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is spoken natively by about 128 million people, primarily by
Japanese people and primarily in
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the no ...
, the only country where it is the
national language. Japanese belongs to the
Japonic or Japanese-
Ryukyuan language family. There have been many
attempts to group the Japonic languages with other families such as the
Ainu
Ainu or Aynu may refer to:
*Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East
*Ainu languages, a family of languages
**Ainu language of Hokkaido
**Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands
**Sakhalin Ainu la ...
,
Austroasiatic,
Koreanic, and the now-discredited
Altaic, but none of these proposals has gained 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), there was a massive influx of
Sino-Japanese vocabulary into the language, affecting the
phonology
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
of
Early Middle Japanese.
Late Middle Japanese (1185–1600) saw extensive grammatical changes and the first appearance of
European loanwords. The basis of the
standard dialect moved from the
Kansai
The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshu, Honshū. The region includes the Prefectures of Japan, prefectures of Nara Prefecture, Nara, Wakayama Prefecture, Wakayama, Kyoto Prefecture, Kyoto, Osaka Prefectur ...
region to the
Edo
Edo ( ja, , , "bay-entrance" or "estuary"), also romanized as Jedo, Yedo or Yeddo, is the former name of Tokyo.
Edo, formerly a ''jōkamachi'' (castle town) centered on Edo Castle located in Musashi Province, became the ''de facto'' capital of ...
region (modern
Tokyo) in the
Early Modern Japanese period (early 17th century–mid 19th century). Following the end of
Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of
loanwords from European languages increased significantly, and
words from English roots have proliferated.
Japanese is an
agglutinative,
mora-timed language with relatively simple
phonotactics, a
pure vowel
A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
system,
phonemic vowel and
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...
length, and a lexically significant
pitch-accent. Word order is normally
subject–object–verb with
particles marking the
grammatical function of words, and sentence structure is
topic–comment.
Sentence-final particles are used to add emotional or emphatic impact, or form questions. Nouns have no
grammatical number
In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, adjectives and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions (such as "one", "two" or "three or more"). English and other languages present number categories of ...
or
gender
Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures us ...
, and there are no
articles
Article often refers to:
* Article (grammar), a grammatical element used to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness
* Article (publishing), a piece of nonfictional prose that is an independent part of a publication
Article may also refer to:
...
. Verbs are
conjugated, primarily for
tense and
voice
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production ...
, but not
person
A person (plural, : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of pr ...
.
Japanese adjectives are also conjugated. Japanese has
a complex system of honorifics, with verb forms and vocabulary to indicate the relative status of the speaker, the listener, and persons mentioned.
The
Japanese writing system
The modern Japanese writing system uses a combination of logographic kanji, which are adopted Chinese characters, and syllabic kana. Kana itself consists of a pair of syllabaries: hiragana, used primarily for native or naturalised Japanese w ...
combines
Chinese characters
Chinese characters () are logograms developed for the writing of Chinese. In addition, they have been adapted to write other East Asian languages, and remain a key component of the Japanese writing system where they are known as '' kan ...
, known as , with two unique
syllabaries
In the linguistic study of written languages, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent the syllables or (more frequently) moras which make up words.
A symbol in a syllabary, called a syllabogram, typically represents an (option ...
(or
moraic scripts) derived by the Japanese from the more complex Chinese characters: ( or , 'simple characters') and ( or , 'partial characters').
Latin script
The Latin script, also known as Roman script, is an alphabetic writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greece, Greek city of Cumae, in southe ...
( ) is also used in a limited fashion (such as for imported acronyms) in Japanese writing. The
numeral system
A numeral system (or system of numeration) is a writing system for expressing numbers; that is, a mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set, using digits or other symbols in a consistent manner.
The same sequence of symb ...
uses mostly
Arabic numerals
Arabic numerals are the ten numerical digits: , , , , , , , , and . They are the most commonly used symbols to write decimal numbers. They are also used for writing numbers in other systems such as octal, and for writing identifiers such as ...
, but also traditional
Chinese numerals
Chinese numerals are words and characters used to denote numbers in Chinese.
Today, speakers of Chinese use three written numeral systems: the system of Arabic numerals used worldwide, and two indigenous systems. The more familiar indigenous s ...
.
History
Prehistory
Proto-Japonic
Proto-Japonic or Proto-Japanese–Ryukyuan is the reconstructed language ancestral to the Japonic language family.
It has been reconstructed by using a combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative met ...
, the common ancestor of the Japanese and
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.
...
, is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from the Korean peninsula sometime in the early- to mid-4th century BC (the
Yayoi period
The started at the beginning of the Neolithic in Japan, continued through the Bronze Age, and towards its end crossed into the Iron Age.
Since the 1980s, scholars have argued that a period previously classified as a transition from the Jōmon p ...
), replacing the languages of the original
Jōmon inhabitants, including the ancestor of the modern
Ainu language
Ainu (, ), or more precisely Hokkaido Ainu, is a language spoken by a few elderly members of the Ainu people on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It is a member of the Ainu language family, itself considered a language family isolate ...
. Because writing had yet to be introduced from China, there is no direct evidence, and anything that can be discerned about this period must be based on internal reconstruction from
Old Japanese, or
comparison with the Ryukyuan languages and
Japanese dialects.
