日本語。 Japanese Language. Matthew Ortiz マシュー・オルティス

-The origin of Japanese is in considerable dispute amongst linguists -The origin of Japanese is in considerable dispute amongst linguists. Evidence has been offered for a number of sources: Ural-Altaic, Polynesian, and Chinese among others. Of these, Japanese is most widely believed to be connected to the Ural-Altaic family, which includes Turkish, Mongolian, Manchu, and Korean within its domain. -The adaptation of Chinese characters during the sixth to ninth centuries A.D. was the most important event in the development of the language. -Since the mid 18th century the Japanese have adopted a huge amount of 外来語(がいらいご)“gairaigo”: foreign words mainly from English. These include “biru” (beer), “gurasu” (glass), “aisu” (ice). The beginning 初め(はじめ)

Japanese Language 日本語(にほんご) -Japanese has an extremely complicated writing system, consisting of two sets of phonetic syllabaries (平仮名(ひらがな)Hiragana and 片仮名(カタカナ)Katakana with approximately 50 syllables in each) and thousands of Chinese characters called 漢字 (かんじ)Kanji, approximately 2,000 of which the Ministry of Education has designated as required learning before high school graduation for japanese students. -By the 12th century the other writing systems came into play. - 平仮名(ひらがな)Hiragana = cursive Japanese syllabary used primarily for native Japanese words. -片仮名(カタカナ)Katakana = angular Japanese syllabary used primarily for loanwords​. -漢字 (かんじ)Kanji = Chinese Characters -Out of the approximately 128 million people who speak Japanese, 124 million live in Japan and the island group of Okinawa. This makes it unusual among the most common languages due to its geographic concentration.

Japanese Dialects 日本語方言(にほんごほうげん) -According to a Japanese linguist, Misao Tojo (東条操) divided into 16 dialects in 1953. However, each prefecture(district under the government) has its own dialect. -sweet bun, for example is called 今川焼き(いまがわやき)Imagawayaki in Hokkaido Okinawa : Anko-manu Yamanashi : Jiman-yaki Hiroshima : Bikkuri-manju -How about the beloved word “ありがとう?”, ありがとう (Arigatou/ standard), おおきに(Ookini/Osaka, Kyoto) おしょうしな(Oshoushina/Yamagata), あんがとさん(Angatosan/Osaka), すまんのう(Sumannou/?), たいがたい(iTaigatai/Hiroshima), ありがとがんすた(iArigatogannsuta/Iwate), あんとう(iAntou/Nagano).

Japanese Calligraphy 書道(しょどう) -Japanese calligraphy developed out of Chinese writing and symbols around 2000 years ago. At that time, Japan did not yet have a written form of language, so people began adapting characters from Chinese writing into Japanese forms and symbols. -True Japanese calligraphy is done with a bamboo brush and sumi ink. Sumi ink is made from the soot of pine trees or other vegetable sources. Materials are mixed together to produce a substance with a velvet texture and deep color. Traditionally, the substance is then dried and made into thin sticks. When an artist wants to use the ink, they rub it against a stone that has a smooth, flat surface. The process creates a fine powder to which they add water and mix well. The resulting ink is a deep jet black. This image shows how crazy ^ japanese calligraphy can get

Ex. たと 例え ← This one was made by a 12th century poet Fujiwara-no-Teika, who is considered one of the greatest poets in Japan's history.

書道 しょどう

Interesting facts 興味深い事実(きょうみぶかいじじつ) ワウ! -Korean is most frequently compared to Japanese, as both languages share significant key features such as general structure, vowel harmony, lack of conjunctions, and the extensive use of honorific speech, in which the social rank of the listener heavily affects the dialogue. However, pronunciation of Japanese is significantly different from Korean, and the languages are mutually unintelligible. -A group of French linguists conducted a recent study and tackled the task of measuring average language speed the best they could. Interestingly enough, Japan has a spoken syllable rate of nearly eight syllables per second. That beats out Spanish, French and Italian. However, there are some more interesting takeaways from the study. While Japanese has the fastest spoken rate, it also has the lowest amount of information density per second. -Japanese is considered one of the most unique languages in the world with no direct derivative language that birthed it. Other such languages include Sumerian, Ural-Altaic, Korean and many Native American languages. -Romaji was developed in the 1500s by a Japanese Catholic who wanted to help European missionaries evangelize and promote their Jesuit religion in Japan without having to learn the complex character systems of Japanese. The oldest form of Japanese romanization is based on Portuguese. 図書館(としょかん) = 도서관

My thoughts 私の考え(わたしのかんがえ) -I have a big interest in foreign languages and am currently self teaching myself Korean and Japanese. -It was very interesting to me to understands that the japanese language does not originate from the chinese language. I thought, because of its kanji origin, that it came from chinese. -After learning more about the language and its origin I now better understand how it came to be. -I hope one day to use my language skills to communicate with Japanese and Korean Natives without the hassle of them knowing my language.

Sources https://www.todaytranslations.com/language-history/japanese https://jisho.org https://www.fluentu.com/blog/japanese/interesting-facts-about-japanese-language/ http://www.iromegane.com/japan/culture/how-many-dialects-are-there-in-japan-imagawayaki/ https://study.com/academy/lesson/japanese-calligraphy-art-symbols-history.html