapted from Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script, used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese and are ...

: 同義語) or ''ruigigo'' (kanji: 類義語). Full synonymy, however, is rare. In general, native Japanese words may have broader meanings than those that are borrowed, Sino-Japanese words tend to suggest a more formal tone, while Western borrowed words more modern.

''Yamato kotoba'' vs. ''kango'' vs. ''gairaigo''

The table below compares native Japanese words, inherited from

Old Japanese is the oldest attested stage of the Japanese language, recorded in documents from the Nara period (8th century). It became Early Middle Japanese in the succeeding Heian period, but the precise delimitation of the stages is controversial. Old Ja ...

– ''

yamato kotoba are native Japanese language, Japanese words, meaning those words in Japanese that have been inherited from Old Japanese, rather than being borrowed at some stage. Together with Sino-Japanese vocabulary, kango () and gairaigo (), they form one ...

'' – with words borrowed from Chinese – ''

kango Kango is a town in the Estuaire Province of Gabon, Central Africa, lying on the Komo River and the N1 road. It has a station near the Trans-Gabon Railway, where the railway bridges the Gabon Estuary. Kango is a small town with a population ...

'' – and loanwords from other languages – ''

gairaigo is Japanese for "loan word", and indicates a transcription into Japanese. In particular, the word usually refers to a Japanese word of foreign origin that was not borrowed in ancient times from Old or Middle Chinese (especially Literary Chine ...

''.

Native synonyms

References

{{reflist Lexical semantics Japanese vocabulary