Brief History of Japanese Language
The Japanese language is believed to be connect to the Ural-Altaic family and related to the Ryukyuan languages and was first attested in written records in the 8th century. It is the national language of Japan and is spoken by around 125 million people.
The earliest attestation of Japanese is in a Chinese document from 722 AD. Old Japanese was heavily influenced by Chinese, but later developments saw it become more divergent. By the 10th century, Japanese had developed into a distinct language with its own writing system.
During the medieval period, the Japanese court used a wide variety of honorifics and dialects. The most famous of these is probably The Tale of Genji, written in an aristocratic dialect known as kana hōgen. In the early modern period, the Edo period, standardization efforts led to the development of standard spoken and written Japanese based on the Tokyo dialect. This standardization process continued into the Meiji period with further reforms aimed at making Japan’s national language more uniform.
In contemporary times, there are two main standards of written Japanese: hiragana-based and kanji-based. Hiragana is used for native words not covered by kanji, while kanji are used for foreign loanwords and for certain grammatical functions such as inflectional endings. There are also a number of regional dialects spoken throughout Japan, though most people can communicate relatively easily using standard Tokyo dialect.
The modern Japanese writing system consists of two main components: a syllabary of 47 phonetic characters, called hiragana, used for native Japanese words and grammatical elements; and a set of some 1,945 Chinese characters, called kanji, used for words of Chinese derivation, for certain grammatical functions, and for names. In addition, the Latin alphabet, called romaji, is often used in transliterating Japanese words, particularly for names and company names.
The hiragana syllabary consists of 47 basic characters, each of which represents one mora (or sound, symbolized μ). There are also a number of modifier characters, which can be added to hiragana to change the sound of a character or to represent a vowel length distinction. Together, these characters can be used to represent all of the sounds of the Japanese language.
The kanji represent a much larger set of words, and are generally used for words of Chinese derivation, for certain grammatical functions, and for names. In addition, each kanji has one or more readings, which can be either a Chinese-derived reading or a native Japanese reading. Chinese-derived readings are typically used for words of Chinese derivation, while native Japanese readings are typically used for grammatical functions and for names.