Old Japanese

The
Chinese writing system
Written Chinese () comprises Chinese characters used to represent the Chinese language. Chinese characters do not constitute an alphabet or a compact syllabary. Rather, the writing system is roughly logosyllabic; that is, a character generally re ...
was imported to Japan from
Baekje
Baekje or Paekche (, ) was a Korean kingdom located in southwestern Korea from 18 BC to 660 AD. It was one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea, together with Goguryeo and Silla.
Baekje was founded by Onjo of Baekje, Onjo, the third son of Gogurye ...
around the start of the fifth century, alongside Buddhism. The earliest texts were written in
Classical Chinese
Classical Chinese, also known as Literary Chinese (古文 ''gǔwén'' "ancient text", or 文言 ''wényán'' "text speak", meaning
"literary language/speech"; modern vernacular: 文言文 ''wényánwén'' "text speak text", meaning
"literar ...
, although some of these were likely intended to be read as Japanese using the
kanbun
A is a form of Classical Chinese used in Japan from the Nara period to the mid-20th century. Much of Japanese literature was written in this style and it was the general writing style for official and intellectual works throughout the period. A ...
method, and show influences of Japanese grammar such as Japanese word order. The earliest text, the ''
Kojiki
The , also sometimes read as or , is an early Japanese chronicle of myths, legends, hymns, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts down to 641 concerning the origin of the Japanese archipelago, the , and the Japanese imperi ...
'', dates to the early eighth century, and was written entirely in Chinese characters, which are used to represent, at different times, Chinese, ''kanbun'', and Old Japanese. As in other texts from this period, the Old Japanese sections are written in
Man'yōgana
is an ancient writing system that uses Chinese characters to represent the Japanese language. It was the first known kana system to be developed as a means to represent the Japanese language phonetically. The date of the earliest usage of this ...
, which uses ''
kanji
are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese script and used in the writing of 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 subse ...
'' for their phonetic as well as semantic values.
Based on the Man'yōgana system, Old Japanese can be reconstructed as having 88 distinct syllables. Texts written with Man'yōgana use two different sets of ''kanji'' for each of the syllables now pronounced (ki), (hi), (mi), (ke), (he), (me), (ko), (so), (to), (no), (mo), (yo) and (ro). (The ''Kojiki'' has 88, but all later texts have 87. The distinction between mo
1 and mo
2 apparently was lost immediately following its composition.) This set of syllables shrank to 67 in
Early Middle Japanese, though some were added through Chinese influence. Man'yōgana also has a symbol for , which merges with before the end of the period.
Several fossilizations of Old Japanese grammatical elements remain in the modern language – the genitive particle ''tsu'' (superseded by modern ''no'') is preserved in words such as ''matsuge'' ("eyelash", lit. "hair of the eye"); modern ''mieru'' ("to be visible") and ''kikoeru'' ("to be audible") retain a
mediopassive
The mediopassive voice is a grammatical voice that subsumes the meanings of both the middle voice and the passive voice.
Description
Languages of the Indo-European family (and many others) typically have two or three of the following voices: act ...
suffix -''yu(ru)'' (''kikoyu'' → ''kikoyuru'' (the attributive form, which slowly replaced the plain form starting in the late Heian period) → ''kikoeru'' (all verbs with the ''shimo-nidan'' conjugation pattern underwent this same shift in
Early Modern Japanese)); and the genitive particle ''ga'' remains in intentionally archaic speech.
Early Middle Japanese

Early Middle Japanese is the Japanese of the
Heian period, from 794 to 1185. It formed the basis for the
literary standard of
Classical Japanese
The classical Japanese language ( ''bungo'', "literary language"), also called "old writing" ( ''kobun''), sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese" is the literary form
A literary genre is a category of literature. Genres may be determi ...
, which remained in common use until the early 20th century.
During this time, Japanese underwent numerous
phonological
Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
developments, in many cases instigated by an influx of
Chinese loanwords. These included phonemic length distinction for both
consonants
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
and
vowels
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
, palatal consonants (e.g. ''kya'') and labial consonant clusters (e.g. ''kwa''), and
closed syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological " ...
s.
This had the effect of changing Japanese into a
mora-timed language.
[
]
Late Middle Japanese
Late Middle Japanese covers the years from 1185 to 1600, and is normally divided into two sections, roughly equivalent to the Kamakura period
The is a period of Japanese history that marks the governance by the Kamakura shogunate, officially established in 1192 in Kamakura by the first '' shōgun'' Minamoto no Yoritomo after the conclusion of the Genpei War, which saw the struggle bet ...
and the Muromachi period
The is a division of Japanese history running from approximately 1336 to 1573. The period marks the governance of the Muromachi or Ashikaga shogunate (''Muromachi bakufu'' or ''Ashikaga bakufu''), which was officially established in 1338 by ...
