Japanese

Also known as: Japanese, Nihongo

Japanese (日本語, Nihongo) is the principal language of Japan and the largest member of the Japonic family, whose other branches comprise the Ryukyuan languages; it is spoken by more than 120 million people, including communities abroad. Modern writing normally combines kanji with hiragana and katakana: the government’s Jōyō Kanji list contains 2,136 characters, and each modern kana inventory has 46 basic signs. Japanese is predominantly head-final and agglutinative, with a usual subject–object–verb order, postpositions, extensive argument omission when context permits, and topic marking with wa. Standard Tokyo Japanese has lexical pitch accent rather than stress accent, although accent systems vary considerably among regional varieties. Speech levels and honorific expressions distinguish respectful, humble, and polite forms according to social relationships and discourse context, while the vocabulary draws on native Japanese, Sino-Japanese, and more recent loanword strata.