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Nihongo
is the principal language of the 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 diaspora worldwide. The Japonic family also includes the Ryukyuan languages and the variously classified Hachijō language. There have been many attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as Ainu, Austronesian, Koreanic, and the now discredited Altaic, but none of these proposals have gained any widespread acceptance. Little is known of the language's prehistory, or when it first appeared in Japan. Chinese documents from the 3rd century AD recorded a few Japanese words, but substantial Old Japanese texts did not appear until the 8th century. From the Heian period (794–1185), extensive waves of Sino-Japanese vocabulary entered the language, affecting the phonology of Early Middle Japanese. Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 still used, along with the subsequently-derived Syllabary, syllabic scripts of and . The characters have Japanese pronunciations; most have two, with one based on the Chinese sound. A few characters were invented in Japan by constructing character components derived from other Chinese characters. After the Meiji Restoration, Japan made its own efforts to simplify the characters, now known as , by a process similar to China's simplified Chinese characters, simplification efforts, with the intention to increase literacy among the general public. Since the 1920s, the Japanese government has published character lists periodically to help direct the education of its citizenry through the myriad Chinese characters that exist. There are nearly 3 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Katakana
is a Japanese syllabary, one component of the Japanese writing system along with hiragana, kanji and in some cases the Latin script (known as rōmaji). The word ''katakana'' means "fragmentary kana", as the katakana characters are derived from components or fragments of more complex kanji. Katakana and hiragana are both kana systems. With one or two minor exceptions, each syllable (strictly mora (linguistics), mora) in the Japanese language is represented by one character or ''kana'' in each system. Each kana represents either a vowel such as "''a''" (katakana wikt:ア, ア); a consonant followed by a vowel such as "''ka''" (katakana wikt:カ, カ); or "''n''" (katakana wikt:ン, ン), a nasal stop, nasal sonorant which, depending on the context, sounds like English ''m'', ''n'' or ''ng'' () or like the nasal vowels of Portuguese language, Portuguese or Galician language, Galician. In contrast to the hiragana syllabary, which is used for Japanese words not covered by kanji an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese Writing System
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of Logogram, logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and Syllabary, syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabary, syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalized Japanese words and grammatical elements; and katakana, used primarily for foreign words and names, Gairaigo, loanwords, onomatopoeia, scientific names, and sometimes for emphasis. Almost all written Japanese sentences contain a mixture of kanji and kana. Because of this mixture of scripts, in addition to a large inventory of kanji characters, the Japanese writing system is considered to be one of the most complicated currently in use. Several thousand kanji characters are in regular use, which mostly originate from traditional Chinese characters. Others made in Japan are referred to as "Japanese kanji" (), also known as "[our] country's kanji" (). Each character has an intrinsic meaning (or range of meanings), and most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Late Middle Japanese
was a stage of the Japanese language following Early Middle Japanese and preceding Early Modern Japanese. It was a period of transition in which the language shed many of its archaic features and became closer to its modern form. The period spanned roughly 500 years from the 12th century to the 16th century and is itself customarily divided into Early and Late periods. Politically, the first half of Late Middle Japanese was the end of the Heian period, known as ''Insei'' and the Kamakura period. The second half of Late Middle Japanese was the Muromachi period. Background The late 12th century was a time of transition from the aristocratic society of nobles in the Heian period to the feudal society of the warrior class. Accompanying that change, the nation's political center temporarily transitioned from historical Kyoto to Kanto alongside the establishment of the Kamakura shogunate. This move resulted in a significant blend between the dialects of Kyoto and Kanto, shaping ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Middle Japanese
is a stage of the Japanese language between 794 and 1185, which is known as the Heian period (). The successor to Old Japanese (), it is also known as Late Old Japanese. However, the term "Early Middle Japanese" is preferred, as it is closer to Late Middle Japanese (, after 1185) than to Old Japanese (before 794). Background Old Japanese had borrowed and adapted the Chinese script to write Japanese. In Early Middle Japanese, two new scripts emerged: the kana scripts hiragana and katakana. That development simplified writing and brought about a new age in literature, with many classics such as ''The Tale of Genji'', '' The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter'', and '' The Tales of Ise''. Writing system Early Middle Japanese was written in three different ways. It was first recorded in Man'yōgana (), literally "ten thousand leaves borrowed labels", in reference to the ''Man'yōshū'' poetry anthology and the "borrowing" of the kanji characters as "labels" for the sounds of Japanese. Certa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea in the south. The Japanese archipelago consists of four major islands—Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, and Kyushu—and List of islands of Japan, thousands of smaller islands, covering . Japan has a population of over 123 million as of 2025, making it the List of countries and dependencies by population, eleventh-most populous country. The capital of Japan and List of cities in Japan, its largest city is Tokyo; the Greater Tokyo Area is the List of largest cities, largest metropolitan area in the world, with more than 37 million inhabitants as of 2024. Japan is divided into 47 Prefectures of Japan, administrative prefectures and List of regions of Japan, eight traditional regions. About three-quarters of Geography of Japan, the countr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kana