, respectively. The later forms of Late Middle Japanese are the first to be described by non-native sources, in this case the Jesuit and Franciscan
, image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg
, image_size = 200px
, caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans
, abbreviation = OFM
, predecessor =
, ...
missionaries; and thus there is better documentation of Late Middle Japanese phonology than for previous forms (for instance, the '' Arte da Lingoa de Iapam''). Among other sound changes, the sequence merges to , in contrast with ; is reintroduced from Chinese; and merges with . Some forms rather more familiar to Modern Japanese speakers begin to appear – the continuative ending -''te'' begins to reduce onto the verb (e.g. ''yonde'' for earlier ''yomite''), the -k- in the final syllable of adjectives drops out (''shiroi'' for earlier ''shiroki''); and some forms exist where modern standard Japanese has retained the earlier form (e.g. ''hayaku'' > ''hayau'' > ''hayɔɔ'', where modern Japanese just has ''hayaku'', though the alternative form is preserved in the standard greeting ''o-hayō gozaimasu'' "good morning"; this ending is also seen in ''o-medetō'' "congratulations", from ''medetaku'').
Late Middle Japanese has the first loanwords from European languages – now-common words borrowed into Japanese in this period include ''pan'' ("bread") and ''tabako'' ("tobacco", now "cigarette"), both from Portuguese.
Modern Japanese
Modern Japanese is considered to begin with the Edo period
The or is the period between 1603 and 1867 in the history of Japan, when Japan was under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate and the country's 300 regional ''daimyo''. Emerging from the chaos of the Sengoku period, the Edo period was character ...
(which spanned from 1603 to 1867). Since Old Japanese, the ''de facto'' standard Japanese had been the Kansai dialect
The is a group of Japanese dialects in the Kansai region (Kinki region) of Japan. In Japanese, is the common name and it is called in technical terms. The dialects of Kyoto and Osaka are known as , and were particularly referred to as su ...
, especially that of Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese: , ''Kyōto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin metropolitan area along with Osaka and Kobe. , the ...
. However, during the Edo period, Edo (now Tokyo) developed into the largest city in Japan, and the Edo-area dialect became standard Japanese. Since the end of Japan's self-imposed isolation in 1853, the flow of loanwords from European languages has increased significantly. The period since 1945 has seen many words borrowed from other languagessuch as German, Portuguese and English. Many English loan words especially relate to technologyfor example, ''pasokon'' (short for "personal computer"), ''intānetto'' ("internet"), and ''kamera'' ("camera"). Due to the large quantity of English loanwords, modern Japanese has developed a distinction between and , and and , with the latter in each pair only found in loanwords.
Geographic distribution
Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has been spoken outside. Before and during World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
, through Japanese annexation of Taiwan
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the northe ...
and Korea
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republi ...
, as well as partial occupation of China, the Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
, and various Pacific islands, locals in those countries learned Japanese as the language of the empire. As a result, many elderly people in these countries can still speak Japanese.
Japanese emigrant communities (the largest of which are to be found in Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, with 1.4 million to 1.5 million Japanese immigrants and descendants, according to Brazilian IBGE data, more than the 1.2 million of the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
) sometimes employ Japanese as their primary language. Approximately 12% of Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...
residents speak Japanese, with an estimated 12.6% of the population of Japanese ancestry in 2008. Japanese emigrants can also be found in Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = Seal (emblem), National seal
, national_motto = "Fi ...
, Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, t ...
, Australia (especially in the eastern states), Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tota ...
(especially in Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...
where 1.4% of the population has Japanese ancestry), the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
(notably Hawaii
Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only ...
, where 16.7% of the population has Japanese ancestry, and California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the ...
), and the Philippines
The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no),
* bik, Republika kan Filipinas
* ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas
* cbk, República de Filipinas
* hil, Republ ...
(particularly in Davao region
Davao Region, formerly called Southern Mindanao ( ceb, Rehiyon sa Davao; fil, Rehiyon ng Davao), is an administrative region in the Philippines, designated as Region XI. It is situated at the southeastern portion of Mindanao and comprises f ...
and Laguna province).
Official status
Japanese has no official status in Japan, but is the ''de facto'' national language of the country. There is a form of the language considered standard: , meaning "standard Japanese", or , "common language". The meanings of the two terms are almost the same. ''Hyōjungo'' or ''kyōtsūgo'' is a conception that forms the counterpart of dialect. This normative language was born after the from the language spoken in the higher-class areas of Tokyo (see Yamanote). ''Hyōjungo'' is taught in schools and used on television and in official communications. It is the version of Japanese discussed in this article.
Formerly, standard was different from . The two systems have different rules of grammar and some variance in vocabulary. ''Bungo'' was the main method of writing Japanese until about 1900; since then ''kōgo'' gradually extended its influence and the two methods were both used in writing until the 1940s. ''Bungo'' still has some relevance for historians, literary scholars, and lawyers (many Japanese laws that survived World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
are still written in ''bungo'', although there are ongoing efforts to modernize their language). ''Kōgo'' is the dominant method of both speaking and writing Japanese today, although ''bungo'' grammar and vocabulary are occasionally used in modern Japanese for effect.
The 1982 state constitution of Angaur, Palau
Palau,, officially the Republic of Palau and historically ''Belau'', ''Palaos'' or ''Pelew'', is an island country and microstate in the western Pacific. The nation has approximately 340 islands and connects the western chain of the Ca ...
