Japanese language

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The written form of the Japanese language is a mix of Chinese characters (kanji) and a modified syllabary, kana, which is also originally based on Chinese characters.

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Geographic distribution

Japanese is spoken mainly in Japan, where it is the official language. However, it is also spoken in other countries, especially in emigrant communities. The largest of these are in Brazil, Australia, and the United States. Japanese is still spoken in a number of countries that have been occupied by Japan over the centuries, including:

  • Korea
  • Taiwan
  • parts of China
  • numerous Pacific Islands

There are dozens of Japanese language dialects spoken in Japan. This large amount is due to the country’s mountainous island terrain and its history of isolation. The main differences between the dialects relate to pitch accent, inflectional morphology, vocabulary, particle usage, and pronunciation. The dialects of some regions of Japan can be unintelligible to other Japanese speakers. The most popularly spoken dialects of the Japanese language are Kansai-ben, from west-central Japan, and the Osaka dialect.

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Grammar

The basic sentence structure in Japanese is subject object verb. It is also topic-comment, but the subject or object of a sentence is not always stated if it is obvious from the context of the sentence. Pronouns are not used as often in Japanese as they are in many other languages. Japanese nouns do not have variations for singular and plural, or male and female.

The main difference between the Japanese language, and western languages, is the vast grammatical system that it has to articulate courtesy and formality. This can be broken down into three levels of politeness:

  1. the plain form (kudaketa or futsuu)
  2. the simple polite form (teineigo)
  3. the advanced polite form (keigo)

The basic premise to these three levels of politeness is that there is usually one person within any conversation who holds a higher social position. This hierarchy can be the result of many factors including:

  • job
  • age
  • experience

Whichever person is in the lower social position uses a more polite form of speech than the other.

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