Languages
Japanese
nee-HOHN-goh
Also Known As 日本語 (Nihongo)
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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 Cross-Tradition Connections
In Family
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.
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