, names Japanese along with Palauan and English as an official language of the state. However, the results of the 2005 census show that in April 2005 there were no usual or legal residents of Angaur aged 5 or older who spoke Japanese at home at all.
Dialects and mutual intelligibility
Japanese dialects typically differ in terms of pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...
, inflectional morphology, vocabulary
A vocabulary is a set of familiar words within a person's language. A vocabulary, usually developed with age, serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge. Acquiring an extensive vocabulary is one of the la ...
, and particle usage. Some even differ in vowel
A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (l ...
and consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...
inventories, although this is uncommon.
In terms of mutual intelligibility
In linguistics, mutual intelligibility is a relationship between languages or dialects in which speakers of different but related varieties can readily understand each other without prior familiarity or special effort. It is sometimes used as a ...
, a survey in 1967 found the four most unintelligible dialects (excluding Ryūkyūan 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 ...
and Tohoku dialects) to students from Greater Tokyo are the Kiso dialect (in the deep mountains of Nagano Prefecture
is a landlocked prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Nagano Prefecture has a population of 2,052,493 () and has a geographic area of . Nagano Prefecture borders Niigata Prefecture to the north, Gunma Prefecture to the n ...
), the Himi dialect (in Toyama Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshu. Toyama Prefecture has a population of 1,044,588 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of 4,247.61 km2 (1,640.01 sq mi). Toyama Prefecture borders Ishikawa Prefecture to th ...
), the Kagoshima dialect
The , often referred to as the , is a group of dialects or dialect continuum of the Japanese language spoken mainly within the area of the former Ōsumi and Satsuma provinces now incorporated into the southwestern prefecture of Kagoshima. ...
and the Maniwa
270px, Maniwa City Hall
270px, Aerial view of Kuse area of Maniwa
is a city located in Okayama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 42,477 in 17568 households and a population density of 51 persons per km². The total are ...
dialect (in Okayama Prefecture
is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūgoku region of Honshu. Okayama Prefecture has a population of 1,906,464 (1 February 2018) and has a geographic area of 7,114 km2 (2,746 sq mi). Okayama Prefecture borders Tottori Prefecture to the nor ...
). The survey is based on recordings of 12- to 20- second long, of 135 to 244 phoneme
In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language.
For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
s, which 42 students listened and translated word-by-word. The listeners are all Keio University
, mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword
, type = Private research coeducational higher education institution
, established = 1858
, founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa
, endow ...
students who grew up in the Kanto region
Kantō (Japanese)
Kanto is a simplified spelling of , a Japanese word, only omitting the diacritics.
In Japan
Kantō may refer to:
* Kantō Plain
* Kantō region
* Kantō-kai, organized crime group
* Kanto (Pokémon), a geographical region in t ...
.
There are some language island
A language island (a calque of German ''Sprachinsel''; also language enclave, language pocket) is an enclave of a language that is surrounded by one or more different languages. The term was introduced in 1847. Peter Auer, Frans Hinskens, Paul Ker ...
s in mountain villages or isolated islands such as Hachijō-jima island whose dialects are descended from the Eastern dialect of Old Japanese. Dialects of the Kansai region
The or the , lies in the southern-central region of Japan's main island Honshū. The region includes the prefectures of Nara, Wakayama, Kyoto, Osaka, Hyōgo and Shiga, often also Mie, sometimes Fukui, Tokushima and Tottori. The metr ...
are spoken or known by many Japanese, and Osaka
is a designated city in the Kansai region of Honshu in Japan. It is the capital of and most populous city in Osaka Prefecture, and the third most populous city in Japan, following Special wards of Tokyo and Yokohama. With a population of ...
dialect in particular is associated with comedy (see Kansai dialect
The is a group of Japanese dialects in the Kansai region (Kinki region) of Japan. In Japanese, is the common name and it is called in technical terms. The dialects of Kyoto and Osaka are known as , and were particularly referred to as su ...
). Dialects of Tōhoku and North Kantō are associated with typical farmers.
The Ryūkyūan 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 ...
, spoken in Okinawa
is a prefecture of Japan. Okinawa Prefecture is the southernmost and westernmost prefecture of Japan, has a population of 1,457,162 (as of 2 February 2020) and a geographic area of 2,281 km2 (880 sq mi).
Naha is the capital and largest city ...
and the Amami Islands
The The name ''Amami-guntō'' was standardized on February 15, 2010. Prior to that, another name, ''Amami shotō'' (奄美諸島), was also used. is an archipelago in the Satsunan Islands, which is part of the Ryukyu Islands, and is southwest o ...
(politically part of Kagoshima
, abbreviated to , is the capital city of Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan. Located at the southwestern tip of the island of Kyushu, Kagoshima is the largest city in the prefecture by some margin. It has been nicknamed the "Naples of the Eastern wor ...
), are distinct enough to be considered a separate branch of the Japonic family; not only is each language unintelligible to Japanese speakers, but most are unintelligible to those who speak other Ryūkyūan languages. However, in contrast to linguists, many ordinary Japanese people tend to consider the Ryūkyūan languages as dialects of Japanese. The imperial court also seems to have spoken an unusual variant of the Japanese of the time. Most likely being the spoken form of Classical Japanese language
The classical Japanese language ( ''bungo'', "literary language"), also called "old writing" ( ''kobun''), sometimes simply called "Medieval Japanese" is the literary form of the Japanese language that was the standard until the early Shōwa p ...