are syllabary, syllabaries used to write Japanese phonology, Japanese phonological units, Mora (linguistics), morae. In current usage, ''kana'' most commonly refers to ''hiragana'' and ''katakana''. It can also refer to their ancestor , which were Kanji, Chinese characters used phonetically to transcribe Japanese language, Japanese (e.g. ''man'yōgana''); and ''hentaigana'', which are historical variants of the now-standard hiragana. Katakana, with a few additions, are also used to write Ainu language, Ainu. A Okinawan scripts, number of systems exist to write the Ryūkyūan languages, in particular Okinawan language, Okinawan, in hiragana. Taiwanese kana were used in Taiwanese Hokkien as ruby text for Chinese characters in Taiwan when it was Taiwan under Japanese rule, under Japanese rule. Each syllabogram, kana character corresponds to one phoneme or syllable, unlike kanji, which generally each logogram, corresponds to a morpheme. Apart from the five vowels, it is always ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ryukyuan Languages
The , also Lewchewan or Luchuan (), are the indigenous languages of the Ryukyu Islands, the southernmost part of the Japanese archipelago. Along with the Japanese language and the Hachijō language, they make up the Japonic language family. Just as among Japanese dialects it is hard to understand each other, the Ryukyu and mainland Japanese languages are not mutually intelligible. It is not known how many speakers of these languages remain, but language shift toward the use of Standard Japanese and dialects like Okinawan Japanese has resulted in these languages becoming endangered language, endangered; Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger, UNESCO labels four of the languages "definitely endangered" and two others "severely endangered". Overview Phonologically, the Ryukyuan languages have some cross-linguistically unusual features. Southern Ryukyuan languages have a number of syllabic consonants, including unvoiced syllabic fricatives (e.g. Ōgami Miyako language, Miyako ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Japanese was an early member of the Japonic language family. No genetic links to other language families have been proven. Old Japanese was written using man'yōgana, which is a writing system that employs Chinese characters as syllabograms or (occasionally) logograms. It featured a few phonemic differences from later forms, such as a simpler syllable structure and distinctions between several pairs of syllables that have been pronounced identically since Early Middle Japanese. The phonetic realization of these distinctions is uncertain. Internal reconstruction points to a pre-Old Japanese phase with fewer consonants and vowels. As is typical of Japonic languages, Old Japanese was primarily an agglutinative language with a subject–obj ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Japanese People
are an East Asian ethnic group native to the Japanese archipelago. Japanese people constitute 97.4% of the population of the country of Japan. Worldwide, approximately 125 million people are of Japanese descent, making them list of contemporary ethnic groups, one of the largest ethnic groups. Approximately 120.8 million Japanese people are residents of Japan, and there are approximately 4 million members of the Japanese diaspora, known as . In some contexts, the term "Japanese people" may be used to refer specifically to the Yamato people, who are primarily from the historically principal islands of Honshu, Kyushu and Shikoku and constitute by far the largest group. In other contexts, the term may include other groups native to the Japanese archipelago, including Ryukyuan people, who share connections with the Yamato but are often regarded as distinct, and Ainu people. In recent decades, there has also been an increase in the number of people with both Japanese and non-Japanes ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Early Modern Japanese
was the stage of the Japanese language after Middle Japanese and before Modern Japanese. It is a period of transition that shed many of the characteristics that Middle Japanese had retained during the language's development from Old Japanese, thus becoming intelligible to modern Japanese. The period spanned roughly 250 years and extended from the 17th century to the first half of the 19th century. Politically, it generally corresponded to the Edo period. Background At the beginning of the 17th century, the center of government moved to Edo from Kamigata under the control of the Tokugawa shogunate and Japan closed its borders to foreigners. Until the early Edo period, the Kamigata dialect, the ancestor of the modern Kansai dialect, was the most influential dialect. However, in the late Edo period, the Edo dialect, the ancestor of the modern Tokyo dialect, became the most influential dialect. Compared to the previous centuries, the Tokugawa rule brought about much newfound s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
