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Language

Japanese

nee-HOHN-goh
Also Known As 日本語 (Nihongo)
Other Language Families of Asia

Japanese is the primary language of Japan and the sole well-established member of the Japonic family alongside the Ryukyuan languages. It is written with a mixture of three scripts used together in ordinary text: kanji, Chinese-derived logographic characters, and two native syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, developed in the ninth century from cursive and abbreviated forms of kanji respectively.

Facts
ISO 639-3 Code
ja 2
Speaker Count
123,000,000 2
Status
Living 2
Attested From (Year)
from 700 1
Early 8th century; the Kojiki, the earliest substantial Old Japanese text, dates to this period.
Region
Japan, the only country where it is the national language; Japanese diaspora communities including Brazil, Hawaii, and the United States 1
Classification
Official Status
National Language (Symbolic, Not Sole Official) 1
Connections

Ancestor Of

Kansai Dialect, Dialects and Varieties
Source Wikipedia: Kansai Dialect

In Family

Japonic, Language Families
Source The Cambridge Encyclopedia of LanguageDavid Crystal (editor)

Written In

Han Script, Scripts

Japanese is written with kanji (Han-derived characters) alongside two native syllabaries, hiragana and katakana, neither of which is yet modeled as its own script entity in this atlas.

Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Hiragana, Scripts
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Katakana, Scripts
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Japanese Language
Wikipedia
  • infobox
    Native to Japan
  • Earliest text, Kojiki dating
    The earliest text, the Kojiki, dates to the early eighth century
  • Official status, Japanese entity page
    It has around 123 million speakers, primarily in Japan, the only country where it is the national language, and within the Japanese diaspora worldwide.
View the Source
2. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
SIL International, 2024View the Source
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language
David Crystal (editor), Cambridge University Press, 2010
Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
  • Written In: Han Script
  • Written In: Hiragana
  • Written In: Katakana
View the Source
Wikipedia: Kansai Dialect
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Kansai Dialect, Background section
Quote, Ancestor Of: Kansai Dialect, Background section
The Kansai dialect is typified by the speech of Osaka, the major city of Kansai, referred to as Osaka-ben.
View the Source
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