, a writing style that was prevalent during the Heian period, but began decline during the late Meiji period
The is an era of Japanese history that extended from October 23, 1868 to July 30, 1912.
The Meiji era was the first half of the Empire of Japan, when the Japanese people moved from being an isolated feudal society at risk of colonization ...
. The Ryūkyūan 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 ...
are spoken by a decreasing number of elderly people so UNESCO
The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. I ...
classified it as endangered, because they could become extinct by 2050. Young people mostly use Japanese and cannot understand the Ryukyuan languages. Okinawan Japanese is a variant of Standard Japanese influenced by the Ryukyuan languages. It is the primary dialect spoken among young people in the Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yona ...
.
Modern Japanese has become prevalent nationwide (including the Ryūkyū islands) due to education
Education is a purposeful activity directed at achieving certain aims, such as transmitting knowledge or fostering skills and character traits. These aims may include the development of understanding, rationality, kindness, and honesty. ...
, mass media
Mass media refers to a diverse array of media technologies that reach a large audience via mass communication. The technologies through which this communication takes place include a variety of outlets.
Broadcast media transmit informatio ...
, and an increase of mobility within Japan, as well as economic integration.
Classification
Japanese is a member of the Japonic language family, which also includes the 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.
...
spoken in the Ryukyu Islands
The , also known as the or the , are a chain of Japanese islands that stretch southwest from Kyushu to Taiwan: the Ōsumi, Tokara, Amami, Okinawa, and Sakishima Islands (further divided into the Miyako and Yaeyama Islands), with Yona ...
. As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is often called a language isolate
Language isolates are languages that cannot be classified into larger language families. Korean and Basque are two of the most common examples. Other language isolates include Ainu in Asia, Sandawe in Africa, and Haida in North America. The nu ...
.
According to Martine Irma Robbeets, Japanese has been subject to more attempts to show its relation to other languages than any other language in the world. Since Japanese first gained the consideration of linguists in the late 19th century, attempts have been made to show its genealogical relation to languages or language families such as Ainu
Ainu or Aynu may refer to:
*Ainu people, an East Asian ethnic group of Japan and the Russian Far East
*Ainu languages, a family of languages
**Ainu language of Hokkaido
**Kuril Ainu language, extinct language of the Kuril Islands
**Sakhalin Ainu la ...
, Korean
Korean may refer to:
People and culture
* Koreans, ethnic group originating in the Korean Peninsula
* Korean cuisine
* Korean culture
* Korean language
**Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Chosŏn'gŭl
**Korean dialects and the Jeju language
** ...
, Chinese, Tibeto-Burman
The Tibeto-Burman languages are the non- Sinitic members of the Sino-Tibetan language family, over 400 of which are spoken throughout the Southeast Asian Massif ("Zomia") as well as parts of East Asia and South Asia. Around 60 million people spe ...
, Uralic
The Uralic languages (; sometimes called Uralian languages ) form a language family of 38 languages spoken by approximately 25million people, predominantly in Northern Eurasia. The Uralic languages with the most native speakers are Hungarian ...
, Altaic (or Ural-Altaic
Ural-Altaic, Uralo-Altaic or Uraltaic is a linguistic convergence zone and former language-family proposal uniting the Uralic and the Altaic (in the narrow sense) languages. It is generally now agreed that even the Altaic languages do not shar ...
), Mon–Khmer
The Austroasiatic languages , , are a large language family in Mainland Southeast Asia and South Asia. These languages are scattered throughout parts of Thailand, Laos, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nepal, and southern China and are th ...
and Malayo-Polynesian
The Malayo-Polynesian languages are a subgroup of the Austronesian languages, with approximately 385.5 million speakers. The Malayo-Polynesian languages are spoken by the Austronesian peoples outside of Taiwan, in the island nations of Southeast ...
. At the fringe, some linguists have suggested a link to Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...
, including Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
, and to Lepcha. Main modern theories try to link Japanese either to northern Asian languages, like Korean or the proposed larger Altaic family, or to various Southeast Asian language There have been various classification schemes for Southeast Asian languages (see the articles for the respective language families).
Language families
The five established major language families are:
* Kra–Dai
*Austronesian
* Austroasiatic
* H ...
s, especially Austronesian
Austronesian may refer to:
*The Austronesian languages
*The historical Austronesian peoples
The Austronesian peoples, sometimes referred to as Austronesian-speaking peoples, are a large group of peoples in Taiwan, Maritime Southeast Asia, M ...
. None of these proposals have gained wide acceptance (and the Altaic family itself is now considered controversial). As it stands, only the link to Ryukyuan has wide support.
Other theories view the Japanese language as an early creole language
A creole language, or simply creole, is a stable natural language that develops from the simplifying and mixing of different languages into a new one within a fairly brief period of time: often, a pidgin evolved into a full-fledged language. Wh ...
formed through inputs from at least two distinct language groups, or as a distinct language of its own that has absorbed various aspects from neighbouring languages.
