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 Speaker Count Attested From (Year)Early 8th century; the Kojiki, the earliest substantial Old Japanese text, dates to this period. RegionJapan, the only country where it is the national language; Japanese diaspora communities including Brazil, Hawaii, and the United States 2 Browse and compare
Difficulty for an English Speaker Classification
Language Kind Official StatusNational Language (Symbolic, Not Sole Official) 2 Connections
Ancestor Of
Source Wikipedia: Kansai Dialect
Source Wikipedia: Kyushu Dialect
Source Wikipedia: Tohoku Dialect
In Family
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
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
Source Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages
In the Other Atlases
Cases Where Used
Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in Divinity Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.
Source Anti-Comintern Pact - WikipediaArticle textQuote, Article text
The full text was considered in its original form in both the German and Japanese versions, and the date was specified in both countries' versions as 25 November 1936 as well as 25 November in the 11th year of the Shōwa period.
Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.
Also in History Atlas: used in this subject.
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Original Language Of
Also in Literature Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Showing 101 to 101 of 101 in Original Language Of, page 3 of 3.
Found In
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Sources
1. Glottolog: Japanese (Glottolog languoid nucl1643)
GlottologEndangerment, AES statusQuote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: not endangered
2. Wikipedia: Japanese Language
Wikipediainfobox
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 3. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Japanese / Order of Subject, Object and Verb (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint page
Feature: Order of Subject, Object and Verb by Matthew S. Dryer Value: SOV Examples Sentence igt-2990: John ga tegami o yon-da. John John ga SUBJ tegami letter o obj yon-da. read- pst John read the letter.
Datapoint page, word order
Feature: Order of Subject, Object and Verb by Matthew S. Dryer Value: SOV
View the Source 4. WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures): Japanese / Tone (WALS datapoint)
WALS Online (World Atlas of Language Structures)Datapoint pageQuote, Datapoint page
Feature: Tone by Ian Maddieson Value: Simple tone system
5. Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center: Languages Offered - Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center
Defense Language Institute Foreign Language CenterLanguages OfferedQuote, Languages Offered
Category IV languages, 64 week-long courses: Modern Standard Arabic Chinese Mandarin Japanese
6. Ethnologue: Languages of the World
SIL International, 2024- ISO 639-3 Code: ja
- Speaker Count: 123,000,000
- Status: Living
View 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 SourceWikipedia: Kansai Dialect
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Kansai Dialect, Background sectionQuote, 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.
Wikipedia: Tohoku Dialect
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Tohoku Dialect, Lead sentenceQuote, Ancestor Of: Tohoku Dialect, Lead sentence
hōgen), commonly called Tōhoku-ben (東北弁), is a group of the Japanese dialects spoken in the Tōhoku regi
Wikipedia: Kyushu Dialect
Wikimedia FoundationAncestor Of: Kyushu Dialect, LeadQuote, Ancestor Of: Kyushu Dialect, Lead
of the Japanese language fall into two primary clades
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