# Japanese

By [tone01](https://paragraph.com/@tone01) · 2022-09-24

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Japanese, also known as Japanese, is the official language of Japan. The number of native speakers is 125 million, accounting for 1.6% of the world's population.

The origin of Japanese has always been debated. Japanese in the Meiji era classified Japanese as Altaic language family, which has been generally denied. Mo Herbert and Ono Jin believed that Japanese belongs to the Daropita language family, Nishida Longxiong believed that Japanese belongs to the Sino Tibetan language family, and Bai Guisi believed that Japanese belongs to the Japanese Koguryo language family (Fuyu language family), Leon Angelo Serafim believes that Japanese language and Ryukyu language can form the Japanese language family. There is a hypothesis that Nandao language family, Zhuang Dong language family and Japanese language family can form Nandao Taiwan language family, that is, they all have the same origin.

In ancient Japan, characters were not used, but were introduced from Baekje at the time of Emperor Yingshen. The Japanese Secretary, written entirely in Chinese characters, said, "In ancient times, there was no written word, and the old and young were both noble and humble." In the era of the Emperor Yingshen, Baekje sent Azizhi to Japan. In 285, Wang Ren, a doctor of Baekje in the recent Xiao Gu Wang period, brought the Chinese Analects of Confucius and the Book of Filial Piety to Japan, which was the beginning of Japan's contact with Chinese characters. After the Three Kingdoms Period, Chinese characters and Chinese culture were formally introduced into Japan in large quantities.

In the Tang Dynasty, Japanese invented a pseudonym commonly used among women. The official language was classical Chinese, so modern Japanese was greatly influenced by ancient Chinese. Taking the Exemplary Chinese Dictionary of Showa in 31 years as an example, in the Japanese vocabulary, Heyu accounts for 36.6% and Chinese 53.6%. In 39 years of Showa, the Japanese National Research Institute conducted a survey on 90 kinds of magazine terms and concluded that Heyu accounts for 36.7%, Chinese 47.5% and Western nearly 10%.

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*Originally published on [tone01](https://paragraph.com/@tone01/japanese)*