Phonology
Vowels
Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word ...
is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long version. Elongated vowels are usually denoted with a line over the vowel (a macron
Macron may refer to:
People
* Emmanuel Macron (born 1977), president of France since 2017
** Brigitte Macron (born 1953), French teacher, wife of Emmanuel Macron
* Jean-Michel Macron (born 1950), French professor of neurology, father of Emmanu ...
) in rōmaji
The romanization of Japanese is the use of Latin script to write the Japanese language. This method of writing is sometimes referred to in Japanese as .
Japanese is normally written in a combination of logographic characters borrowed from Ch ...
, a repeated vowel character in hiragana
is a Japanese language, Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''.
It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" ori ...
, or a chōonpu
The , also known as , , , or Katakana-Hiragana Prolonged Sound Mark by the Unicode Consortium, is a Japanese symbol that indicates a ''chōon'', or a long vowel of two morae in length. Its form is a horizontal or vertical line in the center o ...
succeeding the vowel in 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 f ...
. is compressed rather than protruded, or simply unrounded.
Consonants
Some Japanese consonants have several allophone
In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s, which may give the impression of a larger inventory of sounds. However, some of these allophones have since become phonemic. For example, in the Japanese language up to and including the first half of the 20th century, the phonemic sequence was palatalized and realized phonetically as , approximately ''chi'' ; however, now and are distinct, as evidenced by words like ''tī'' "Western-style tea" and ''chii'' "social status".
The "r" of the Japanese language is of particular interest, ranging between an apical central tap and a lateral approximant
A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English ''L'', as in ''La ...
. The "g" is also notable; unless it starts a sentence, it may be pronounced , in the Kanto prestige dialect and in other eastern dialects.
The phonotactics of Japanese are relatively simple. The syllable structure is (C)(G)V(C), that is, a core vowel surrounded by an optional onset consonant, a glide and either the first part of a geminate consonant (/, represented as Q) or a moraic nasal
A mora (plural ''morae'' or ''moras''; often symbolized μ) is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable. For example, a short syllable such as ''ba'' consists of one mora (''monomoraic''), ...
in the coda (/, represented as N).
The nasal is sensitive to its phonetic environment and assimilates to the following phoneme, with pronunciations including . Onset-glide clusters only occur at the start of syllables but clusters across syllables are allowed as long as the two consonants are the moraic nasal followed by a homorganic
In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from ''homo-'' "same" and ''organ'' "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another since ...
consonant.
Japanese also includes a pitch accent
A pitch-accent language, when spoken, has word accents in which one syllable in a word or morpheme is more prominent than the others, but the accentuated syllable is indicated by a contrasting pitch ( linguistic tone) rather than by loudness ...
, which is not represented in syllabic writing; for example ("chopsticks") and ("bridge") are both spelled (''hashi''), and are only differentiated by the tone contour.
Grammar
Sentence structure
Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb. Unlike many Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, ...
, the only strict rule of word order is that the verb must be placed at the end of a sentence (possibly followed by sentence-end particles). This is because Japanese sentence elements are marked with particles that identify their grammatical functions.
The basic sentence structure is topic–comment. For example, ''Kochira wa Tanaka-san desu'' (). ''kochira'' ("this") is the topic of the sentence, indicated by the particle ''wa''. The verb ''de aru'' (''desu'' is a contraction of its polite form ''de arimasu'') is a copula, commonly translated as "to be" or "it is" (though there are other verbs that can be translated as "to be"), though technically it holds no meaning and is used to give a sentence 'politeness'. As a phrase, ''Tanaka-san desu'' is the comment. This sentence literally translates to "As for this person, (it) is Mx Tanaka." Thus Japanese, like many other Asian languages, is often called a topic-prominent language
A topic-prominent language is a language that organizes its syntax to emphasize the topic–comment structure of the sentence. The term is best known in American linguistics from Charles N. Li and Sandra Thompson, who distinguished topic-promine ...
, which means it has a strong tendency to indicate the topic separately from the subject, and that the two do not always coincide. The sentence ''Zō wa hana ga nagai'' () literally means, "As for elephant(s), (the) nose(s) (is/are) long". The topic is ''zō'' "elephant", and the subject is ''hana'' "nose".
In Japanese, the subject or object of a sentence need not be stated if it is obvious from context. As a result of this grammatical permissiveness, there is a tendency to gravitate towards brevity; Japanese speakers tend to omit pronoun
In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun ( abbreviated ) is a word or a group of words that one may substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
Pronouns have traditionally been regarded as one of the parts of speech, but some modern theorists would n ...
s on the theory they are inferred from the previous sentence, and are therefore understood. In the context of the above example, ''hana-ga nagai'' would mean " heirnoses are long," while ''nagai'' by itself would mean " heyare long." A single verb can be a complete sentence: ''Yatta!'' () " / we / they / etcdid t". In addition, since adjectives can form the predicate in a Japanese sentence (below), a single adjective can be a complete sentence: ''Urayamashii!'' () " 'mjealous f it".
