Prehistory
Proto-Japonic, the common ancestor of the Japanese and Ryukyuan languages, is thought to have been brought to Japan by settlers coming from … See more

Although Japanese is spoken almost exclusively in Japan, it has also been spoken outside of the country. Before and during World War II, through Japanese annexation of Taiwan and Korea, as well as partial occupation of China, the Philippines, … See more

Vowels
Japanese has five vowels, and vowel length is phonemic, with each having both a short and a long … See more

There are three main sources of words in the Japanese language: the yamato kotoba (大和言葉) or wago (和語); kango (漢語); and gairaigo (外来語).
The original … See more

Japanese is a member of the Japonic language family, which also includes the Ryukyuan languages spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. As these closely related languages are commonly treated as dialects of the same language, Japanese is sometimes called a See more

Sentence structure
Japanese word order is classified as subject–object–verb. Unlike many Indo-European languages, the only strict rule of word order is that the … See more

History
Literacy was introduced to Japan in the form of the Chinese writing system, by way of Baekje before the 5th century AD. Using this script, the Japanese king Bu presented a petition to Emperor Shun of Liu Song in … See more