While the language has some words that are typically translated as pronouns, these are not used as frequently as pronouns in some Indo-European languages, and function differently. In some cases Japanese relies on special verb forms and auxiliary verbs to indicate the direction of benefit of an action: "down" to indicate the out-group gives a benefit to the in-group; and "up" to indicate the in-group gives a benefit to the out-group. Here, the in-group includes the speaker and the out-group does not, and their boundary depends on context. For example, ''oshiete moratta'' () (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the out-group to the in-group) means " e/she/theyexplained tto e/us. Similarly, ''oshiete ageta'' () (literally, "explained" with a benefit from the in-group to the out-group) means " /weexplained tto im/her/them. Such beneficiary auxiliary verbs thus serve a function comparable to that of pronouns and prepositions in Indo-European languages to indicate the actor and the recipient of an action.
Japanese "pronouns" also function differently from most modern Indo-European pronouns (and more like nouns) in that they can take modifiers as any other noun may. For instance, one does not say in English:
The amazed he ran down the street. (grammatically incorrect insertion of a pronoun)
But one ''can'' grammatically say essentially the same thing in Japanese:
Transliteration: ''Odoroita kare wa michi o hashitte itta.'' (grammatically correct)
This is partly because these words evolved from regular nouns, such as ''kimi'' "you" ( "lord"), ''anata'' "you" ( "that side, yonder"), and ''boku'' "I" ( "servant"). This is why some linguists do not classify Japanese "pronouns" as pronouns, but rather as referential nouns, much like Spanish ''usted'' (contracted from ''vuestra merced'', "your majestic) Majestic plural">plural
The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...
] grace") or Portuguese ''o senhor''. Japanese personal pronouns are generally used only in situations requiring special emphasis as to who is doing what to whom.
The choice of words used as pronouns is correlated with the sex of the speaker and the social situation in which they are spoken: men and women alike in a formal situation generally refer to themselves as ''watashi'' ( "private") or ''watakushi'' (also ), while men in rougher or intimate conversation are much more likely to use the word ''ore'' ( "oneself", "myself") or ''boku''. Similarly, different words such as ''anata'', ''kimi'', and ''omae'' (, more formally "the one before me") may refer to a listener depending on the listener's relative social position and the degree of familiarity between the speaker and the listener. When used in different social relationships, the same word may have positive (intimate or respectful) or negative (distant or disrespectful) connotations.
Japanese often use titles of the person referred to where pronouns would be used in English. For example, when speaking to one's teacher, it is appropriate to use ''sensei'' (, teacher), but inappropriate to use ''anata''. This is because ''anata'' is used to refer to people of equal or lower status, and one's teacher has higher status.
Inflection and conjugation
Japanese nouns have no grammatical number, gender or article aspect. The noun ''hon'' () may refer to a single book or several books; ''hito'' () can mean "person" or "people", and ''ki'' () can be "tree" or "trees". Where number is important, it can be indicated by providing a quantity (often with a
counter word) or (rarely) by adding a suffix, or sometimes by duplication (e.g. , ''hitobito'', usually written with an iteration mark as ). Words for people are usually understood as singular. Thus ''Tanaka-san'' usually means ''Mx Tanaka''. Words that refer to people and animals can be made to indicate a group of individuals through the addition of a collective suffix (a noun suffix that indicates a group), such as ''-tachi'', but this is not a true plural: the meaning is closer to the English phrase "and company". A group described as ''Tanaka-san-tachi'' may include people not named Tanaka. Some Japanese nouns are effectively plural, such as ''hitobito'' "people" and ''wareware'' "we/us", while the word ''tomodachi'' "friend" is considered singular, although plural in form.
Verbs are
conjugated to show tenses, of which there are two: past and present (or non-past) which is used for the present and the future. For verbs that represent an ongoing process, the ''-te iru'' form indicates a continuous (or progressive)
aspect, similar to the suffix ''ing'' in English. For others that represent a change of state, the ''-te iru'' form indicates a perfect aspect. For example, ''kite iru'' means "They have come (and are still here)", but ''tabete iru'' means "They are eating".
Questions (both with an interrogative pronoun and yes/no questions) have the same structure as affirmative sentences, but with intonation rising at the end. In the formal register, the question particle ''-ka'' is added. For example, ''ii desu'' () "It is OK" becomes ''ii desu-ka'' () "Is it OK?". In a more informal tone sometimes the particle ''-no'' () is added instead to show a personal interest of the speaker: ''Dōshite konai-no?'' "Why aren't (you) coming?". Some simple queries are formed simply by mentioning the topic with an interrogative intonation to call for the hearer's attention: ''Kore wa?'' "(What about) this?"; ''O-namae wa?'' () "(What's your) name?".
Negatives are formed by inflecting the verb. For example, ''Pan o taberu'' () "I will eat bread" or "I eat bread" becomes ''Pan o tabenai'' () "I will not eat bread" or "I do not eat bread". Plain negative forms are ''i''-adjectives (see below) and inflect as such, e.g. ''Pan o tabenakatta'' () "I did not eat bread".
The so-called ''-te'' verb form is used for a variety of purposes: either progressive or perfect aspect (see above); combining verbs in a temporal sequence (''Asagohan o tabete sugu dekakeru'' "I'll eat breakfast and leave at once"), simple commands, conditional statements and permissions (''Dekakete-mo ii?'' "May I go out?"), etc.
The word ''da'' (plain), ''desu'' (polite) is the
copula verb. It corresponds approximately to the English ''be'', but often takes on other roles, including a marker for tense, when the verb is conjugated into its past form ''datta'' (plain), ''deshita'' (polite). This comes into use because only ''i''-adjectives and verbs can carry tense in Japanese. Two additional common verbs are used to indicate existence ("there is") or, in some contexts, property: ''aru'' (negative ''nai'') and ''iru'' (negative ''inai''), for inanimate and animate things, respectively. For example, ''Neko ga iru'' "There's a cat", ''Ii kangae-ga nai'' "
haven't got a good idea".
The verb "to do" (''suru'', polite form ''shimasu'') is often used to make verbs from nouns (''ryōri suru'' "to cook", ''benkyō suru'' "to study", etc.) and has been productive in creating modern slang words. Japanese also has a huge number of compound verbs to express concepts that are described in English using a verb and an adverbial particle (e.g. ''tobidasu'' "to fly out, to flee," from ''tobu'' "to fly, to jump" + ''dasu'' "to put out, to emit").
There are three types of adjectives (see
Japanese adjectives):
# ''keiyōshi'', or ''i'' adjectives, which have a
conjugating ending ''i'' () (such as ''atsui'' "to be hot") which can become past ( ''atsukatta'' "it was hot"), or negative ( ''atsuku nai'' "it is not hot"). Note that ''nai'' is also an ''i'' adjective, which can become past ( ''atsuku nakatta'' "it was not hot").
#: ''atsui hi'' "a hot day".
# ''keiyōdōshi'', or ''na'' adjectives, which are followed by a form of the
copula, usually ''na''. For example, ''hen'' (strange)
#: ''hen na hito'' "a strange person".
# ''rentaishi'', also called true adjectives, such as ''ano'' "that"
#: ''ano yama'' "that mountain".
Both ''keiyōshi'' and ''keiyōdōshi'' may
predicate sentences. For example,
''Gohan ga atsui.'' "The rice is hot."
''Kare wa hen da.'' "He's strange."
Both inflect, though they do not show the full range of conjugation found in true verbs.
The ''rentaishi'' in Modern Japanese are few in number, and unlike the other words, are limited to directly modifying nouns. They never predicate sentences. Examples include ''ookina'' "big", ''kono'' "this", ''iwayuru'' "so-called" and ''taishita'' "amazing".
Both ''keiyōdōshi'' and ''keiyōshi'' form
adverb An adverb is a word or an expression that generally modifies a verb, adjective, another adverb, determiner, clause, preposition, or sentence. Adverbs typically express manner, place, time, frequency, degree, level of certainty, etc., answering q ...
s, by following with ''ni'' in the case of ''keiyōdōshi'':
''hen ni naru'' "become strange",
and by changing ''i'' to ''ku'' in the case of ''keiyōshi'':
''atsuku naru'' "become hot".
The grammatical function of nouns is indicated by
postposition
Prepositions and postpositions, together called adpositions (or broadly, in traditional grammar, simply prepositions), are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in'', ''under'', ''towards'', ''before'') or mark various ...
s, also called
particles. These include for example:
* ''ga'' for the
nominative case
In grammar, the nominative case ( abbreviated ), subjective case, straight case or upright case is one of the grammatical cases of a noun or other part of speech, which generally marks the subject of a verb or (in Latin and formal variants of Engl ...
.
: ''Kare ga yatta.'' "He did it."
* ''ni'' for the
dative case
In grammar, the dative case ( abbreviated , or sometimes when it is a core argument) is a grammatical case used in some languages to indicate the recipient or beneficiary of an action, as in "Maria Jacobo potum dedit", Latin for "Maria gave Jacob ...
.
: ''Tanaka-san ni agete kudasai'' "Please give it to Mx Tanaka."
It is also used for the
lative case, indicating a motion to a location.
: ''Nihon ni ikitai'' "I want to go to Japan."
*However, へ ''e'' is more commonly used for the lative case.
: ''pātī e ikanai ka?'' "Won't you go to the party?"
* ''no'' for the
genitive case
In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can ...
, or nominalizing phrases.
: watashi no kamera'' "my camera"
: ''Sukī-ni iku no ga suki desu'' "(I) like going skiing."
* ''o'' for the
accusative case
The accusative case (abbreviated ) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb.
In the English language, the only words that occur in the accusative case are pronouns: 'me,' 'him,' 'her,' 'us,' and ‘the ...
.
: ''Nani o tabemasu ka?'' "What will (you) eat?"
* ''wa'' for the topic. It can co-exist with the case markers listed above, and it overrides ''ga'' and (in most cases) ''o''.
: ''Watashi wa sushi ga ii desu.'' (literally) "As for me, sushi is good." The nominative marker ''ga'' after ''watashi'' is hidden under ''wa''.
Note: The subtle difference between ''wa'' and ''ga'' in Japanese cannot be derived from the English language as such, because the distinction between sentence topic and subject is not made there. While ''wa'' indicates the topic, which the rest of the sentence describes or acts upon, it carries the implication that the subject indicated by ''wa'' is not unique, or may be part of a larger group.
''Ikeda-san wa